Ep 51: The Other 50%

In this week’s episode, we talk about how we often forget that Jewish leaders in the civil rights movement who are lauded today were not universally supported in their time. We often pretend their detractors did not exist, and yet, they are in fact still here in our communities pushing back against our current reckoning with racial justice. 

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:
www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-51

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

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Read more about Rabbi Morris Leiberman and the Gwynn Oak Amusement Park Protest here: https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/hundreds-protest-gwynn-oak-segregation/

Check out the Joyous Justice Program, Whiteness Havruta here:https://joyousjustice.com/whiteness-havruta

Share your thoughts with us here: https://joyousjustice.com/jews-talk-racial-justice-questions

Learn more about Rabbi Heschel's legacy and popularity here: https://momentmag.com/susannah-heschel-on-the-legacy-of-her-father-rabbi-abraham-joshua-heschel-and-the-civil-rights-movement/

Revisit Colin Kaepernick’s journey here: https://apnews.com/article/colin-kaepernick-american-protests-police-san-francisco-49ers-sports-general-f9bbe38b748072531b07713736409181

Transcript

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- There is a kind of amnesia The Jewish community experiences around the Civil Rights movement. We remember and celebrate those who were on the right side of history while erasing large numbers who stood in their way. Today, we talk about the why's, how's, and consequences of that amnesia- This is Jews talk racial justice with April and Tracie.- A weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker.- In a complex world, change takes courage.- Wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable.- So April there's this phenomenon that happens, that I think is kind of invisible that I know you have some thoughts about.- Yes, I have a lot of thoughts.- I'm gonna use an example from my home synagogue to help kind of make plain what it is we're talking about, and then we can delve in. So the man who was the rabbi at my home synagogue in the 1960s, Rabbi Morris Lieberman, was really known and is now is now lauded as being a civil rights rabbi. I'm putting quotes around that. And in fact, he was arrested at least once, maybe more than once, in efforts to desegregate a small amusement park here in Baltimore. And now the synagogue has this big tribute with like the newspaper article about the arrests framed on the wall in the synagogue building. And I grew up holding this man in high regard. Like he is kind of that that's who we are. That is who we are. We are like Morris Lieberman who was willing to get arrested for what was right. And over the past five, six years, I did a lot of research into that time period here in Baltimore. And it turns out that Rabbi Lieberman was in fact arrested, but they weren't hanging up framing the newspaper articles at the time, right? He lost a lot of congregants who resigned from the congregation because he had "debased" himself. I'm using air quotes again. And there were a lot of people that just did not approve of his activities in support of black civil rights. And it's that group. It's those folks who didn't approve who now we just pretend didn't exist that I think we really want to talk about because they're still around, right?- Yes.- They're still here.- Yeah, thank you for sharing a story. There are many, many, many stories that could be shared and I've been talking about this with you for a few weeks now, and I want us to make visible what I think operates largely invisibly, even just in the ways that we tell these stories, as you just alluded to with the story you shared about Rabbi Lieberman. Which is, I could talk about this intellectually, but I'm wanting to talk about it a little bit more viscerally. In almost the 20 years that I've been doing work around inclusion within the Jewish community on a number of subjects, but particularly racial justice and organizing Jews of color and working to bring it into the mainstream of Jewish life from the fringes and as unfortunate as it is that that much work was needed, it also feels just as an aside, but part of it sweet and pretty awesome to relatively early in my life have been part of moving something forward in a powerful way and watching where it was and where it's been and that's that perspective is just so helpful. But I notice in our work and I really want to speak to this, that, and some people have varying levels of awareness of this phenomenon of these dynamics that we're talking about from different angles. I want to bring in the Jew of color angle, which is from my specific vantage point, because for some Jews of color, depending upon their life experience, their appearance, the darkness of their skin, they still, to this day, haven't had the opportunity to have the kind of access and just certain spheres that I have. So I don't want to name it as a universal, but just rooted in my experience as a Jew of color is that I noticed that when an organization or a group of people within our community is making substantial progress, at times there's often an invisible force that keeps the group from being able to make good on its commitments for racial justice and for a lot of organizations throughout the Jewish community this can manifest in terms of pushback from members of lay leadership, from members of the board of directors. This can also be push back from members of a broader network of folks. And in our work at times we have covered a bit on the podcast and certainly in some of our programs like Whiteness Havruta, we delve more deeply into learning about white dominant or white supremacy culture or the patterns of white settler colonialism and how that has interacted and to become a part of elements of Jewish life in North America. And yeah, and so I don't know if I'm making this as follow-alongable as I would like, but what I'm trying to say is, is that I noticed that there, I've noticed recently in the last