Ep 8: Oppression Olympics, Intergenerational Trauma, and Shared Liberation

Even more than other episodes, you'll find yourself eavesdropping on this conversation. April and Tracie unpack the deep and intergenerational effects of shared trauma and oppression, and the ways either/or and hierarchical thinking can get in the way of healing.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice.
Learn about Tracie at TracieGuyDecker.com and read more of her thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources mentioned:
adrienne maree brown
Deray McKesson
Joy DeGruy

Transcript

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- [April] And what you were saying was so good that I just, I started recording.(both laughing) This is "Jews Talk Racial Justice," with April and Tracie.- [Tracie] A weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker.- [April] In a complex world, change takes courage.- Wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable. I feel like there's this sense that we have as Jews that because of the Shoah, therefore, we win the Oppression Olympics. And like, don't you dare try to compare what you've gone through to what we went through. Which feels so, I mean talk about about a scarcity mindset. Right? (laughs) I mean like, that's really just messed up. And I think it puts us into the wrong place, often, when we do, I mean, when we do try to think more broadly about systemic oppression. When I first started on this self-conscious, anti-racism journey and I ended up talking to somebody at my synagogue, and I was really talking about how coming to grips with white privilege and coming to grips with the fact that I have benefits that my neighbors of color don't have. And he was like, "Look, I'm sorry,"you're talking to a guy who's had his ass handed to him"so many times because he was Jewish." And I was like, what does that have to do with what we're talking about? Does that mean that you can't have benefited from white skin privilege, because you also suffered from antisemitism? Like?- Right. It's not either/or.- And again, it's that either/or, right, right. I mean, there it is again, there's that white supremacy-- They're both/and. Right.- And I think it ties into what you're saying about, sort of the need to like show it off. Right? Like, look at this horrible thing that happened at my synagogue, look at this.- Hi, see us! See us! This invisible, you know, like it's... And what you were saying was so good, that I just, I started recording.(both laughing) It was so good, so. So to get people caught up. (laughs) You know, like I... I was talking about this, it's sort of a sensitive subject, but here, we're actually talking about some metaphysical principles that I'm into and you had a phrase and that you use, what was your phrase?- I always tell myself and others that we need to move toward what we want and not away from what we're afraid of.- Exactly, exactly. Right, and the spiritual principle that I've been taught is that when you focus on grows. I learned this in a mystical context and also, I was so thrilled when I heard Adrienne Maree Brown also specifically use that phrasing. And I noticed that there's a pattern among Jews, at times, that bothers me, and I agree with the sentiment, but the basic principle as it relates to fighting anti-Jewish oppression in my mind is that it's like the example of what you focus on grows and that you should move toward what you want, and not focus on moving away from what you don't want, is that by, when antisemitism arises, or what other things to deal with, and this may not always, always be the case, but I believe more so than not, it is, that it's better to focus on amplifying what is good about Jews and how Jews are just like everyone else, and there are specific ways that we, basically just educating people about the universal, like universal experiences that Jews share with all other folks, as well as sharing different challenges, or cultural specifics and forms of oppression that we face and informing people about our humanity, that it's both distinctive and often shared with other other groups. And instead, I notice moreso than I notice within the Black community, like there's sensitivity in the Black community around if there's a shooting or something, to not actually show images of Black death, and that that is deeply disturbing and re-traumatizing, whereas I notice, when there are moments of, when there are acts of, not moments, but acts of antisemitism that arise, in different communities, it really bothers me because as someone who notices these patterns, because I noticed that my, at times, occasionally, my timeline on Facebook or on social media, has been filled with all of these swastikas and antisemitic images, and it's not, and it's not white supremacists who are posting this. It's Jews who are aiming to bring visibility. But I think it's the wrong kind of visibility because I think without realizing it, some of my folks are unintentionally amplifying the hatred and something that could have been contained. So I just, I think that we can get more savvy in our strategy, in supporting a local community. I come from a community where a synagogue was firebombed in Sacramento during my childhood. And like, to this day, I'm very careful about suspicious mail because as a kid, as a religious school aid and eventual teacher, in high school, as a kid, like we had to be very sensitive about the suspicious packages in Northern California and how kids were getting home, which is a thing in general, but there was just like an extra layer of security and nervousness, right? And so I viscerally feel a sense of connection to those real concerns. And so it's all the more, so I think, ideally, at times, when these things happen, it would be really smart for us to find ways to support that community without further amplifying the bigotry and antisemitism that we're being