Chesler Chronicles

April 1st, 2008 11:51 am

A Letter to Alice Walker in Response to her Pro-Obama Article

Dear Alice:

Hello old friend. As you know, I have loved your writings, (I still do), both your novels and your poems and above all, your golden success. You also once blessed me personally back when you alone chose to believe my allegations of rape at the hands of a black “brother” and you reached out to me privately when our white feminist sisters did not do so. You were there for me. You told me to tell the truth, that nothing else mattered as much.

Therefore, I will honor and “hear” you even if–especially if–we disagree on particular subjects. You believe that Barack Obama can somehow save our country. You are moved by his oratory and character. I am bowed beneath the weight of tribal sorrows and fear for our country and our world no matter who becomes the next American President.

But Alice: In your piece,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/01/barackobama.uselections2008 why oh why do you single out Israel as a wrong-doer and not Saudi Arabia? Israel but not the ethnic Arab Muslims of Sudan who are perpetrating genocide against black African Muslims and black Christians and who are mass raping black African girls and women? Israel and not Rwanda; Israel and not Iran, Libya, Algeria, Afghanistan, China, or North Korea, for their grieivous crimes against humanity? Why, Alice, why? You have got to know that anti-Semitism is also racism. Indeed, today, anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism and this pains me as much as the white racism and sexism of our feminist sisters once pained us both.

Reverend Martin Luther King’s oratory and nobility also thrilled me. I was part of the Northern Student Movement. I volunteered in Harlem. I quickly ran into a rank, thuggish, increasingly criminal style of sexism against women, both white and black, and it drove me out of the civil rights movement at that time. It was becoming a movement that increasingly despised white volunteers, Jewish volunteers, and one in which black men viewed white women mainly as sexual prey.

Alice: We each have scars that ache when it rains.

I pray that you consider re-considering the ease with which you reflexively scapegoat Israel for the crimes of so many rogue nations.
And if you do, perhaps you might set an example for Obama who perhaps became accustomed to a Jew-blaming culture in his Chicago Church.

Yours in struggle,
Phyllis

P.S. Do you really think our imperfect America is as bad as most other imperfect countries? And Cuba? It is a totalitarian prison camp which has persecuted its own, including artists, politicals, homosexuals. Are you so charmed by Castro’s dancing that you have forgotten all this?

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33 Comments

1. Virginia Ray:

Alice Walker seems to have forgot the white women who worked in the southern civil right’s movement and were beaten and murdered to free her people for the good of all. It is very bitter. What is the lesson for me as a white woman?

30 years from now will the white girls who can’t wait to vote for BO say, I wish I had not thrown my life away for people who forgot, call all my sisters the enemy, step over dead bodies and on my back on their way up.

Alice Walker : I am now going to lump all black women into one angry, hateful face as you have done to white women. No, I cannot because of the brave, black women standing with Hillary. They have saved me from becoming like you. And also because I am better than you despite your beautiful writing.

I am no longer giving black racism a pass though. From now on I am holding blacks to the same standards they hold whites.

Apr 1, 2008 - 1:31 pm 2. George Jochnowitz:

You’re right to say that anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism, Phyllis. In fact, anti-Zionism is more open about killing Jews than Hitler was in the years before World War II. The New York Times, in a front-page article on April 1, 2008, cites a Hamas legislator, Yunus al-Astal, as saying that a Koranic verse tells us “suffering by fire is the Jews’ destiny in this world and the next.” Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, is cited in a New York Sun editorial on April 20, 2005, as saying Jews should all move to Israel: “If they all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” And in an op-ed in the Sun on March 14, 2005, Pranay Gupte says that Nasrallah spits on the sidewalk after saying the Arabic word for “Jews.” We are not told what he does when he is indoors.

Apr 1, 2008 - 2:08 pm 3. Norman Simms:

It is so sad, Phyllis, when we see, one after the other, our friends, our mentors, our respected elders, enter that trance state of self-hatred–in which, alas, the “self” they hate most is the image of ourselves, the Jew, the Zionist Israeli, the western liberal as she or he was in the not so distant past. Now Alice Walker too. The pity of it!

