I imagine a lot of the protest supporters also supported Corbyn when he was Labour leader. For clarity I support the protest but I didn't support Corbyn. It was regularly said that he was a lifelong anti-racist which may be true in some contexts but he certainly had antisemitic views which was why I couldn't support him. I didnt get this from the media, I actually voted for him in the leadership election. Then I heard about the antisemitism accusations and so I did a lot of research including reading old articles he's written etc and came to my own conclusions. Whatever you think of that, it's undeniable he presided over the party during a time of enormous amounts of antisemitism too.
Which brings me to why I find it hard to see how people reconcile both supporting him and supporting the protests. I've seen a lot on here about how the protests are about a group being systemically oppressed, being unjustly prejudiced against, and crucially that people who say they have experienced racism need to be believed, their experiences matter and their feelings are valid. All great. Yet arguably you can make all the same arguments about Jewish people. As a group they have been oppressed, brutalised and murdered for hundreds and hundreds of years. Nazism may be the most famous and awful example but Jewish people experienced regular pogroms and massacres throughout the world for years before that.
Before anyone suggests it, I'm not arguing one group is more victimised than the other, at all. I'm saying we have two groups who have experienced enormous injustice based on immutable characteristics ('those of Jewish heeitage are targeted as much as practicing Jews hence immutable) who I would argue should both be believed and supported when they name their experiences. Yet when the British Jewish community raised their concerns about Corbyn et al, they were disbelieved, ridiculed, accused of smears etc.
Why are one group rightly believed and supported by the majority (with a minority of people called out for their lack of understanding) when the other group were disbelieved and not supported by the majority? If you support both how do you reconcile it for yourself? I don't see how it's anything other than hypocritical to ignore the legitimate grievances of the Jewish community while being able to understand and support the grievances of the BAME community. I'm glad people are taking the protests seriously but it seems to be that all oppressed minorities should be heard - this did not happen when Corbyn was leader and many good people were willing to look the other way.