May 2, 2024 • 36 mins
Joe Biden is currently the "Sophie's Choice" candidate and Danielle is starting to waver in her public support for this administration. Dr. Jonathan Metzl joins to give his perspective as both a sociologist and a Jewish American, recorded BEFORE the violent police incursions on college campuses.
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Good morning, keeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with
Me your Girl, Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker, Folks,
Witnessing the real time militarized assault on students on Columbia
University and UCLA's campus has me absolutely filled with rage
(00:40):
to see militarized police thugs show more aggression and brutality
against peaceful anti war protesters as opposed to those that
(01:03):
stormed our capitol building that brought zip ties and smoke
bombs and bare spray and build a fucking guillotine. Those
motherfuckers were allowed to go home, go home and post
on social media talking about their victory of stalling our
(01:28):
electoral process. They're being hailed as heroes, as patriots. But
what we have seen not only in the last few weeks,
but also in the last several decades of this country
(01:50):
is that whenever black and brown people and young people
utilize their voice, exercise their right to assemble to protests,
to disrupt injustice, to disrupt genocide, police brutality, they're labeled
(02:13):
as monsters and they're beaten and they're brutalized, and they're jailed.
But white supremacist boy with tiki torches, yelling all kinds
of explicitives. Oh no, we don't want to escalate the problem,
so we just let them be. Tell me again about
(02:37):
how white supremacists and police are not one and the same.
Tell me again about the fact that we disperse in
this country, our excess militarized gear to the police to
brutalize citizens. You know what we could do with the
(03:00):
excess that the fucking military is given. Oh, I don't know,
maybe actually invested back into this country in terms of infrastructure, education, healthcare,
safe drinking water. But no, we don't do that. I'm
so fucking tired of America. I got to tell you that.
(03:24):
You know, I know that we're not even through this week,
but I am through with this current administration. I am
through with this fucking country and its hypocrisy and it's bullshit.
And look, folks, I know that I vascilate because I'm
a full and complete human being with a lot of complex,
layered emotions like all of us are. But this week,
(03:47):
Fuck Biden is how I feel. At the same time,
you know, a Time magazine article comes out where Donald
Trump lays out exactly what he plans to do with
this country in a second term, and how the people
that are around him. Oh, they're not like the fucking
(04:08):
dummies of the first administration. No, they're rocked and ready
to go, ready to monitor women's pregnancies and mental cycles,
ready to throw undocumented or anybody that has brown skin
or black skin, and detention centers, ready to depoort eleven
million people. You know, somebody said to me that where
(04:33):
we are right now is the Sophie's choice of fucking democracy,
which is, you know, what are we choosing here, Choosing
to continue to fund a fucking genocide with our tax dollars,
(04:55):
choosing to overlook the mountain of war crimes that are
being committed by Israel against the people of Gaza, looking
away at the way in which this current administration wants
to try and placate young people by also criminalizing them,
(05:18):
placate them with Oh, I'm going to change the identification
of marijuana. You know, I'm going to downgrade it so
that it can be used for research purposes. Oh, I'm
gonna relieve some student loan debt. But at the same time,
I don't want you to advocate for yourselves. I don't
want you to have the right to protest at the
(05:42):
same time, I'm going to completely ignore the mounting calls
for a ceasefire, for some conditions to be placed on
the fucking aid and bombs that you're sending over. You know,
I am out of place, folks, where I do believe
(06:03):
that Biden is going to lose this election. And it
isn't going to be because Donald Trump and the MAGA
folks have stolen the election. It's gonna be because every
single decision that this administration is making is throwing away
this fucking election. It isn't gonna be enough to just
(06:23):
point to Donald Trump and say like, oh, he's worse.
It isn't going to be enough to legalize marijuana when
you have tens of thousands of black and brown people
still serving out fucking jail time because of the maximum
minimum sentences while white people put up fucking you know,
(06:45):
weed stands on every other fucking street and it's turned
into a billion dollar industry while black and brown people
are still in jail. Miss me with it. I'm tired,
you know, And I've been talking to so many different
groups of people that I know that are trying to
(07:05):
figure out where they're going to go and what they
are going to do if Donald Trump wins, because this
country will not be safe. And the speed at which
everything will shift and go dark, folks, you can't even
fucking imagine, because they are ready to rock on day
(07:29):
one of a Trump administration. By the time that we
would make it to the first one hundred days, I
can't even explain to you what America would look like
because the sci fi fucking thrillers that are out there
will not do their dark vision of cruelty in America service.
(07:56):
But what do we do? Because in good consciousness, my
job is to wake people up? Right, So I am,
I am. I'm consistently on high alert and on an alarm,
and I cannot swallow the deaths of thirty seven thousand
(08:16):
plus people. I can't swallow the starvation. I can't swallow
the hypocrisy that is happening. When Putin does something, it's
a war crime because y'all don't like him. But when
Netanyahu does it, oh, it's necessary. What the fuck? Why
do we have rules of engagement to begin with? If
(08:37):
you allow Israel to do whatever the fuck it wants.
And I'm tired of being told that I'm not allowed
to critique this country that is off the fucking deep end.
These people are nuts, and several years from now, folks
who will be turning around being like, oh, well, we
(08:58):
didn't know. How the fuck could you say that you
didn't know? It's on every screen? Whose life matters? As
a black, queer woman in these United States? In this world,
I know all too well whose lives matter. It ain't mine.
(09:24):
It ain't the Palestinians, it ain't Muslims, it ain't women,
it ain't queer people. So, folks, we are living on
top of their tinderbox. And if the treatment of these
young anti war college protesters are in any inclination, I
(09:51):
believe that we are headed into the summer of nineteen
sixty eight, and I, for one, am absolutely terrified about
what is to come. And I can't pretend that I
think that we're going to be able to fight this off.
I really can't, because I know how I am vacillating
(10:12):
back and forth. I know ultimately I'm going to be
forced to make the Sophie's choice of Biden. But I
don't know how many people living in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan,
you know, the only states that matter, are going to
join me in that decision. We will see coming up
(10:34):
next my difficult conversation this week with our friend doctor
Jonathan Metzel as we partn parcel out what is happening
in Israel and Gaza. Folks. You know that whenever we
(10:55):
have the opportunity to chat with our in house doctor,
doctor Jonathan Metzel, I am always thrilled and welcome back, Jonathan.