targeted that we're being targeted by and instead lifting up and educating and reaching for relationship. I think in part what's challenging about that is, is that because of the collective trauma that many white Ashkenazi Jews, in particular, but also Jews of other ethnic backgrounds, too. But that, specifically, that Ashkenazi Jews have faced, trust can be a hard thing after a millennia of being, having trust broken in different countries and in different communities, but that is what we need to lean into and actually decide that actually, that we do have a lot of allies or potential allies and let's reach for them and lift up our humanity and reach for relationship rather than... Going for visibility, and actually just giving more visibility to the hate. What's interesting for me is that I think part of that is rooted, like, as you were talking earlier, part of it is also, I think part of the, so what's the, not trigger, the reflex response to do that, I think is, in part, which I do understand, but again, I think it's not the right strategy is around Jews trying to contradict the invisibility of antisemitism and also the invisibility of Jewish pain. You know, there's this, and it's so interesting,'cause I aim to have these bite-sized episodes that are digestible for folks. So we're talking about this thing, this whole-- Not digestible, yeah.- Like whole, years of study, like enormous volumes of work, but, but what I'm trying to say is that I think, also, related, as someone who consistently brings a trauma-informed lens to all the work I do, is I think also lifting it up is trying to say to the world, I'm a part of the people who have been hurt and targeted, and I want that to be known. And I think part of that comes up, specifically in an American context, because in general, American society has been very selective about what it wants to make visible. It's been open to making the Holocaust visible, but not really open to there being open critique or complaint about antisemitism within American society in a meaningful way. It's more like you're welcome. We eventually, after letting millions of you die, we eventually saved you, and now, just fall in line. And just in case you were unclear about that, we're going to pretty unjustly execute two Jews during the Red Scare, and we're gonna do these, give these subliminal messages that indicate that you're lucky to be here, but don't push it. And I think, ultimately, to cut to the chase, it's gonna take courage and organization and alliances across lines of difference and solidarity, but we actually do need to push it, because that same oppression is tied, so that is white supremacy. That is-- Exactly.- Tied to the racism, right? It's all, right, and Jews are, and so, instead of actually facing that, I think, at times, some of us end up just actually amplifying the bigotry.- Well, no, exactly. And we fall into that white supremacy culture that either/or again, and I wanna give credit,'cause I didn't put these words together in this way the first time. DeRay Mckesson is the one who said that our liberation is, or our oppression is linked and not ranked, those two words. Anyway, but I think that's exactly what you're saying is that we're, you know, we focus so much on our own trauma and then it becomes, and then we fall into the white supremacy culture of either/or and scarcity that we say, if we're talking about our trauma, there's no room to talk about your trauma. When, in fact, they are intimately related. The same systems that cause trauma of Jews through systemic antisemitism cause trauma of Black folks through systemic anti-Black racism.- [April] Right.- And once we recognize that they are actually intimately linked and that we can, by fighting one, we're fighting both, and that there's, you know, there's an abundance of room to fight that trauma, that I think we can actually start to maybe move the needle.- Right, exactly.- [Tracie] I have to believe that. I have to believe that we can.- Me too, me too. I can't see any way that it's not, any way that it wouldn't. I think, I mean, for me, interesting, you said, DeRay Mckesson said, linked, not ranked, right? And like the nuance of that is I think, overall, I agree with that. I think, in some ways,'cause I hear this a lot, like there's no hierarchy, and some of us actually think they're... One, that I agree with the linked, I like that, that they're linked and not ranked, and in some ways I think there are some hierarchies, but ultimately, I think it all pans out, but around certain, like if you get into the nuances of different things and the natures of, the nature of the trauma, I think, ultimately, in the wash it all, what am I trying to say here? I need to get this right,'cause it's not talked about often. But just basically I think there's just a lot, one, ideally, with others, that there needs to be a lot more education. But I think when people make those kinds of statements where they do really rank, it's actually because they're not actually informed about American chattel slavery, or they're actually informed about not only in the Holocaust, but about thousands-- [Tracie] Right.- Of years, about the dozens and dozens of countries Jews have been expelled from, have been murdered in, have been ghettoized within for a very long time. Right? And so-- That's right.- So it's more that I just, (sighing) oh, there's so much I wanna say here. And so I'm not saying anything,'cause there's so many things I wanna say, but like, you know, even if you just look at the, like that people think, people think, look at forms of antisemitism now, but you need to, in general, take a longer view and a more holistic view of all of these things. And that, as I mentioned a ton of times,(laughs) as Dr. Joy DeGruy talks about in the context of slavery, and I extend that to the Holocaust and other forms of collective trauma, it's not like a group of social workers came in and said,"Wow, that was really horrific,"but we need to get you help"because you developed all of these dysfunctional patterns"that actually were really smart in the context"of the oppression you were navigating,"but aren't going to be so helpful."