Alice Walker supports JK Rowling

I feel very torn about this. I was wrong about Alice Walker, and I feel sympatehtic to xxyzz's distress.

But there is a long history of telling Jewish women who raised the genuinely oppressive aspects of their religion to keep schtum for fear of the anti-Semites. Women who for centuries weren't even allowed to read the writings that oppressed them. I don't know whether she is aware of that history. But that put my back up early on.

I especially resent her presumption that she is the only person on the thread with that family background and whose response is informed by knowing that history. She isn't. Just because I didn't know exactly what she knew about Alice Walker at first (my information was out of date, haven't heard of AW for many years) and because I disgreed with her based on what I knew, she has no right to assume anyone is right-wing, racist, or anti-Semitic. I couldn't possibly be another Jew starting from a different perspective from hers, now could I?

And she used her background to shut down a poster who made a thoughtful and honest remark about Maus, one that related to the discussion and other Jews with a Holocaust family background might recognise from their families even if she doesn't from hers. Philip Roth nailed the same thing in Portnoy's Complaint. (Nowadays Roth's acute take on racism and how it plays out sexually might be even more controversial than the scene the book is most famous for!)

Sensible people don't make inferences from the fact that other people haven't "come back to condemn" anyone online. FWR is a place where facts win, not hype or condemnation.

I dare tell xxyzz when she is wrong for the same reason she dared to tell me when I was wrong. Because the truth matters.

I really don’t think random accusations of people of being ‘far right’, racist and <checks notes> Nazis achieves what you think it achieves

I am heartily grateful that you are going to ignore me in future, it will spare me your offensive and unfounded slurs

@BernardBlacksMolluscs, I won't be replying to any more of your goady racist posts, but really, shame on you and your nasty far right tosh. I can't even begin to imagine what would drive someone to mock the families of Holocaust victims for fun.

Guess there are just some very sick people out there. Hope you manage to get some help.

Am really horrified by the blatant racism on this thread.

Did not use to get posters like this on MN. At all.

I don't believe this represents MN, let alone the wider women’s rights movement, but an concerned that a certain type is starting pro-far right threads like this in a clear attempt to link JKR and the fight for women’s rights to the racist far right. Maybe to use as material to link us to the far right on Twitter etc.

Anyone reading this thread, you can see for yourself which posters have refused to acknowledge Walker's well-documented antisemitism, and which have mocked the distress of a Jewish poster at this antisemitism.

Be very wary. This is not the MN I know.

What was your aim with this post?

To make yourself look like a racist who also has no knowledge of history?

Congratulations. You succeeded.

I now know to ignore all your future posts. As will everyone else reading this thread.

what was your aim with this post?

to demonstrate that you don't understand what a Nazi is? to make people roll their eyes and ignore accusations of antisemitism because they're accompanied with ridiculous obfuscating hyperbole?

in which case achievement unlocked, pat yourself on the back

Don't you dare fucking tell me, whose parents both grew up in Nazi Germany, who or what a Nazi is.

does having parents who suffered mean that you get to decide on the definition of words? and also that you get to be ridiculously rude without anyone being allowed to react to your rudeness and lack of logic?

Nothing explains her stance - other than the fact that she is an awful, immoral, hateful person.

Millions of people are in unhappy, interracial marriages.

They don't all turn into racist loons who start attacking every member of the same ethnic or religious group their ex-spouse was from.

The amount of antisemitism in this thread is just incredible. You can't even mention Maus without using it to attack Jews and justify Walker's behaviour.

Horrific - this is not the MN I recognise.

Heavens, can't we give the people who murdered dozens of members of my family a rest?

NO, WE FUCKING CAN'T.

It might all be a terribly witty discussion about semantics to you, and you must think you look so cool patronising a Jewish woman for daring to be 'furious' (imagine!) about a little thing like someone denying the mass murder of dozens of your family members, claiming they funded their own murder, and claiming that she is the real victim of these awful Jews who are out to enslave all 'Goyim'.