You were out last week or the week before. I
don't even know what day it is for a passover,
so I'm glad that you had time with your family
and welcome back to the madness. I hope that you
(11:16):
were able to take a break.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
I mean, I feel unleavened and totally relaxed. So great.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
So here's where I want to begin. You, my friend,
are a professor among many of the hats and titles
that you wear, and right now, colleges and universities across
the country have created encampments, have set up protests to
(11:48):
urge their universities and colleges to divest from Israel. And
how I've been having this conversation is in a couple
of ways. One is that to me, the overarching issue
is not even about Israel and Gaza. The overarching issue
(12:10):
is about what is happening to our colleges and universities
and the way in which our free speech right to
assemble issues that are at the core of our democracy
are being challenged, as well as watching the complete and
total militarization of police and the handling that is happening
(12:34):
at the hands of police and administrators. I want to
get your thoughts and then I want to get into
the conversation with how this is being shown through mainstream media,
how it is differing depending on what outlets you are
using and going towards, and just your overall feelings. As
(12:56):
a professor that is working all the time. I'm you
know with this generation.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Who all right, Well, I'm going to give I'm going
to give do you mind if I give four possible
avenues for us to go down, and then we can
choose which one we want to go down. Okay, so
number one would be the forty thousand feet issue, which
I think you've thought about, which is, let's think first
about the context before we get into the content. But
(13:23):
the think how just think about this moment where education
is such a battleground in so many ways, right, this
protest is happening in the aftermath of attacks on DEI
and attacks on libraries and attacks on school boards and
all these kind of things. And so I guess question
number one, avenue number one we can do go to
(13:45):
all these is what's the bigger story about education that's
happening right now? Like why education right now? And what
are we fighting about, Like why is education in the
lead up to twenty twenty four, in the aftermath of
the pandemic, in the seven days before we all get
wiped out by the bird flu? What is it about
(14:07):
education right now? That that is where we're having these fights.
And so I don't think you can before you get
into the actual contact, because I agree with you, many
bigger things are happening. Number one is just how interesting
it is that this is all a part of a
much bigger conversation we're having about freedom, about education, about
things like that. So that will be number one. Number
(14:28):
two is about the content a little bit. But I
would say that in part, and I'm just going to
say this because I'm a professor and I'm an administrator,
and I will say that administrators, like students, have been
trained in a particular way over the past decade or
(14:48):
fifteen years or whatever, that they're going to clamp down
on what any group perceives as hate speech, right, And
so I think that part of the issue with this
issue was administrators when they feel like, I mean, if
you could just take any group, but the minute it
started feeling like from the river to the sea, and
(15:09):
then Jewish students started saying we're oppressed by this, Like
administrators are almost like robotically programmed to clamp down on
particular kinds of speech that some people find oppressive and
other people don't. And so I'm not surprised that administrators.
I mean, I don't think that they would be acting
this way if it was about climate change. I really don't.
(15:33):
But I do think that the fact that this is
a divisive issue, where some people coin this as liberation
and some people coin this as anti semitism or oppression,
they're acting the way that they would if this was
any other kind of speech that any group interpreted as
hate speech. And so I think if this was racist
(15:54):
or transphobic or anything like that, they would be doing
the same thing. I think they're acting in that brain which.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
I'm going to agree to disagree, but keep going.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
I'm not saying I'm not saying about the response of
calling in the police. I'm just saying why universities are
not saying all speech is protected, because all speeches protected
in less a group finds it offensive. Now, I'm not
in any way justifying the response. I'm just explaining why
I think universities are responding the way they are, which
is that there is just a coding in universities about speech. Now,
(16:28):
I'm not in any way justifying the cops or the
arresting or anything like that, but i will say that
I feel like that's kind of important to recognize when
we think about why this has escalated. Point number three
is what we might call the medanim You know, the
metonym is a literary term for the part stands in
for the whole, And so I understand, Like I was
(16:50):
speaking with Antonia Helton, the NBC reporter this weekend, and
she was reporting from the Columbia encampment, and she's like,
it's totally crazy. Most of the protesters are peaceful, and
it's a student group that's very multi everything, and then
these small incidences of somebody smashing out the window with
a hammer and stuff like that. That's what then goes viral,
(17:13):
and I guess the question is what narrative are you
going to believe, and where are you getting your source
material and where do you get research. But it is interesting,
like I was at the Vanderbilt protest when the reporter
got arrested, for example, I was literally fifteen feet away
when all that happened. There were nine thousand things happening,
and it was just this tiny little thing where somebody
(17:34):
screamed in a policeman's ear with a megaphone and he
turned around and just arrested the first person he saw,
which happened to be this reporter. And it's just if
you were at the thing, you would think this thing
wasn't a big deal at all. But then somebody filmed
him getting arrested, and then it went viral, and then
there were ten billion people, and then I got emails
from everybody around the world. And so we live in
(17:55):
a moment where what you capture on social media it
just kind of becomes the reality. And so I guess
question number three is if ten thousand people are being
peaceful and one person does something that goes viral, that
becomes the reality. And so the question is, how do
you understand what's happening and what's a trusted source when
(18:16):
all of social media is meant to invoke a response.
And then I guess the fourth point really is the
point I've been on the phone all morning with my
friends in Israel about, which is this is really distracting
a lot of this stuff, Like the bigger issue actually
is the peace in the Middle East and stopping the
war in Gaza and stuff like that. So in a way,
(18:36):
like it, I guess I feel a little frustrated that
this has become like this question of campus and anti Semitism.
I don't know, it just it's frustrating because it feels
like it's given people an off ramp toward talking about
the real issue, which is like what are we going
to do in real terms, about what are the real
(18:56):
outcomes that are possible in the Middle East? And we're
you know it just it's just been it's been frustrating
because it's different. People are on my side playing the
victim card when really this isn't just about anti Semitism.
This is about the N'tonnaho government and all these other factors.