There was once a saying that defined the Jew as the only one who knew that the rest of the world was wrong, and therefore the Jew was always distrustful of her or his own judgment, guilty and grief-stricken for being on the outside, but determined to stick to the truth that was confirmed every time the Torah and the Talmud were studied. It is no joke. If only…

Apr 1, 2008 - 2:16 pm 4. Nancy Kobrin, Ph.D.:

I feel compelled to comment on your important message Phyllis and I hope Alice reads this comment too. It is too easy for Israel to always be at the eye of the storm. I understand how Alice the feminist par excellence blames Israel because Obama has been shamed publicly by his own devices. Alice colludes with Obama and hooks into his grandiosity and omnipotence as the next savior who has built his kingdom on the backs of Jews vis a vis having consciously chosen to fully participate in a church that hates. I believe, however, that Alice Walker doesn’t get passive aggressive behavior because that is what we have in Obama. Passive aggressive behavior is the hardest to nip in the bud and its viciousness is predatory but never fear, it will come back to haunt her.

Apr 1, 2008 - 2:56 pm 5. megapotamus:

Those who find dissappointment as they realize anti-white racism in the black community, anti-Semitism as well and an anti-rational approach to reality seem to be awaking slowly as if from a dream. As one who remembers Bill Clinton defended from the consequences of his criminality because the was the First Black President this is appalling. Where were you when such stupidities were being peddled? Like Barack, were you not present for these most inflammatory of events? The Dems and Left have always had nothing but grievence mongering to offer. Now two clients have grasped the same apple. How could it be anything other than Gotterdamerung?

Apr 1, 2008 - 3:49 pm 6. Buck Smith:

Good points, also worthwhile to note that all over North Africa, people of color are trading slaves. There more than a half million slaves in Mauritania. Thay are mostly black and mostly owned by Arab Muslims. The Sudan sends a few thousand slaves to the Middle East every year. Who needs saving more – America, which stopped slavery 150 years ago, or Africa which still practices it today?

Apr 1, 2008 - 4:04 pm 7. Emily J.:

Dear Phyllis:

Clearly, Alice and many others on all sides of this issue tend to focus on Israel because it is a central factor in our foreign policy. And disagreeing with our government’s strategic decisions regarding Israel does not make one an anti-Semite.

Apr 1, 2008 - 4:08 pm 8. CR:

“why oh why do you single out Israel and not…”

Because

“I made my first white women friends in college; they loved me and were loyal to our friendship, but I understood, as they did, that they were white women and that whiteness mattered.”

Short version; their whiteness made them into an irreconcilable, incontrovertible “other”.

“One would think she [HRC] is just any woman, but she is not. She carries all the history of white womanhood in the US in her person…”

HRC is that “other”. The “other” is to be viewed with unending contempt regardless of achievement.

“I can easily imagine Obama sitting down and talking to any leader – or any person – in the world, with no baggage of past servitude or race supremacy to mar their talks.”

BHO’s particular privileged upbringing – and lack of any “past servitude” simply do not factor in to the discussion. His status as a “person of color” elides any facts to the contrary.

So, whites are the other and are permanently stigmatized as such. non-whites are fellow travelers and get a permanent pass. Hence, Israel, a predominantly “white” society in the eyes of unrepentant leftists (despite a majority of citizens from non-european countries) is “bad” while olive or black-skinned societies are “good”. Ergo, Israel gets singled out.

Racism has a name and it is Alice Walker.

Apr 1, 2008 - 4:09 pm 9. Richard Lubens:

Ms. Chesler you act surprised and hurt. The dangerous anti-semitism of today is the conflation of the anti-western, anti-democratic radical left and jihadis. Ms. Walker is a member. Opinion polls show that the African-American community holds the most antisemitic attitude of any group in the USA. Ms. Walker does not reflexically blame Israel, she does so intentionally. Your heartfelt pleading is naive. Get off your knees. She won’t grant you absolution.The sixties were a long time ago. ” If I am not for myself, who am I…”

Apr 1, 2008 - 4:09 pm 10. Richard Lubens:

Apr 1, 2008 - 4:10 pm 11. paul a'barge:

Dr Chesler,
It is painful when those identity politics chickens come home to roost.

