Students accuse Weinstein of hiding behind Jewishness
The letter blasts Weinstein, arguing that "he has held fast to his seemingly innocuous position of victimhood."
Some alleged students at Evergreen State College are accusing Bret Weinstein of using his Jewish background to “invalidate the claims of racism being raised against him.”
Several weeks ago, Weinstein emailed students and faculty at Evergreen State to object to white members of the school being asked to leave campus for a day. The email sparked outrage, protests, and property damage. The college even had to close over a threat of violence.
The letter, signed by “Some Jewish students at Evergreen bent on the destruction of white supremacy," accuses Weinstein of using his Jewishness as a base for his “anti-black language and behavior."
“Bret has attempted to position himself as the victim,” the letter claims, castigating him because “[i]t wouldn’t take much for [him] to apologize, but he has held fast to his seemingly innocuous position of victimhood, and in doing so has highlighted some of the ways that liberal racism functions.
“Here we can learn something about how not to react when claims of racist behavior are raised against us,” the letter continues.
After digressing into a discussion of whiteness and how “most” Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews came to be considered “white,” the letter takes aim at Weinstein’s statements “that he cannot possibly be racist because he knows what it is like for his people to be oppressed.”
This, according to the letter, shows that there is a “negation of responsibility and a gross misuse of the history and suffering of our ancestors,” charging that “[a]nti-blackness and racism in general are pervasive amongst white Jews.”
“Where anti-semitism is found, invariably we also find all sorts of racism like orientalism and anti-blackness. Anti-racism is a Jewish issue! Anti-blackness is a Jewish issue! We cannot ignore Jews of color, black Jews, or the fact that all Jews also have a stake in destroying white supremacy,” the authors write, blasting “Bret’s ignorance of this” as “not only embarrassing[,] but also dangerous.”
The letter further explains that “[t]he way to address racism is to be willing to engage in honest conversations about it, and be willing to admit to where it lives within us," adding that Bret’s apparent refusal to engage in conversations like the ones listed above puts “many Evergreen students in legitimate danger.”
“Bret Weinstein is wrong, he has put you in danger, and we will not allow him to hide behind our histories in order to dodge responsibility for his abhorrent and reprehensible words and actions,” the authors conclude.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @asabes10