So in a way, it's it's a real issue about campuses.
(19:17):
Absolutely real issue, but the issue itself is also about
the Middle East, which we kind of don't talk about
sometimes when this becomes the focus. So those are my four.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Well, I'm going to bounce around because I have a
couple of things that I'm going to say that I
don't think are going to be popular, but they're my opinion, so.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Popular with me, anything you say is always pounce with me.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
So here's my first thing, because you ended with some
people on your side claiming victimhood, right, and I want
to talk about victimhood for a minute, because I think
that what becomes incredibly frustrating for somebody that exists outside
of the Jewish community is that it seems to me
(19:59):
that over the last several months, any conversation that is
about it, that is questioning the violent tactics that have
been used and continue to be used pre October seventh
and post October seventh, everything is couched in anti semitism.
(20:22):
Every fucking critique, And I'm like, how do we get
anywhere if I'm not allowed to critique a government because
of the religion of the majority of the people inside
of that government. And what I find incredibly fucking frustrating
is that When you start doing that, then real anti
(20:47):
Semitism that is on the rise and happening becomes ignored
and watered down because everything can't be anti Semitism, Everything
can not be fucking anti semitism and couch that way,
because then nothing is, and we lose the seriousness of
the violence and hate that is rising against a community
(21:11):
of people if I can't actually critique things that are
going wrong. So I'm trying to figure out how it
is that I'm looking at people. I'm watching so many videos,
and you're right, everything that does happen on social media
is being magnified times a million, right, times a million views.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
I don't know how many how many times have you
seen a video that's like, nothing happened today. We ate
hot dogs and we'll see that.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Yeah, let's tackle the first question around anti semitism, which
is what all of what is happening at these college
campuses is now being set up as college campuses are
a hotbed of anti Semitism. And I'm like, what, so please.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Answer that. Well, I'll give you a couple of ways
into that, and we can do avenues down there. I
apologize for something like a multiple choice test, but I'm
obviously work out my own thoughts about this. So number
one is really personal, which is the reason I'm a
scholar of racism in my life is because I grew
(22:21):
up with a dad who's a Holocaust survivor, who saw
anti Semitism everywhere. He looked like if there wasn't a
parking space when we'd go to the baseball game, he'd
be like, Jews can't park anywhere, you know, something like like.
That was his way of understanding the world was anti
Semitism because my dad grew up Ninety of our family
were murdered in Holocaust, and my dad and my grandparents escaped,
(22:44):
and it just became his lens right that. And in
a way, when you start to see a lens of
a structure that is meant for you to be oppressed,
that's kind of how you see the world now. I
I for me, obviously, I've brought in fact I hardly
ever think about anti semitism, and I haven't really thought
about it that much before six months ago. But I
(23:07):
can see how when that becomes your response to a threat,
it just becomes very pervasive. We're under attack, it must
be our group, bust may under attack. And so it's
a very automatic reflex for people with histories of trauma
like the Holocaust or slavery or other kinds of things
to go to that narrative and not and foreclose other narratives.
(23:28):
And so part of the story is, I mean, I
obviously disagree with the idea that everything's being anti Semitism.
And my fourth point was like calling an anti Semitism
makes it harder to see how you're the aggressor as
well as the victim. But I guess part of that
is just to say that that when that becomes the worldview,
that becomes people's kind of go to response in ways
(23:50):
that any challenges like this, and I think you know
you and I've talked about this a lot, there are
some basic foundational things about these tests that are like
existentially terrifying for people who are Jewish, right, And so
the idea that you know, even from the river to
(24:10):
the sea, Like everybody's like, well, what's the big deal
from the river to the sea, but that is basically
something that's very very it's just seen as kind of
an existential terror. The idea that basically people would overturn
the state of Israel, and things like that, and so
in a way that's kind of become the go to,
which becomes generalizable. And again, part of the issue, this
(24:34):
is kind of the research I do, is that when
you're always saying you're the victim, you're not seeing how
you're the aggressor. And so in a way, there also
is a psychology of getting yourself off the hook of
being part of the problem as well as being part
of the solution. So I think that's part of it.
Is just this is how people with historical trauma act,
And I think that's an important point. But I guess
(24:57):
the other, probably more important point for me is that
there have been Israelis who don't see the world that
way in the streets protesting against the Natanyahu government for
a year before October seventh, and we're saying exactly the
same things that you just said to me in your question.
Israelis don't feel that way. I mean, I've been on
the phone with people all morning and they're like supporting
(25:19):
the protesters here and want their government to be overturned
and all these kind of things. And so in a way,
I think what you're talking about is American Judaism in
a way more than Israeli Judaism. That's my personal sense.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Yes, I'm talking. I have no context with which to
talk about Israeli Judaism because I have only been to
Israel once, right, and I've had one, you know, one
week long experience with visiting the Kanesset and different leaders,
you know. So when I'm talking, I'm talking specifically through
(25:52):
the lens of what is happening on college campuses, through
the vantage point of mainstream media labeling protest, every single
protest and objection to the continuation of a genocide as
anti Semitism. Now, what I will say is that the
other piece that I find incredibly troubling is that this
(26:15):
is all cyclical to me. Yeah, right. There has never
been a student movement in our history, in our modern history,
that has been looked at favorably as it is happening. Never,
not one fucking time. I don't care if it was
peaceful to sit in at the lunch counters when folks
were doing that and being beaten and lynched and murdered
(26:38):
and all of these things, and when people were barricading
themselves in during the Vietnam War on the very same campus, right,
And so these student protests are never looked upon favorably
in protests, is never looked upon favorably, particularly in countries
that quote unquote care about democracy, because there will always
(26:58):
be a group that says that it's not the right
way to protest. Then tell me fucking how, Because if
it's not a sit in, if it's not being peaceful,
if it is now having to take responsibility for every
single other individual outside of Columbia University and inside of
the campus, you tell me the right way to push
back against oppression. Right, So this becomes again this US
(27:23):
against them. You know this isn't right. They don't know
what they're talking about. And I'm just like, so, who
does the people that are sending twenty four billion dollars
to continue the murder of women and children? Like this
is just I don't I guess I get to a
point where I'm just like, we're never going to get
to a place of what is quote unquote right when
(27:47):
people outrage is never received in a sincere way and
when movements are particularly picked apart by the fringe elements. Right,
So you see this one hammer that was breaking glass.