month or so that there is a familiar energy that I have encountered that it often comes from the side or from the back. To me there's a little bit of a lack of integrity with this dynamic. So just to paint the picture a little bit, progress is being made, good things are happening in a particular direction. At least that's how it shows up now. And then for some unknown reason at a meeting or as something is about to launch all of a sudden it's either canceled or there's been a shift in the narrative, suddenly, there's a lack of transparency and there's a regression or an abandonment of commitments that have been made. And my phrase for thinking about this right now that I've started talking with you about, Tracie, in the safety of our conversation is what I'm dubbing quote unquote, the other 50%, which is not a precise percentage, but is the other 50% and what I've been thinking about, because I often like to both analyze things deeply on a sociological level. and I also like to contextualize it within history. Why is a particular pattern showing up for us as individual for a person as well as for groups of people. And this is a groups of people sort of thing. This is not something that is universal. Again, another thing I'll regularly repeat. This is not universal that all people in our community do this, but I notice that at key moments where powerful decisions can be made or when even at times, it's when powerful decisions can be made or often when progress has already been made and it gets undone suddenly. And the pattern is that there's a lack of transparency and honesty, and the reasons that are given don't really make sense and they're often very hurtful to any number of people who have spent often years helping a community reach that point and it operates invisibly. And so what I want to do, and so I went on a mission recently, in the last few months, and this happens regularly in different ways and again, we often haven't spoken about it super directly, but it shows up in a number of the programs we lead with our program participants and the leaders with whom we work, where they are afraid of this push back, that may come, right? And so the way what I've done, this is the other 50%, and my thinking is, as I tried to make meaning of this, and if folks who are listening, if you have thoughts about this as a listener and as our friend, and you would like to send us a message about that, please feel free to visit our website, jewstalkracialjustice.com or joyousjustice.com/podcast, and share your thoughts with us because I'd love for us to be in dialogue about this. But the thought is is that there's a lot of talk in general. Still maybe you're listening and this isn't familiar, but likely it may be that there's a lot of conversation about how Jews were disproportionately represented in this civil rights movement, which yes, that's a part of the truth. And it's something that I am genuinely proud of. But what is also missed is that leaders like Rabbi Lieberman and Rabbi Heschel, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who is one of my favorites, were not as popular as they are now in retrospect. And in fact that different historians from Eric Goldstein to Mark Dollinger to various other historians discuss that roughly 50% of our community did not support the civil rights movement. And I want us to think about that rather than just focusing on the young adults and not so young adults and the clergy who were willing to be very courageous and step out in front when they didn't have buy-in. And when they didn't have support. Which is where we often focus. I want us to focus on this other 50% because I think the descendants and the thought descendants. So not necessarily literally biologically, but the thought patterns that kept that 50% from wanting to support the liberation of from supporting the liberation of black people and directly or indirectly supporting the oppression of people of color. And Tracie and I spoke about this in a prior conversation when I was initially speaking of this, that our sense is that likely that 50% was similar to the other 50%, where you had people who were proactively for, and in this case against, acting against and in solidarity with the oppression of people of color, to a range of people who arguably even a bulk of people who didn't support it for any number of reasons, likely fear being one of them, and didn't necessarily take tremendous action, although potentially they were still voting or doing other passive, not so passive consequential, passive, but consequential actions. So to say, so we don't want it to think of this group as a monolith, but to say in general, there were 50% who didn't support it and that energy is still present in boardrooms, in conversations, in leadership, in various circles, within our community and as I was thinking about it, initially, it feels a bit daunting to think about how to address this. And then I remembered what we and I teach in my trainings and programs about other learning about other different sociological patterns and dynamics is that there is a tremendous amount of action that does need to be taken. But actually the very first step that can be quite transformative is just starting to name and notice. And like the vision that I have in my mind is as if there are invisible arms or invisible people doing things, and obviously these folks aren't invisible, but their leadership or impact, or their influence often is invisible. And I have to say as a Jew of color, who does this work It feels a bit, I experienced it somewhat as gaslighting with the people with whom I worked directly because often people aren't forthright and I'm not stupid. So I can see that there has been a 180 turn. There's been an about face with something that often is tied to a huge body of work I've done. And so part of me wants us as a community of folks who care about justice and who love our people and all of our beauty and in all of our growing pains and less desirable dynamics that play out in our community. Like the vision I have is sort of like metaphorically throwing chalk on to these invisible arms and hands or dynamics and helping