Apr 1, 2008 - 4:22 pm 12. Dede:

You go, Phyllis!

We are all citizens of the world, each an individual. When I look at a man, or a woman, I simply see form – no color. And I see scars of life, creases of happiness.

If we seek to rise ourselves above another race or gender, we do ourselves a disservice to humanity.

Apr 1, 2008 - 5:16 pm 13. Roderick Reilly:

To George Jochnowitz:

You know, there are Anti-Zionists who are not Anti-Semites. I know this because I met both of them in 1979.

Apr 1, 2008 - 5:18 pm 14. Banjo:

Alice hasn’t written anything worth reading since The Color Purple.

Apr 1, 2008 - 5:37 pm 15. Indga:

Too many blacks have forgotten that Jews stood with us. Too many blacks have forgotten that German Jews helped to make Howard a glittering jewel in higher ed. Too many blacks have forgotten that they were sold into slavery by Muslims waging jihad warfare in Africa. Too many blacks have forgotten who their friends are.

Apr 1, 2008 - 5:57 pm 16. GW Crawford:

Alice Walker is a victim. She refuses to stand, refuses to shrug off her own mental shackles, which are more effective than the physical

Have blacks had it tough? Hell, yes.

But more so than the Irish? Who were thought of as less than human by the British
More so than the Jews? Who had a whole continent try to burn their presence from the pages of history
More so than the Russians? Thye lost 50 million to the depredations of socialism
More so than the natives of Tibet or Taiwan? Exterminated and driven away by the Chinese and Japanese respectively
More so than the Korean store owners who came to America and found themselves robbed by their own neighbours

Oh, Alice: GROW UP, GET OVER IT

Oh wait, you can’t. Because then you would no longer be a victim but just another one of the peopless of this earth who have overcome hard times and came out stronger

Apr 1, 2008 - 6:04 pm 17. The Fop:

Liberal Jews are the most politically naive group of people in America. I used to be one myself.

Our grandparents came to America to escape the pogroms of Eastern Europe. They took a look around, surveyed the landscape of this strange new land and said “Aha, I can see who we need to be wary of, and who we need to befriend. We need to be wary of the WASPs in the rural areas. They’re hicks, they’re religious, they’re the majority, and they look like the goyishakops who persecuted us in the shtetls. We need to befriend the Blacks, the Italians, the Irish, the Hispanics, the Asians, etc. They’re all minorities, like us. If we’re nice to them, they’ll be nice to us”.

Boy, did our grandparents get it wrong, and our parents and many of us continue these misconceptions. There’s never been a country that has more in common with the values of the Jewish people than America. Ancient Israel and America were both founded on a set of principles. The founding fathers of this country are like the prophets and sages of the Torah. America is good to the Jews not because the G-ddamned ACLU is looking out for us, protecting us from the evil Evangelicals. America is good to the Jews precisely because of people like the Evangelicals who are the descendants of the Puritans who held the Old Testament and the Jewish people in high regard.

The left has no use for Jews who take pride in their Jewishness. To the left, pride is only for victim groups. Jews have no interest in being victims. We succeed in spite of the fact that we’re hated. In that respect, the left hates us even more than they hate the WASP ruling class. At least they can say that the success of the WASP ruling class is due to the old money that they’ve had for hundreds of years. What excuse do Jews have for succeeding? What excuse do Koreans have for succeeding? What excuse do Indians have for succeeding?

I grew up in Miami during the 60s and 70s. Back then, there was animosity between the Blacks and the Cubans. Now there’s animosity between the Blacks and every other minority group that has come to this country in the past 40 years. Blacks want to be the ONLY minority group. I’m no racist. I don’t think Blacks are stupid and lazy. I just think they’ve become quite pretentious and self centered. Like Alice Walker, too many Blacks think they’re “all that”.