- Right, they don't serve you anymore.- Regular life, like anxiety, like terror, like not trusting, that actually makes perfect sense. That's, to me, some of the challenges, in certain ways around some of the ways that mental health gets framed, is there are certain things that literally are mental health, and there are actually things that sociologically, in terms of social psychology, are actually totally healthy responses to unhealthy, dysfunctional forms of oppression and are collective patterns that whole groups of people develop, that aren't necessarily illnesses. And sometimes they end up getting classified as illnesses, but they're varying forms of collective post-traumatic stress disorder. And so, at times, people think Jews are overreacting or Black people are overreacting.- [Tracie] Right.- It's like, if you actually held the whole picture, you would actually notice that each of these groups, respectively, are pretty miraculous in how well, in how amazingly well they do, despite these horrific traumas that have happened. They've received, where there was almost no one who came in and helped them, or they eventually came in, but that after profound intergenerational trauma, was inflicted and not much help, and often the antisemitism or racism continuing, after slavery, after the Holocaust, and yet still. And so, that's the thing that I often desire when these issues come up or when people want to rank things, is that I just want people to stop this either/or battle and this conditioning that we have that keeps us all locked, and move more into a both/and.- My grandmother had this saying that I really want, it's like coming up in my head right now.- I was just gonna talk about my friend's grandmother.- [Tracie] It's so funny.- [April] I wanna hear your story. It's really interesting.- So actually, I think it was my great-grandmother, originally who said this, so, but it's been passed down through generations of women in my house where they say, if I cut my finger and you cut off your leg or you lose your leg, my finger still hurts. And I think it's a really, like, it's important that we have perspective. And I think that I'm getting at this based on some of what you were saying about hierarchy and about the intergenerational trauma, et cetera. Perspective is important, but not to the point of denying or invalidating the pain of the other or of yourself, I think, 'cause people do it both, in both ways.- Right, right, and so, like, you know what I would like? I think yes, absolutely, and then, I'm like, and actually, but also, getting your finger cut, like yeah, that hurts, but that actually isn't the same as not have a leg.- Not the same at all. But that doesn't mean, yeah, absolutely. So that you have to have the perspective and be grateful and recognize what blessings you have, and there's still pain there.- And to me actually, but again, like what I would add to that, though, because it's, I don't know, was that... Because, to me, in that story, what I'm also saying is I think that oftentimes, Jews may say something like that, like this still hurts, but actually, what they're saying, that's different than say, a Christian counterpart, is actually, without even them being aware of it, they're actually saying this hurts in part because it triggers all these other time where my people have shed blood and died, and there actually hasn't been sufficient justice. There was some truth and reconciliation that was very important in Germany, but actually there are literally, like at some point, maybe we'll actually go through it. I remember I was once at a training where it spanned this huge multipurpose room, all, like countries I didn't even know, like even in my Jewish upbringing, they never actually showed an exhaustive list, probably because it might've been triggering or scary and overwhelming. And when I saw one, I didn't even know if that was complete, countries that I didn't even know had Jews live in them at one point had murdered or expelled, right? And so like, that is, to me also what I'm saying, because like the Black part of me is like, yeah, but actually they're missing their leg. But part of the point is that also, it's almost as if you can project Black folks, like, let's say things start to be more just for Black folks, which, right now, everybody would agree that they're nowhere near that, right? But then like if you project out 500 years and there was actually no intervention, healing intervention, they would still be carrying, they would still be carrying in their bones and likely, in part, because of genetics, DNA, that unresolved terror and trauma, right? And so to me, that is implied in that statement.'Cause actually, like actually, and the broader oppression in society, but actually, like a paper cut actually isn't that bad.- Right.- Compared to losing a leg. But it actually, the subtext of that, that they don't, haven't been given, conditioned, the space to feel safe enough to say is, yeah, my finger still hurts, and I mourn the fact that half of my family's legacy is gone, and that I don't feel safe to be fully me, and that I actually come, just making things up, I come from a line of Yiddish communists and/or Jews who were amazing social justice leaders, who had to go into hiding around that, and straightened their hair, and all these different ways that Jews, white Ashkenazi Jews were subtly stripped of their identity and so, I think that that explains part of that ferocity around that competition. It's a misplaced, self-advocacy for what has, the harm that has been done, and some of the self-agency that has been stripped away, and what I would say, rather radically, is with education, and support and courage, it actually is possible to reclaim your identity in an anti-racist, Jewishly proud manner, and also, acknowledge other communities' pains, and the specificity of it. What's similar and what's different.