I've seen it six times. I only had the television
(28:09):
on for twenty minutes before I jumped on.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
And also, I mean there was a great piece I
think it was Jonathan Chait this morning about how the
people who are benefiting the most from the from this
is Trump and Nitanyahu. Like, the more it can be
seen as like extremist crazies, we're against the crazies, you know.
I guess my hope, to be honest, is that, I
(28:32):
mean I think this every week and then things seem
to escalate. Is that I hope we're on the same
side and we're just all talking past each other. That's
my greatest hope, you know, because I don't like, I mean,
you and I have talked about this idea of a
polarizing crisis on this show a bunch, this idea that
basically there is a strong coalition and then something happens
(28:53):
and all of a sudden we're existentially divided. I mean,
I'll just say, honestly, it's pretty weird having fought against
injustice for my entire career to you know, now feel
an activist and a target. And I mean I don't
personally feel a target, but I'm just saying that, like
if I just keep imagining, like like, it's just weird.
(29:15):
To be Jewish right now. Honestly, he really is, And
so what does it mean to like, I just feel
like if this was some other group other than my own,
maybe I would feel different, or maybe things would be
easier or more clear cut. Like it's just I'm trying
to kind of I'm trying to kind of walk a
fine line in a certain way, which is I support protest,
(29:37):
I support free expression, I'm against aggression. I've been against
the natanya Who government for many, many, many years. And
I also don't want to see the destruction of Israel,
which I feel like Nitaya Who is kind of messianically
bringing into being. And so it's just a very fine line.
And so people like me are talking like I'm talking
right now, which is a little bit vague and a
(29:59):
little bit over intellectualized because it's it's just a strange
moment to be. You know, you want to be part
of the group fighting against injustice, and you're also that
feel like you're I mean, when you see those hammer
pictures in the window, it feels very personal, Like it
feels very very personal.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Here's what I will say to that. I am black
and queer, and have been black and queer. My entire life.
I have watched I don't know how many videos of
black men, women and children being gunned down, shot choked
to death, and I'm just supposed to go ahead and
like carry on with my life. I've witnessed five hundred
(30:41):
anti LGBTQ bills just in the last year come into
being to question, like my existence as a queer person
and the ability to live free inside of this country.
Of course, I understand what it is like to live
in a body that you actually can at at any
time or what have you change other people's outside perspectives
(31:05):
of whether or not you are a danger, a threat
of this or that. And so that being said and understood,
when I see peaceful protests that started as you know
BLM marching down the street, and then at other times
(31:26):
it burst into a CVS or a Wendy's going up
in flames, I understand both. I understand both the act
of destruction right of just so much how much more
do you want people to take? How much more killing
do you want people to be able to ingest before
(31:48):
they explode? And then I also understand the people that
are able to march peacefully, able to sit at the
policy tables and try and figure out ways to change things.
Humans are complex, like, we have a lot of emotions
and a lot of feelings and a lot of angst,
particularly those that are from historically marginalized and oppressed and
(32:12):
abused groups. There is never going to be a neat
solution for murderous problems. And if we can't come I
guess my feeling is, if we can't come to the
table and agree on what is morally right and morally wrong,
then we will never get anywhere and the killing will
just persist.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
You know, again, I've said this avention here, but my
first that's beautifully said, thank you, and I completely agree,
and I could not agree more. I guess for me, like,
because I've worked so long with the Israeli left, I
feel like there's such a natural alliance between the American
left and the Israeli left about so many things we're
talking about here, except for the existence of the country.
(32:56):
And so my frustration is kind of working on both
sides of this issue, that there are so many people
saying very similar things. I mean, I've got friends in
Israel whose kids are going to be jailed for refusing
to be in the army if they invade rafa and
things like that, Like there are a lot of people
relatively wanting the same thing who are sitting at that
(33:19):
lunch counter. I completely agree with that, But there are
a lot of people who also benefit from playing that
hammer video ninety million times, so that you kind of
conflate that with everything, and so in a way, it
just takes it just takes a lot to kind of
maintain that. And in a way, you know, it's it's
(33:41):
just such a moment because you know, on one hand,
we're shaking up the entire world, and some people would
say the ends justify the means, but it also is
terrifying because you don't know like where this is all going.
And so I agree with you that, I think that's
very well said, and I hope I hope that they
I hope at the end of the day we end
(34:02):
up getting back to that lunch counter and making some
some real change.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
I hope that our time that we spend together as
this persists, Jonathan, can become a place for honest and
really you know, continued, really tough conversations and honest and
honest ones. Because I think that if we try to
find ways to intellectualize things that just honestly don't warrant
(34:35):
that level, you know, Like, I don't want people to
turn away from this issue because they say that it's
too complex, because they're not historians, because they're not the
political elite, and so oh, I have no space to have,
you know, this conversation because I'm not Jewish, or because
you know I'm you know, because I'm not Muslim. Because
(34:56):
I want people to understand that, like, we need to
get back to a place to where we can agree
on what is right and what is wrong. We have
rules of war for a reason, right, and when those
rules of war are broken, right, like, then if that
is just going to be the way, then the whole
world will fall into chaos, which is where I honestly
(35:18):
think that we are now and why things are so
radically out of whack.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
I agree one million percent as always, and I would
also add to that though you know, I could be
wrong because you don't know. The Israel government is being
written by messi anicists, like people who want to see
the end of days, kind of similar to people here.
But there is a very real chance that there actually
will be a ceasefire. And so the question is if
(35:48):
there is a cease fire what it's also kind of
if there is a ceasefire, what then does the protest
movement do? So I do think that there are questions
about all of this, but I also think that there
is a not zero chance that the protests are going
to get one of their main stipulations, and then the
question is kind of what's the next phase? Right?
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Yes, absolutely well, we'll leave it there today, My friends,
thank you so much, as you do every week and
engaging in really difficult conversation at a really unprecedented times.
