[ibarw]"What is this symmetry you speak of?"

[eumelia]

Last year I only read entries that were written as part of ibarw and didn't participate in debate, meta-reading or discussion.
Mainly because I didn't feel I had much to add.

Re-reading some of the entries from last year and trying to sponge some inspiration I've come to the conclusion that I didn't feel I have much to add, nor do I feel I have much to add to anti-racist discourse, is because I'm a member of an Oppressing and Occupying population and class.

It is common in certain types of papers to establish the various identities of the author so that one reading may know through what prism they are going to receiving this information.
On the interwebs I've seen this being called unloading the privilege knapsack.
Here goes: I am White, Upwardly Mobile and Cisgendered*.

Those three identifiers place me smack in the middle of the Oppressing population and class. The fact that I am Feminist, Queer and a Woman do little to negate those big three.

I hear in my head the voices of my family telling me that I'm not "just White".
I'm Jewish too.
Meaning that my "White" is of the Eastern-European variety, Litvak** to be precise. Or just plain Ashkenaz - which means Germany. Yes it is complicated.
More than that.
I'm a Jewish Israeli.
Meaning that my White Ashkenazi Peachy Ass is a member of an Occupying population and class.
If you don't know which People, "My" People are Occupying - please educate yourself.

As a Jewish Israeli, being born and living in Israel my whole life (up to and including now) I have never experienced racism or Antisemitism of any kind. I've never been called "Jewish-[slur]" in my life. I've heard the word "Kyke" in theoretical discussion only.

Despite being a member of an international minority (one wouldn't guess that Jews make up only 0.2% of the world's population), I have lived my entire life as a majority population.
What could I possibly add to anti-racist discourse besides to shut up, listen/read and learn.

Which is what I've been doing for the past two years, which was when I began unpacking my invisible knapsack.

A year ago I was too shy to write anything on this subject, because I had it in my mind that by bringing up race and ethnicity one would be looked at as being gauche.
*Shhhhhh* "Don't mention race! It's rude"

Now that silence suffocates me.

And I've had it up to fucking *here* with the education system hijacking the Holocaust and making it about how we, the Jews, transformed from the Untermensch, to the Ubermensch.
That now that Jews have a "Homeland" we are now safe from another genocide. While at the same time ethnically cleansing (and there really isn't any other term for what we're doing in the Occupied Territories) another people. I mean, you could say that everything being done there is for security and everything bad that happens is happening because they're resisting all the Good Things in the Territories - like Universities! Which in order to actually study at those oh so privileged institutes of knowledge students need to cross at least one check-point barrier.
These are Palestinians, by the way, in case one didn't realise.

But let's not talk about what goes on to people who aren't citizens of anywhere.

Non-Jews have it good in Israel. They have the right to study wherever they want, live wherever they want, date whoever they want - marriage... weeeeeel, that's a bit of an issue, see in these here parts a Jew can only marry a Jew, a Muslim can only marry a Muslim and a Christian can only marry Christian.
By the way, the fact that non-Jews, and I'm talking Arabs, Beduins, Druze and others which I hope will forgive me for not mentioning, have the right to do everything I've mentioned doesn't mean it happens.
Jewish landlords don't like renting to Arabs.
You never know what terrorist cell or explosives lab they may start in that nice one bedroom shit-hole.

Racism isn't racially prejudicial law, it is also, but laws can be changed and re-interpreted much more easily that in it is to change to attitude of dehumanization that goes on in my country.
Racism is seeing a hijab and thinking "poor girl".
Racism is hearing Arabic being spoken and thinking "what are they planning?"
Racism is thinking "Honour Killings" are an "internal" "tribal" thing.
Racism is graffiti in Hebrew saying "!ערבים החוצה"-"Arabs Out!" (does nobody think "Juden Raus!"="Jews Out!").

I can hear it now. The counter and reactionary arguments. "Aren't you being one-sided?", "What about some symmetry?".
I can't be one-sided. I'm Israeli, everything I look at is coloured by where I stand.
And what is this symmetry you speak of?
Please, I would like to know what "the balanced" picture of a country occupying people looks like.
Enlighten me, educate me, I want to know.

But don't you fucking dare tell me to shut up.

More to come, time and studies permitting.

Notes
*Someone whose gender identity has only ever been experienced as physically and mentally aligned, that is to say, not transgendered.

**Mainly Lithuanian, Latvian, Ukrainian and other Slavik Jews that aren't Russian, Polish and Romanian (I don't know what makes the distinction, only that it exists).

Comments

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

Excellent post.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Thanks!