to make visible and have a see, ah, this is pulling that lever and various people would have different thoughts about what that means. But for me in my work, I find it's helpful just to notice when is that lever getting? I just to see it, it's not even fully, obviously I would like the undo from my perspective, potentially unjust, or just slightly disingenuous participation to be named and adjusted. Like if there's a voice that needs to be brought in, then let's bring that in. Or if you are hiring a Jew of color, which is another conversation we would love to have, because that really needs to take more work and forethought and preparation on the part of any organization or group that's hiring a Jew of color. But when you are, when I have been brought into an equation, it would be helpful. It would have been helpful for me to be made aware because these are additional dynamics that we may not encounter until farther in, but we'd like to make you aware, which in general is just a practice I believe in at times when I've worked with different people on teams with various dynamics. Everything that I was aware of, not an extensive detail, I would make sure this person knew this is an exciting team to join. Here is where this organization's growing edges are. This part is going to be hard and it's not for the faint of heart. This part is going to be thrilling, right? And giving them the chance. So I'll stop there because I think it's time for you to bring your voice back in Tracie. But I want to begin to talk about this just preliminarily, because I think there's more to unpack here and sort of how whiteness operates and less so, but how part of whiteness's power has been that for decades and even today in a lot of ways, it operates invisibly and it's quite powerful and transformative just to start to name and notice, because once we do that, then we have the power of choice and we can also take some time to notice how in fact something is operating and then decide, do we like that? What do we like about that? What do we not? I'm not saying that necessarily all of us is inherently evil, but there's something about the way this plays out that isn't okay to me. There are many in fact be if we were to have this conversation, these conversations in the light of day, there might be some things that are said, which is something that's been an ongoing truth for me in my personal conversations with confidantes has often been, I wish this person would have shared this with me because then that would have given me space to see if we could actually work together to figure something out. But from the place of exclusion there's nothing I can do. And I think in part, because of racism for both people of color and I also think at times for certain allies, there are ways that we get typecast and it's assumed that we might just really be gung-ho about something. And that just is disappointing to me, given that I think a marker of much of my career has been nuance and thoughtfulness. You were about to say something, Tracie.- I was gonna lift back up what you said about feeling as though you've been gaslit, because I think that I'm glad that you named that and I definitely think it's true, but I think it's also, it's also the case that the other 50%, at least some portion of them are gaslighting themselves and are not being fully truthful even with themselves. So I'm thinking back to the example that I started us off with and the way that my community kind of venerates Rabbi Lieberman, not that he isn't worthy of veneration, but there's this certain sense where we're like, yeah, we're good because Rabbi Lieberman and we don't. There's this like resting on our laurels.- And skipping over the accountability of having to reconcile. Skipping over a process of reconciliation of a number of our people in our community weren't always clear. History has now validated him and we're now in alignment and let's actually think about the people skip over that step, but I'm not sure if that's what you're going.- That's exactly what I mean by the gaslighting ourselves, because there's a certain degree to which we're like, well, Rabbi Lieberman who represented us was on the right side of history, therefore we are on the right side of history and like just erase all of that other stuff.- Yes, yes.- It's not an erasure. I don't believe it's a self-conscious, we're going to get rid of the ugly stuff. I think it's more, I think it is a more.- I suspect it was, but I think over time, it isn't now I'm sure there were certain folks.- For people my generation maybe. Yeah.- Yeah, I wonder if it was always, but I think at this point I do agree with you, but I think that there were likely key decisions or even people who occasionally question it and then just go with the flow of it's easier.- Maybe, but the reason that I'm not as convinced as you seem to be, is because of the way that being proven on the right side of history, it's not a thing that happens like that, right? It's not a thing that like in 1963, he gets arrested in 1965. They're like, yup, that was the right thing to do. It takes a lot longer. It takes after he's died in 1970, after Martin Luther king Jr. has been assassinated in 1968 it's years later that we realized oh right, he was totally okay.- But I want to be really careful about it. Cause there were folks who were in support. It's the people who were not who now in one way or another, and that's even now like I just want to, and I'm not, again, I don't have the data. I just want to add complexity, right? Because that, we, I think that there's some portion of that we who may still not agree.- Yeah, that's true.- And there's some portion about it who were like, okay, you know what that was on the right side of history. I just, I want to not, it gets glossed over.- It totally does. I think that process of people changing their minds, it happens over time. It's a cumulative effect. Like look at Colin Kaepernick today. There were those of us who from the moment he first knelt were like, right on, right? And there were others who were like, how dare you disrespect the flag.- And worse.- Right.- He received consequences.- And he did.