Or...you could be less of an arse, to put it far more politely than you deserve - and realise that the murder of 6 million Jews didn't suddenly happen one day as if by magic, and the Nazis didn't start by murdering Jews, they started by dehumanising them.

Don't you dare fucking tell me, whose parents both grew up in Nazi Germany, who or what a Nazi is.

Grotesque. Shame on you.

lots of people on this thread pointed out AW's antisemitism. I think I'm just so used to the two minutes hate that I get a degree of snow blindness when someone pops up to tell me that a person I respect is actually really, really bad

I have now read up on Alice Walker and David Icke. I had not heard about that connection before.

same here

and to be honest it did make me think, it seemed to be a bit more detail than ‘recommended’ a book

Thank you @BernardBlacksMolluscs for posting that link.
To me it explains her stance (Alice Walker that is) even if it doesn’t excuse it.

I remember reading Maus by Art Spiegelman and being floored by the racism the father exhibited towards Afro-Americans when they had come to the USA after WW2.
After what they went through in the concentration/extinction camps.

But on another thread I have been accused of being an outrageous racist for pointing out that «race» is a social construct whereas sex is not.

Sadly, I think even accusations of racism will cease to hold water when they are thrown about like that.
I don’t reckon AW is a nazi though. Nazisme was just for the Aryan «race». Even Slavs were considered sub human, and were only used as a tool before they were turned on too.
So only White caucasians can be nazies, as it were.
And they are full of Neanderthal dna, so there’s that to consider aswell.

Heavens, can we give the ‘Nazi’ a rest?

as previously noted, Alice Walker isn’t one, and neither are the women here

i know you’re having a lovely time getting furious

interesting and persuasive article by a black Jewish woman about AW’s anti semitism

nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/alice-walkers-anti-semitic-poem-was-personal.html

so sad when people you admire turn out to have so little personal insight

Nuanced post.

Happy to discuss definition of Nazi versus antisemite.

She supports someone who is I would say definitely a neo-Nazi (and lots of other things besides), which makes Walker one too.

But if you want to call her an antisemitic loon rather than a neo-Nazi, I won't take offence, I promise.

What a loud of mealy-mouthed excuses for a vile antisemite.

If you are genuinely arguing that being critical of Judaism's beliefs justifies Holocaust denial, claiming Jews funded their own mass-murder or that all Jews are out to enslave all 'Goyim', then you clearly yourself a deluded racist whose views are not worthy of serious consideration in any civilised society.

How revolting that these kind of neo-Nazi posters have found their way to MN.

As I said before, be wary of them.

We all know about posters who start threads like this, in order to provide 'evidence', to post on Twitter etc, linking JKR with the far right and with notorious antisemites like Walker.

Don't be one of their 'useful idiots'. Always consider who benefits from threads like this.

Clue: it's not women.

Methinks you doth protest too much - really how complicated is it to work out if Walker is really antisemitic or not, when she has overtly supported a notorious Holocaust denier who claims that Jews funded the Holocaust, and when she has written (truly execrable) 'poetry' that claims that Jews all wish to enslave 'Goyim'?

If you are questioning whether or not this is actually antisemitic or if Walker is just unfairly being labelled a bigot, frankly I question your sanity?

Or certainly your honesty.

It's notable that the OP hasn't returned to condemn Walker's overt antisemitism - or indeed to admit she supports it.

It would be good to know where she stands.

I think @xxyzz is calling out AW as a person who does propagate bad info about jews, conspiracy style seeing as mr Icke has been drawn into it as someone who has informed her views.

It doesn’t seem like recent interviews has given any questions to AW for her to expound or retract anything about that. But on her website she does post the video where mr Waters proposes that the war in Ukraine will end and peace will be restored if only nato will stop supplying weapons to Ukraine.
Which is an odd viewpoint.

I will watch the whole video after work.
That is not to discount the fact that several very right wing (and racist) groupings in Ukraine are fighting for Ukraine’s freedom from Russia.

But that also goes to show that there are some things one will agree on with people - even with those that one vehemenently disagrees with on much else.