We appreciate you. That is it for me today, dear
friends on Woke af AS always, power to the people
(36:33):
and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay
woke as fuck.
Good morning, keeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with
Me your Girl, Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker, Folks,
Witnessing the real time militarized assault on students on Columbia
University and UCLA's campus has me absolutely filled with rage
(00:40):
to see militarized police thugs show more aggression and brutality
against peaceful anti war protesters as opposed to those that
(01:03):
stormed our capitol building that brought zip ties and smoke
bombs and bare spray and build a fucking guillotine. Those
motherfuckers were allowed to go home, go home and post
on social media talking about their victory of stalling our
(01:28):
electoral process. They're being hailed as heroes, as patriots. But
what we have seen not only in the last few weeks,
but also in the last several decades of this country
(01:50):
is that whenever black and brown people and young people
utilize their voice, exercise their right to assemble to protests,
to disrupt injustice, to disrupt genocide, police brutality, they're labeled
(02:13):
as monsters and they're beaten and they're brutalized, and they're jailed.
But white supremacist boy with tiki torches, yelling all kinds
of explicitives. Oh no, we don't want to escalate the problem,
so we just let them be. Tell me again about
(02:37):
how white supremacists and police are not one and the same.
Tell me again about the fact that we disperse in
this country, our excess militarized gear to the police to
brutalize citizens. You know what we could do with the
(03:00):
excess that the fucking military is given. Oh, I don't know,
maybe actually invested back into this country in terms of infrastructure, education, healthcare,
safe drinking water. But no, we don't do that. I'm
so fucking tired of America. I got to tell you that.
(03:24):
You know, I know that we're not even through this week,
but I am through with this current administration. I am
through with this fucking country and its hypocrisy and it's bullshit.
And look, folks, I know that I vascilate because I'm
a full and complete human being with a lot of complex,
layered emotions like all of us are. But this week,
(03:47):
Fuck Biden is how I feel. At the same time,
you know, a Time magazine article comes out where Donald
Trump lays out exactly what he plans to do with
this country in a second term, and how the people
that are around him. Oh, they're not like the fucking
(04:08):
dummies of the first administration. No, they're rocked and ready
to go, ready to monitor women's pregnancies and mental cycles,
ready to throw undocumented or anybody that has brown skin
or black skin, and detention centers, ready to depoort eleven
million people. You know, somebody said to me that where
(04:33):
we are right now is the Sophie's choice of fucking democracy,
which is, you know, what are we choosing here, Choosing
to continue to fund a fucking genocide with our tax dollars,
(04:55):
choosing to overlook the mountain of war crimes that are
being committed by Israel against the people of Gaza, looking
away at the way in which this current administration wants
to try and placate young people by also criminalizing them,
(05:18):
placate them with Oh, I'm going to change the identification
of marijuana. You know, I'm going to downgrade it so
that it can be used for research purposes. Oh, I'm
gonna relieve some student loan debt. But at the same time,
I don't want you to advocate for yourselves. I don't
want you to have the right to protest at the
(05:42):
same time, I'm going to completely ignore the mounting calls
for a ceasefire, for some conditions to be placed on
the fucking aid and bombs that you're sending over. You know,
I am out of place, folks, where I do believe
(06:03):
that Biden is going to lose this election. And it
isn't going to be because Donald Trump and the MAGA
folks have stolen the election. It's gonna be because every
single decision that this administration is making is throwing away
this fucking election. It isn't gonna be enough to just
(06:23):
point to Donald Trump and say like, oh, he's worse.
It isn't going to be enough to legalize marijuana when
you have tens of thousands of black and brown people
still serving out fucking jail time because of the maximum
minimum sentences while white people put up fucking you know,
(06:45):
weed stands on every other fucking street and it's turned
into a billion dollar industry while black and brown people
are still in jail. Miss me with it. I'm tired,
you know, And I've been talking to so many different
groups of people that I know that are trying to
(07:05):
figure out where they're going to go and what they
are going to do if Donald Trump wins, because this
country will not be safe. And the speed at which
everything will shift and go dark, folks, you can't even
fucking imagine, because they are ready to rock on day
(07:29):
one of a Trump administration. By the time that we
would make it to the first one hundred days, I
can't even explain to you what America would look like
because the sci fi fucking thrillers that are out there
will not do their dark vision of cruelty in America service.
(07:56):
But what do we do? Because in good consciousness, my
job is to wake people up? Right, So I am,
I am. I'm consistently on high alert and on an alarm,
and I cannot swallow the deaths of thirty seven thousand
(08:16):
plus people. I can't swallow the starvation. I can't swallow
the hypocrisy that is happening. When Putin does something, it's
a war crime because y'all don't like him. But when
Netanyahu does it, oh, it's necessary. What the fuck? Why
do we have rules of engagement to begin with? If
(08:37):
you allow Israel to do whatever the fuck it wants.
And I'm tired of being told that I'm not allowed
to critique this country that is off the fucking deep end.
These people are nuts, and several years from now, folks
who will be turning around being like, oh, well, we
(08:58):
didn't know. How the fuck could you say that you
didn't know? It's on every screen? Whose life matters? As
a black, queer woman in these United States? In this world,
I know all too well whose lives matter. It ain't mine.
(09:24):
It ain't the Palestinians, it ain't Muslims, it ain't women,
it ain't queer people. So, folks, we are living on
top of their tinderbox. And if the treatment of these
young anti war college protesters are in any inclination, I
(09:51):
believe that we are headed into the summer of nineteen
sixty eight, and I, for one, am absolutely terrified about
what is to come. And I can't pretend that I
think that we're going to be able to fight this off.
I really can't, because I know how I am vacillating
(10:12):
back and forth. I know ultimately I'm going to be
forced to make the Sophie's choice of Biden. But I
don't know how many people living in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan,
you know, the only states that matter, are going to
join me in that decision. We will see coming up
(10:34):
next my difficult conversation this week with our friend doctor
Jonathan Metzel as we partn parcel out what is happening
in Israel and Gaza. Folks. You know that whenever we
(10:55):
have the opportunity to chat with our in house doctor,
doctor Jonathan Metzel, I am always thrilled and welcome back, Jonathan.