- Right.- I think maybe we can wrap up this episode. And I think it's kind of cool that we just dove in, that's the shows, 'cause it's like, we're doing it again, we're having this conversation that I want, so let's do a quick recording, and go for it, is, and I may share it again,'cause it's worth retelling, a friend of mine is a Jew from Germany, and she was raised in Germany. I would say her name, but I know she wants, she's scheduled to be on the podcast, and I'll never forget this conversation that I had with her grandmother. I wish, it was one of those where you wish there was a camera or something, but it's etched in my heart, where there were dancers on TV, maybe, I can't even remember, I can't, the story's a little blurry now. I can't remember if it was the actual Alvin Ailey,"Wade in the Water" scene, and my friend told me that she shared... Before I brought it up with her grandmother again, when she was studying Black dance at university with me, at Tufts, and she explained,'cause she'd learned in college, she explained to her grandmother that "Wade in the Water" was one of the songs that was used as a way of subtly giving instructions to help formerly enslaved Black folks get out of slavery to freedom, and she said that her... That's right, 'cause she told me this, and then she shared it with me, and then later, we brought it up with her grandmother over tea at her grandmother's house. And I believe her grandmother's Lithuanian, and anyways, so my friend shared with me, when she told her grandmother that story, her grandmother started to cry. And said, "Why didn't we think of that?" And you know, and my friend said, it's hard not to say her name, you know, and I said, and I asked her if it was okay if I brought that up with her grandmother, and she said it was, and I said, you know, it was different. The oppression was different. Slavery was slow and long, and Black people were enslaved for hundreds of years. They fought it all along and tried to escape, but it took them decades and hundreds of years to figure out how to do that code, whereas the Holocaust was fast, right, and some Black folks, and in some ways, I agree, think of American chattel slavery as, talk about it as a Black Holocaust. I don't like to literally use that language, but there's a way in which, I think, at times, anyways, we had this whole conversation with her for a few poignant minutes, and about, and we talked about how they aren't that different, that they have different distinct, and so, I shared with her, I hope you know, no group of people could think, could come up with something that smart with no notice. And it just, it felt so sweet to me, and I wanted to cherish that moment forever, as someone, you know, talking with someone who was a Holocaust survivor, and hearing us both say, as someone who's deeply steeped in both narratives, obviously, she was more steeped in the Holocaust narrative, as someone who lived it, I just wanna be clear about that, but I said to her that it was just different. But it was more similar, but she agreed, that it was more similar than different. The difference, to me, in my mind, because lives were extinguished, and a whole generation of lives were cut off, which also did happen in slavery. The difference for me was that they decided, it was more in their economic interest to keep us alive.- Right.- Have us work until we were dead, just extended the window, which is still not exactly the same, but I think, but as someone who's spent a lot of, do you see, but it was just like-- [Tracie] I do.- More or less work camp, because they realized that they could make more profit, and build a whole country off the backs of my ancestors. And so, I think, in a future episode.(musical alarm resounding) We should probably wrap up, and it's the call to prayer now. But we should probably wrap up. In a future episode, I was recently talking with my mom that I'd like to come to back to is some of the dynamics around, maybe we can have a guest talk about this, about these little distinctions, because I notice a pattern, and I'll just leave it here. This is a teaser for a future episode, but that people who, and again, speaking generally, and this is not universal, but I often find that the people who are Holocaust survivors have an easier time connecting with Black Lives Matter and the stories of liberation and for the subsequent generations, it's different. It's not quite the same, but with actual Holocaust survivors, and we've seen the stories of them going to the actions and involved, and to be clear, there are also, their descendants who are also, many of whom are involved in actions and organizing things, but there's more to say there, and I think we're probably at time, so. (sighs) Is there anything else you wanna say, Tracie, before we wrap up?- No. I don't think so. Thank you, April.- Yeah, there are often action items, but I feel like this was, it was just a lot in here to unpack and consider. So as a followup action, I would just invite our awesome listeners to share this with someone you know, either the actual episode itself, or your summary of a component of it, and dialogue about it, tell people about it.- Yeah, yeah.- All right. All right, well, we'll catch you next week. Much love! Thanks for tuning in. Our show's theme music was composed by Elliot Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram @elliothammer. If this episode resonated with you, please share it, and subscribe. To join the conversation, visit jewstalkracialjustice.com, where you can send us a question, or a suggestion, access our show notes, and learn more about our team. Take care until next time, and stay humble and keep going.