I wont stop AW agreeing with JKR that any mutilation of children is ok, and I clearly do agree with them both on that.
But I do not agree with the anti-semitic views that AW seem to espouse, not at all. Not even if I also have sympathy for the palestinians who are killed in this conflict.

I also think that the general idea that being critical of any religion's theological constructs is anti-whatever is not all that widely accepted by most. So people tend to push back against that kind of claim when it's asserted as if it's self-evident - it tends to come off as exceptionalist, though I think people are often hesitant to point that out for fear of being labeled an anti-.

It certainly seems to be the case the current mania for labeling people in so many of these ways as soon as they step over a very tightly drawn line is really eroding the power of the words. I can't decide if that's a mixed thing or largely bad.

Thank you for sharing these links but it is hard to work out what Alice Walker actually said and the context around it from the excited hyperbole of the articles clearly keen to ‘cancel’ her for wrongthink. The link to her ‘infamous’ interview (as they call it) is behind a paywall.

Given that any woman who stands up for her rights (or even gives a hint of ‘wrongthink’ on any topic) these days is instantly labelled a Nazi bigot, and given the dire state of what passes for journalism these days, I must say I’m going to take all that with a pinch of salt.

If she is genuinely anti semitic, then obviously that is an unacceptable view but does that mean she is not still a woman and a human being with valid opinions on other topics? Must she be cast out forever based on a book recommendation and interview from 2018? If we keep talking people can change their views.

Who are you to police who JKR or the rest of us can be supported by? Is everyone who expresses support for women’s rights subjected to the same purity test?

Yep

i discounted @xxyzz ’s first post because it read like unfounded frothing and guilt by association (no offence) and we get a lot of that on here and it’s generally bollocks

her second post with receipts stopped me in my tracks and I’m grateful for it

but posts like this

I note your personal attack on me, a Jewish poster, for daring to criticise antisemitism.

do not feel like an accurate representation of what happened on this thread

also Nazi means something specific. Alice Walker is not one, or none of the articles provided indicate that she is

anti semite and Nazi are both bad things to be, but they’re not interchangeable

words are important

Well,
I have now read up on Alice Walker and David Icke. I had not heard about that connection before.
AW also has the video of Roger Waters talking to the UN council about the war in Ukraine being the fault of too many weapons from nato, so clearly something’s lost on the way.

I can understand why xxyzz is angry and upset at AW and why she doesn’t think it helps that AW «hitches her wagon» to JKR.

I reckon xxyzz is aghast, and having read the weirdness I know can see why.
The persecution of jews is on the rise. «Jew» is used as a slur again by kids in my country. That is frigjtening indeed.

Like I said, I don't live on MN, or check it daily. So yes, you might well have to wait 6 days for me to respond to a post. I have a life. I don't have time to read every thread or check notifications. If you do, cool for you.

Once seen, however, I am absolutely not going to let comments stand on a thread that falsely suggest that Alice Walker is really just a nice lady who had some bad experiences with Judaism, rather than the vile antisemite she is.

I note your personal attack on me, a Jewish poster, for daring to criticise antisemitism. And sure I will not be the only one spotting this.

Your continued ad hominem attacks on me and refusal to walk back any of your support for Walker in the light of what you now know about her undoubted antisemitism, however, certainly raises very interesting questions about you - and this thread.

When I first saw this thread, as I've said, I assumed the OP was posted in good faith by someone who was unaware of Walker's vile racism, rather than someone who actively supports it.

That is now considerably less certain.

Let's hear it? Are you prepared to condemn Walker's vile antisemitic views? Or are you only interested in calling out the Jewish women who point it out?

And if the latter, why? Cui bono?

At a time when concerns about the far right trying to co-opt GC for their own ends are rife, I am VERY suspicious of any poster on here 'innocently' trying to link GC icons like JKR to known antisemites.

Who are you? Why are you starting threads linking JKR'S name to a notorious racist? Why are you standing by a known Holocaust denier???

Can't wait to hear your response.

Are some of us antisemites then?

Because if so, sorry, my support for women's rights does not for one second mean I'm going to give those antisemites a free pass.

And if it does, you - then shame on you.