You were out last week or the week before. I
don't even know what day it is for a passover,
so I'm glad that you had time with your family
and welcome back to the madness. I hope that you
(11:16):
were able to take a break.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
I mean, I feel unleavened and totally relaxed. So great.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
So here's where I want to begin. You, my friend,
are a professor among many of the hats and titles
that you wear, and right now, colleges and universities across
the country have created encampments, have set up protests to
(11:48):
urge their universities and colleges to divest from Israel. And
how I've been having this conversation is in a couple
of ways. One is that to me, the overarching issue
is not even about Israel and Gaza. The overarching issue
(12:10):
is about what is happening to our colleges and universities
and the way in which our free speech right to
assemble issues that are at the core of our democracy
are being challenged, as well as watching the complete and
total militarization of police and the handling that is happening
(12:34):
at the hands of police and administrators. I want to
get your thoughts and then I want to get into
the conversation with how this is being shown through mainstream media,
how it is differing depending on what outlets you are
using and going towards, and just your overall feelings. As
(12:56):
a professor that is working all the time. I'm you
know with this generation.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Who all right, Well, I'm going to give I'm going
to give do you mind if I give four possible
avenues for us to go down, and then we can
choose which one we want to go down. Okay, so
number one would be the forty thousand feet issue, which
I think you've thought about, which is, let's think first
about the context before we get into the content. But
(13:23):
the think how just think about this moment where education
is such a battleground in so many ways, right, this
protest is happening in the aftermath of attacks on DEI
and attacks on libraries and attacks on school boards and
all these kind of things. And so I guess question
number one, avenue number one we can do go to
(13:45):
all these is what's the bigger story about education that's
happening right now? Like why education right now? And what
are we fighting about, Like why is education in the
lead up to twenty twenty four, in the aftermath of
the pandemic, in the seven days before we all get
wiped out by the bird flu? What is it about
(14:07):
education right now? That that is where we're having these fights.
And so I don't think you can before you get
into the actual contact, because I agree with you, many
bigger things are happening. Number one is just how interesting
it is that this is all a part of a
much bigger conversation we're having about freedom, about education, about
things like that. So that will be number one. Number
(14:28):
two is about the content a little bit. But I
would say that in part, and I'm just going to
say this because I'm a professor and I'm an administrator,
and I will say that administrators, like students, have been
trained in a particular way over the past decade or
(14:48):
fifteen years or whatever, that they're going to clamp down
on what any group perceives as hate speech, right, And
so I think that part of the issue with this
issue was administrators when they feel like, I mean, if
you could just take any group, but the minute it
started feeling like from the river to the sea, and
(15:09):
then Jewish students started saying we're oppressed by this, Like
administrators are almost like robotically programmed to clamp down on
particular kinds of speech that some people find oppressive and
other people don't. And so I'm not surprised that administrators.
I mean, I don't think that they would be acting
this way if it was about climate change. I really don't.
(15:33):
But I do think that the fact that this is
a divisive issue, where some people coin this as liberation
and some people coin this as anti semitism or oppression,
they're acting the way that they would if this was
any other kind of speech that any group interpreted as
hate speech. And so I think if this was racist
(15:54):
or transphobic or anything like that, they would be doing
the same thing. I think they're acting in that brain which.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
I'm going to agree to disagree, but keep going.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
I'm not saying I'm not saying about the response of
calling in the police. I'm just saying why universities are
not saying all speech is protected, because all speeches protected
in less a group finds it offensive. Now, I'm not
in any way justifying the response. I'm just explaining why
I think universities are responding the way they are, which
is that there is just a coding in universities about speech. Now,
(16:28):
I'm not in any way justifying the cops or the
arresting or anything like that, but i will say that
I feel like that's kind of important to recognize when
we think about why this has escalated. Point number three
is what we might call the medanim You know, the
metonym is a literary term for the part stands in
for the whole, And so I understand, Like I was
(16:50):
speaking with Antonia Helton, the NBC reporter this weekend, and
she was reporting from the Columbia encampment, and she's like,
it's totally crazy. Most of the protesters are peaceful, and
it's a student group that's very multi everything, and then
these small incidences of somebody smashing out the window with
a hammer and stuff like that. That's what then goes viral,
(17:13):
and I guess the question is what narrative are you
going to believe, and where are you getting your source
material and where do you get research. But it is interesting,
like I was at the Vanderbilt protest when the reporter
got arrested, for example, I was literally fifteen feet away
when all that happened. There were nine thousand things happening,
and it was just this tiny little thing where somebody
(17:34):
screamed in a policeman's ear with a megaphone and he
turned around and just arrested the first person he saw,
which happened to be this reporter. And it's just if
you were at the thing, you would think this thing
wasn't a big deal at all. But then somebody filmed
him getting arrested, and then it went viral, and then
there were ten billion people, and then I got emails
from everybody around the world. And so we live in
(17:55):
a moment where what you capture on social media it
just kind of becomes the reality. And so I guess
question number three is if ten thousand people are being
peaceful and one person does something that goes viral, that
becomes the reality. And so the question is, how do
you understand what's happening and what's a trusted source when
(18:16):
all of social media is meant to invoke a response.
And then I guess the fourth point really is the
point I've been on the phone all morning with my
friends in Israel about, which is this is really distracting
a lot of this stuff, Like the bigger issue actually
is the peace in the Middle East and stopping the
war in Gaza and stuff like that. So in a way,
(18:36):
like it, I guess I feel a little frustrated that
this has become like this question of campus and anti Semitism.
I don't know, it just it's frustrating because it feels
like it's given people an off ramp toward talking about
the real issue, which is like what are we going
to do in real terms, about what are the real
(18:56):
outcomes that are possible in the Middle East? And we're
you know it just it's just been it's been frustrating
because it's different. People are on my side playing the
victim card when really this isn't just about anti Semitism.
This is about the N'tonnaho government and all these other factors.
So in a way, it's it's a real issue about campuses.
