THE CASE AGAINST SPEECH CODES.

It's in Rev. G. S. Hagler's "If Everything Is Antisemitic Then Nothing Is."  On one level, we can read the column and play a word-substitution game.  For example, replace "antisemitic" with "racist."  On a logical level, that's straightforward: a description incapable of distinction is useless except as a cheap smear.  As a persuasive tool, it fails.  That's where the reverend's column takes us.  "Unfounded charges of antisemitism have become an instrument to short-circuit debate and discussion, and to bully people into silence where there needs to be discussion, analysis, and dialogue."  I'd prefer he use the term "discourse" rather than "dialogue," but that is an aesthetic objection.

Let's work through his argument.

On Sunday December 3, 2023, it was reported that hundreds of "pro-Palestinian" marchers made their way through the streets of Philadelphia. They stopped to protest a restaurant, "Goldie," partly owned by politically connected Israeli chef, Michael Solomonov. Though the marchers stopped at other places and businesses along their route, this stop particularly drew the attention of the White House, the Governor of Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania’s US Senator.

The marchers were protesting what they understood to be the chastisement and discharge of restaurant employees that questioned US policies in Gaza and Israel, the restauranteur's support of Israeli Defense Forces, and the murderous military assault in Gaza. The marchers were also protesting the erasure of Palestinian culture and history that is not only occurring in the occupied Palestinian territories, but also with the misappropriation of Palestinian culture in which businesses, such as "Goldie," take what is considered Palestinian cuisine or culture and re-label it Israeli.

No, I'm not going to get into the weeds of whether falafel or hummus now have to be vetted by Student Affairs.  We'll let Oberlin types hash it out, or perhaps Harvard's president can write another Minimal Publishable Unit to make some of her critics chill out.

Rather, let's turn to the substance of his argument.

Many of us are increasingly confused about what and where antisemitism is and is not. This latest incident is a good example of this confusion. Groups like the ADL have promoted the conflation of Israel with Judaism, creating a religious and political sledge-hammer that can be wielded when it is convenient and advantageous to do so. The ADL and numerous other Zionist organizations have gone to great lengths to make the criticism of Israel synonymous with hatred of Judaism and Jews. In that context, any act against Zionist ideology, or any critique of any politically connected Zionist is construed as an act of antisemitism.

This perversion of the charge of antisemitism has been used to shut down political speech, historical analysis and critique, and phrases and words used in a cultural context.

Isn't that exactly how speech codes work? Say anything about welfare dependence or criminal behavior or drug use that is contrary to Approved Narratives that have become Sacred Values, and prepare to take incoming.

By way of example, if I said that I yearn and will fight for BIPOC to be free from "sea to shining sea," would that be considered a call for the destruction of the United States or is it a demand for equal rights to make America better? The latter is what is clearly intended.

I am reminded of Aesop's Fables and the boy who cried wolf. He thought it was amusing to cry wolf, to scream about the danger and the threat, and when all the town responded he laughed and regaled in how gullible the town was and how easily they were fooled. It seems like Zionists are doing the same thing. They are crying about everything being antisemitic, and unfortunately when the real danger emerges there will be fewer people to believe it. It is a devious and dangerous approach to a complicated and highly charged issue. If Zionists continue to label all criticism of Israel as antisemitic will fewer people listen when actual antisemitism occurs?

Procedurally, the BIPOC cohort have equal rights.  We ought to be able to discuss and analyze whether the continued different outcomes for different cohorts of people are the consequences of residual discriminatory attitudes, or of continued dysfunction sometimes enabled by well-meaning but foolish people?

So too is it with the speech codes.  If the people enforcing speech codes and rooting out "demeaning" and "harassing" behavior continue to label any objection to the common-room commonplaces as "demeaning" or "harassing," will more people cheer when such people get lit up, even demagogically so, in Congress?