- Yeah.- And as we move forward through history in the Western conception of time, I think it will become clearer to those who were like,"I don't know how I feel about that" that actually kneeling and using his position was it was the same sort of move as Rabbi Lieberman getting arrested as a clergy person, which today I think there are very few people who are members of my synagogue who would out loud say that that was the wrong choice. Anyway, where was I going with this? So what I ultimately, what I want it to boil back down to, we've talked about this before privately and on the podcast. And it bears repeating the part of the gaslighting that we do to ourselves is when we get stuck in that good, bad binary. And remove the nuance, the good, bad binary being good people are not racists. Racism is bad. Therefore racists are bad people.- Jews are good, therefore Jews cannot be racist.- all of the sort of consequential iterations of racist equals bad, therefore not racist or good equals not racist. And the fact of the matter is that racist because of the way that oppression works through systems and structures and culture, a person can be racist and anti-racist in the same hour and like minute by minute, because it's what we do. It's not who we are. And making that, pulling that apart, divorcing that binary from understanding of how racism works, I think is going to be essential to stopping the gaslighting of ourselves and of people who find themselves in positions that you are reflecting on, where you have felt gaslit, April.- Yeah and here's what I want to say is what's really coming to me, but maybe drawings to a close, but there's all kinds of permutations of this that we could, that we can, we could, and we will. I want us to be in further conversation around the different implications of this and how this shows up in different ways from interpersonal to institutional to different cultural dynamics, right? But what's really coming through in response to what you were just saying, Tracie, is we deserve better. As a people, we all deserve better than this. We deserve to have a holistic, compassionate, rigorous analysis of where we have been and where we are, because I'm not someone I want to be clear here what you were sharing was something that came to mind for me is that I'm not always someone, if we don't need to focus on negative things, then I am happy not to do it, right? It's not that if not everything goes perfectly We need to debrief everything and pull out all the negatives. That's not what I'm saying here. What I'm saying is this is still something that's showing up now and its roots go back generations and decades. And I think actually surfacing that and also even going deeper and saying what here is about power and greed. What here is about unhealed collective trauma. What here is about somewhere in between what here is about just sheer terror and fear from the current climate of antisemitism or in the aftermath of things like the unjust antisemitic Rosenberg executions, right? Like I want us to look at this and to connect the different pieces and to have deep self-awareness and understanding because this is hurtful and it damages relationships, it damages potential coalitions, and it doesn't have to be this way. We deserve better. And I think we have an opportunity to figure this out together and to start to name and discuss some of these trends openly and to understand why they happen. I can't remember if it was with you or when I was talking about this with my mother, because I've had these and to be very clear here, if it wasn't already, what Tracie and I are talking about is not universal, but it's also very common and it shows up in a lot of different ways. So if anyone's thinking like, oh, is April talking about this person or this organization or this group. It's something that affects most of our groups in different ways.- I can think of at least two, maybe three examples in my own life in the past couple of years that fit this pattern.- So I can. I can think of well over a couple dozen, in terms of, in my personal sphere there are a number of, then I've been worked with a number of different organizations or watching and tracking. It's very, and that's close proximity, that's not talking about broader scope. This is about a pattern, the dynamics that I see playing out in our community and I think it endangers. I think nothing ever, I want to be very clear here and I've decided because I could have gotten closer to that line and I want to name here because as I've gone in deep around this conversation, I needed to remind myself and be clear and just hold in my mind And write as I was doing written reflection like antisemitism is dehumanization directed at Jews and that is never justified. And to me, I don't want to get into great depth about it right now, but I think that that is a variable in this dynamic. There's a relationship here where there is some tough conversations we need to have internally as a community courageously and compassionately with ourselves and have a very clear hard line of what can cross over into antisemitism, but being able to do our, to use like sort of a metaphysical word to help hopefully kind of soften it. We need to do some of our shadow work as a community. I want us to talk about it. I want us to talk about it with love and courage and be very clear that even hypothetically, and we actually know of some different folks in groups who are explicitly hatemongering, that no one in our community deserves dehumanization or mistreatment. And so we're not talking about that. And I think because of that and because of our middle agent role, it makes things a little bit complicated. But we are a brilliant, wonderful people who have the capacity to mindfully discuss complicated dynamics. We deserve to be whole and healed, accountable, courageous, and discerning Jewish leaders in this world. A number of which we have many of us who already are that, and this dynamic, I see consistently undermining different facets of our community. So I want us to start to build up a body of work around this and the last piece I want to say, that's a little bit going back