(19:17):
Absolutely real issue, but the issue itself is also about
the Middle East, which we kind of don't talk about
sometimes when this becomes the focus. So those are my four.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Well, I'm going to bounce around because I have a
couple of things that I'm going to say that I
don't think are going to be popular, but they're my opinion, so.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Popular with me, anything you say is always pounce with me.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
So here's my first thing, because you ended with some
people on your side claiming victimhood, right, and I want
to talk about victimhood for a minute, because I think
that what becomes incredibly frustrating for somebody that exists outside
of the Jewish community is that it seems to me
(19:59):
that over the last several months, any conversation that is
about it, that is questioning the violent tactics that have
been used and continue to be used pre October seventh
and post October seventh, everything is couched in anti semitism.
(20:22):
Every fucking critique, And I'm like, how do we get
anywhere if I'm not allowed to critique a government because
of the religion of the majority of the people inside
of that government. And what I find incredibly fucking frustrating
is that When you start doing that, then real anti
(20:47):
Semitism that is on the rise and happening becomes ignored
and watered down because everything can't be anti Semitism, Everything
can not be fucking anti semitism and couch that way,
because then nothing is, and we lose the seriousness of
the violence and hate that is rising against a community
(21:11):
of people if I can't actually critique things that are
going wrong. So I'm trying to figure out how it
is that I'm looking at people. I'm watching so many videos,
and you're right, everything that does happen on social media
is being magnified times a million, right, times a million views.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
I don't know how many how many times have you
seen a video that's like, nothing happened today. We ate
hot dogs and we'll see that.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Yeah, let's tackle the first question around anti semitism, which
is what all of what is happening at these college
campuses is now being set up as college campuses are
a hotbed of anti Semitism. And I'm like, what, so please.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Answer that. Well, I'll give you a couple of ways
into that, and we can do avenues down there. I
apologize for something like a multiple choice test, but I'm
obviously work out my own thoughts about this. So number
one is really personal, which is the reason I'm a
scholar of racism in my life is because I grew
(22:21):
up with a dad who's a Holocaust survivor, who saw
anti Semitism everywhere. He looked like if there wasn't a
parking space when we'd go to the baseball game, he'd
be like, Jews can't park anywhere, you know, something like like.
That was his way of understanding the world was anti
Semitism because my dad grew up Ninety of our family
were murdered in Holocaust, and my dad and my grandparents escaped,
(22:44):
and it just became his lens right that. And in
a way, when you start to see a lens of
a structure that is meant for you to be oppressed,
that's kind of how you see the world now. I
I for me, obviously, I've brought in fact I hardly
ever think about anti semitism, and I haven't really thought
about it that much before six months ago. But I
(23:07):
can see how when that becomes your response to a threat,
it just becomes very pervasive. We're under attack, it must
be our group, bust may under attack. And so it's
a very automatic reflex for people with histories of trauma
like the Holocaust or slavery or other kinds of things
to go to that narrative and not and foreclose other narratives.
(23:28):
And so part of the story is, I mean, I
obviously disagree with the idea that everything's being anti Semitism.
And my fourth point was like calling an anti Semitism
makes it harder to see how you're the aggressor as
well as the victim. But I guess part of that
is just to say that that when that becomes the worldview,
that becomes people's kind of go to response in ways
(23:50):
that any challenges like this, and I think you know
you and I've talked about this a lot, there are
some basic foundational things about these tests that are like
existentially terrifying for people who are Jewish, right, And so
the idea that you know, even from the river to
(24:10):
the sea, Like everybody's like, well, what's the big deal
from the river to the sea, but that is basically
something that's very very it's just seen as kind of
an existential terror. The idea that basically people would overturn
the state of Israel, and things like that, and so
in a way that's kind of become the go to,
which becomes generalizable. And again, part of the issue, this
(24:34):
is kind of the research I do, is that when
you're always saying you're the victim, you're not seeing how
you're the aggressor. And so in a way, there also
is a psychology of getting yourself off the hook of
being part of the problem as well as being part
of the solution. So I think that's part of it.
Is just this is how people with historical trauma act,
And I think that's an important point. But I guess
(24:57):
the other, probably more important point for me is that
there have been Israelis who don't see the world that
way in the streets protesting against the Natanyahu government for
a year before October seventh, and we're saying exactly the
same things that you just said to me in your question.
Israelis don't feel that way. I mean, I've been on
the phone with people all morning and they're like supporting
(25:19):
the protesters here and want their government to be overturned
and all these kind of things. And so in a way,
I think what you're talking about is American Judaism in
a way more than Israeli Judaism. That's my personal sense.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Yes, I'm talking. I have no context with which to
talk about Israeli Judaism because I have only been to
Israel once, right, and I've had one, you know, one
week long experience with visiting the Kanesset and different leaders,
you know. So when I'm talking, I'm talking specifically through
(25:52):
the lens of what is happening on college campuses, through
the vantage point of mainstream media labeling protest, every single
protest and objection to the continuation of a genocide as
anti Semitism. Now, what I will say is that the
other piece that I find incredibly troubling is that this
(26:15):
is all cyclical to me. Yeah, right. There has never
been a student movement in our history, in our modern history,
that has been looked at favorably as it is happening. Never,
not one fucking time. I don't care if it was
peaceful to sit in at the lunch counters when folks
were doing that and being beaten and lynched and murdered
(26:38):
and all of these things, and when people were barricading
themselves in during the Vietnam War on the very same campus, right,
And so these student protests are never looked upon favorably
in protests, is never looked upon favorably, particularly in countries
that quote unquote care about democracy, because there will always
(26:58):
be a group that says that it's not the right
way to protest. Then tell me fucking how, Because if
it's not a sit in, if it's not being peaceful,
if it is now having to take responsibility for every
single other individual outside of Columbia University and inside of
the campus, you tell me the right way to push
back against oppression. Right, So this becomes again this US
(27:23):
against them. You know this isn't right. They don't know
what they're talking about. And I'm just like, so, who
does the people that are sending twenty four billion dollars
to continue the murder of women and children? Like this
is just I don't I guess I get to a
point where I'm just like, we're never going to get
to a place of what is quote unquote right when
(27:47):
people outrage is never received in a sincere way and
when movements are particularly picked apart by the fringe elements. Right,
So you see this one hammer that was breaking glass.