a little bit is that, there's a similar sort of conversation that happens in the United States where there are photos of white people attending lynchings and the like, and there's a number of people who say, y'all realize those people's grandkids and great-grandkids are alive right now. And a number of them, may be in office, right? And essentially, not to that extreme, I want us to be in conversation in our own smaller internally within our community about similar sorts of things. And just to be clear there's ways in which I am explicitly looking into advanced justice. And there's also things that I am truly throughout all of this, actually, this is not, my justice work does not preclude this, coming with an open heart. I am willing to learn. I am willing to open the closet, shed light on some things. And I am willing to hear things that may shift my perspective a bit. But I want to bring these things into the light of day because we deserve that. We deserved that within our community and racial justice work needs for us as an important influential group that sits at the intersection of different dynamics to have profound, compassionate, and rigorous self-awareness about ourselves so that as we do our own work, we better more deeply understand what's happening in the world around us and are equipped to be the powerful change agents that we have been and that more of us can be, and that we can continue to lean into and become even more accountable and powerful and Jewishly awesome. With time.- In this month of Elul, the thing that occurs to me that really resonates with what you're saying is the concept of Heshbon Hanefesh, the accounting of the soul.- Thank you.- Right?- To me that's what you are describing right now and just as individuals, we don't think we can be, yeah we're good. I was good, I was good last year, thanks. I mean, it's not Santa, right? It's not a naughty and nice list. It really is about.- There are some unhelpful hurtful dynamics that are operating in our community and I want us to gently look at this and figure out what we can do to counter this in loving just ways.- And that's exactly what Heshbon Hanefesh is for, right? It's not to condemn us, the person doing the accounting, it really is about figuring out what needs work, what's going well, so that we can strengthen the strengths. And what's not so that we can work on it. That's what Musar, Jewish ethics is all about.- Work on it and again, and I really, for me anyway, I want us to practice profound. I want to use often, like mindfulness as someone who's also a practitioner of Buddhism, but there's a word that I want. Zehirut, illuminated awareness, yeah. So there's two words here in the first word I was thinking is hitlamdut, but that's not quite the right word, but you were just mentioning Tracie that that.- Right, hitlamdut is the self-reflexive version. The same verb has the same root as like teaching and learning, so it's a really a self introspection.- Perfect. So I want us to have self introspection as well as zehirut, right? Which can mean sort of like avid watchfulness, or I'm noticing that Kohenet, I adore, on her website, Devotaj, that she refers to it as illuminated awareness.- Nice.- Watchfulness of right. And this is what I am referring to here. So I am not talking about us hunting or, what are the different, more gentler, swarming or attack or violence, but no, I want us to peacefully and lovingly bring a disciplined attention.- Yeah, self-reflection and illuminated, what was it? Zehirut.- Awareness. Zehirut, it's often described as just watchfulness, right? And that's from Kohennet Ketzirah's website, devotaj.com is where I got that.- I wonder if it's on the same route as zohar. Sounds like it.- Yeah. That's actually a good right. And so I don't know, but that would make sense because they can share the same root. Right. And so that to me is actually that is a whole body of work. Right. I, people like all people are all peoples are beautiful people and I believe a lot of these dynamics are misguided. They're hurting people and communities and relationships and trust internally and externally. And so, yeah. Elul is a wonderful time and the Haggim, the high holidays are a really good time for us to start to like how Brene Brown talks about shame that if it's like how Brene' Brown talks about shame that if it's And I think a lot of it would potentially have a dynamic like how Brene' Brown talks about shame that if it's Some of this, these dynamics can dissolve in that isolation is countered by solidarity. Some of this, these dynamics can dissolve and some of them may be old hurt and the need for healing. You know, again, I don't want to, and some of it might be a bad character trait, but I don't think it's a lot of that, but it is playing out in ways that still hurt. Right. You know, intent versus impact. I don't necessarily think a lot of this is rooted in bad intent, and yet it's having a devastating and will have, if this is not resolved, because right now there's a wave of rising Jewish leaders of color and white Jewish allies who are stepping up and engaging. And what I want to say as someone who's been on this path now for almost two decades, is this is the dynamic that it takes a few years of being deep in this work before it shows up. And there may be times when I hope there are different people who are listening to this, but have been doing the work for a long time and I've never encountered this dynamic, but I think it's relatively rare. So I want us to start working on it now because it is devastating. And a number of people end up leaving our community or discontinuing working with our community because it's that hurtful when it plays out in different ways. And as I said a bit earlier, I just, I believe that we all, we all deserve better and we need to find ways to work through this.- Thanks for tuning in. Our show's theme music was composed by Elliot Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram at Elliot Hammer. 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 suggestion, access our show notes and learn more about our team. Take care until next time and stay humble and keep going.