I've seen it six times. I only had the television
(28:09):
on for twenty minutes before I jumped on.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
And also, I mean there was a great piece I
think it was Jonathan Chait this morning about how the
people who are benefiting the most from the from this
is Trump and Nitanyahu. Like, the more it can be
seen as like extremist crazies, we're against the crazies, you know.
I guess my hope, to be honest, is that, I
(28:32):
mean I think this every week and then things seem
to escalate. Is that I hope we're on the same
side and we're just all talking past each other. That's
my greatest hope, you know, because I don't like, I mean,
you and I have talked about this idea of a
polarizing crisis on this show a bunch, this idea that
basically there is a strong coalition and then something happens
(28:53):
and all of a sudden we're existentially divided. I mean,
I'll just say, honestly, it's pretty weird having fought against
injustice for my entire career to you know, now feel
an activist and a target. And I mean I don't
personally feel a target, but I'm just saying that, like
if I just keep imagining, like like, it's just weird.
(29:15):
To be Jewish right now. Honestly, he really is, And
so what does it mean to like, I just feel
like if this was some other group other than my own,
maybe I would feel different, or maybe things would be
easier or more clear cut. Like it's just I'm trying
to kind of I'm trying to kind of walk a
fine line in a certain way, which is I support protest,
(29:37):
I support free expression, I'm against aggression. I've been against
the natanya Who government for many, many, many years. And
I also don't want to see the destruction of Israel,
which I feel like Nitaya Who is kind of messianically
bringing into being. And so it's just a very fine line.
And so people like me are talking like I'm talking
right now, which is a little bit vague and a
(29:59):
little bit over intellectualized because it's it's just a strange
moment to be. You know, you want to be part
of the group fighting against injustice, and you're also that
feel like you're I mean, when you see those hammer
pictures in the window, it feels very personal, Like it
feels very very personal.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Here's what I will say to that. I am black
and queer, and have been black and queer. My entire life.
I have watched I don't know how many videos of
black men, women and children being gunned down, shot choked
to death, and I'm just supposed to go ahead and
like carry on with my life. I've witnessed five hundred
(30:41):
anti LGBTQ bills just in the last year come into
being to question, like my existence as a queer person
and the ability to live free inside of this country.
Of course, I understand what it is like to live
in a body that you actually can at at any
time or what have you change other people's outside perspectives
(31:05):
of whether or not you are a danger, a threat
of this or that. And so that being said and understood,
when I see peaceful protests that started as you know
BLM marching down the street, and then at other times
(31:26):
it burst into a CVS or a Wendy's going up
in flames, I understand both. I understand both the act
of destruction right of just so much how much more
do you want people to take? How much more killing
do you want people to be able to ingest before
(31:48):
they explode? And then I also understand the people that
are able to march peacefully, able to sit at the
policy tables and try and figure out ways to change things.
Humans are complex, like, we have a lot of emotions
and a lot of feelings and a lot of angst,
particularly those that are from historically marginalized and oppressed and
(32:12):
abused groups. There is never going to be a neat
solution for murderous problems. And if we can't come I
guess my feeling is, if we can't come to the
table and agree on what is morally right and morally wrong,
then we will never get anywhere and the killing will
just persist.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
You know, again, I've said this avention here, but my
first that's beautifully said, thank you, and I completely agree,
and I could not agree more. I guess for me, like,
because I've worked so long with the Israeli left, I
feel like there's such a natural alliance between the American
left and the Israeli left about so many things we're
talking about here, except for the existence of the country.
(32:56):
And so my frustration is kind of working on both
sides of this issue, that there are so many people
saying very similar things. I mean, I've got friends in
Israel whose kids are going to be jailed for refusing
to be in the army if they invade rafa and
things like that, Like there are a lot of people
relatively wanting the same thing who are sitting at that
(33:19):
lunch counter. I completely agree with that, But there are
a lot of people who also benefit from playing that
hammer video ninety million times, so that you kind of
conflate that with everything, and so in a way, it
just takes it just takes a lot to kind of
maintain that. And in a way, you know, it's it's
(33:41):
just such a moment because you know, on one hand,
we're shaking up the entire world, and some people would
say the ends justify the means, but it also is
terrifying because you don't know like where this is all going.
And so I agree with you that, I think that's
very well said, and I hope I hope that they
I hope at the end of the day we end
(34:02):
up getting back to that lunch counter and making some
some real change.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
I hope that our time that we spend together as
this persists, Jonathan, can become a place for honest and
really you know, continued, really tough conversations and honest and
honest ones. Because I think that if we try to
find ways to intellectualize things that just honestly don't warrant
(34:35):
that level, you know, Like, I don't want people to
turn away from this issue because they say that it's
too complex, because they're not historians, because they're not the
political elite, and so oh, I have no space to have,
you know, this conversation because I'm not Jewish, or because
you know I'm you know, because I'm not Muslim. Because
(34:56):
I want people to understand that, like, we need to
get back to a place to where we can agree
on what is right and what is wrong. We have
rules of war for a reason, right, and when those
rules of war are broken, right, like, then if that
is just going to be the way, then the whole
world will fall into chaos, which is where I honestly
(35:18):
think that we are now and why things are so
radically out of whack.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
I agree one million percent as always, and I would
also add to that though you know, I could be
wrong because you don't know. The Israel government is being
written by messi anicists, like people who want to see
the end of days, kind of similar to people here.
But there is a very real chance that there actually
will be a ceasefire. And so the question is if
(35:48):
there is a cease fire what it's also kind of
if there is a ceasefire, what then does the protest
movement do? So I do think that there are questions
about all of this, but I also think that there
is a not zero chance that the protests are going
to get one of their main stipulations, and then the
question is kind of what's the next phase? Right?
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Yes, absolutely well, we'll leave it there today, My friends,
thank you so much, as you do every week and
engaging in really difficult conversation at a really unprecedented times.
We appreciate you. That is it for me today, dear
friends on Woke af AS always, power to the people
(36:33):
and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay
woke as fuck.
Host
Danielle Moodie
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