As someone who has treated Blacks with kindness and dignity my whole life, I’m really sick of it. Boy, that Obama is sure one heckuva racial healer!

Apr 1, 2008 - 7:14 pm 18. tyree:

And why, after all these years, is there no gratitude for my wifes 16 year old ancestor who put down a plow in Pennsylvania to take up a rifle in the Army of the Potomac? Why are the sacrifices of the white Christian men who ended slavery in the USA continually ignored? None of us are “typical white people”.

Apr 1, 2008 - 7:16 pm 19. S4200:

I have read a few comments on Alice Walker on theRoot.com site

There are plenty of protesting voices.

But before further analyzing anti-semitism in America, let us convince fellow many Jews to join modernity.

There is nothing wrong to support good decent Democratic candidates. I like their intelligence and diligence.

Not the same with Obama, he is a Trojan Horse, his handlers exploit his emptiness and let him carry his empowerment show. It has generated a huge momentum, because his supporters needed this destructive feeling of being superior without really being different from the day before.

Propaganda paved the way to all victories of the fascist parties. Hamas, Cuban communism, German Nazism, leftist/rightist extremisms always manage to excite the masses.

It is un-Deak, it is un-MLK, it is un-Lincoln, but generates wars and lynchings between the era of a few noble leaders.

Apr 1, 2008 - 8:27 pm 20. Will:

Based on my recollection, Ms. Chesler’s post seems a bit like the pot calling the kettle black. I grew up in a house full of her books and recall her to be more or less the radical feminist equivalent of Rev. Wright and Mr. Farrakhan. Perhaps I remember incorrectly, or perhaps she repudiates her previous writings, but if so I haven’t heard. I would be happy to be updated on her thinking in this area.

Apr 1, 2008 - 9:36 pm 21. tyree:

“Too many blacks have forgotten that they were sold into slavery by Muslims…”
So tragically true. Heck, the Islamists took over a million white slaves from Europe before the US, Swedes and others stopped them in 1805 at the shores of Tripoli. Where are all of of their white descendants living free in the Muslim countries of North Africa? Dead men tell no tales.

Apr 1, 2008 - 9:45 pm 22. mrsizer:

It’s not about race, it’s about class. There are plenty of successful black people in America.

It’s no coincidence (but neither is it a conspiracy) that the Left has recently retaken the Progessive label.

There are those with a vested interest in keeping the underclass, which is mostly but not exclusively black, in their place as victims.

Those of us who are not members of either that interest group or the underclass see the obviousness of it all. Who has the most to gain by keeping the underclass in its place? Why those who profit from it, of course.

It’s not white people or corporations or the government – it’s those whose clientèle is the underclass – milking them, not solving the problem, is the goal.

Progressivism requires class envy – something historically difficult to raise in America.

Apr 1, 2008 - 10:14 pm 23. M. Simon:

Actually the Jews, like the Blacks, were Republicans.

FDR converted both of those groups to the Democrat Party.

It is past time to go back to the stalwarts of anti-slavery who later became the stalwarts of anti-racism. (look at who were the biggest supporters of the Voting Rights Act – it wasn’t Democrats).

The Democrat Party has always been the home of racists. From the Civil War Days to now.

The chickens are indeed coming home to roost.

Apr 1, 2008 - 10:38 pm 24. Chip:

As an American Mormon, whose ancestors were once killed or driven from the then organized part of the United States, I want to add my voice of support to what is written here.

Brigham Young once said the difference between G-d and the Devil, is that G-d creates and organizes, while the whole study of the Devil is to destroy.

Using that simple rubric, we can discern. We can see who around us is building and who is destroying. . Just look at their societies, their cities, their neighborhoods, and their families. We know who is organizing and developing, and who is scattering and burning.

Apr 1, 2008 - 11:18 pm 25. Thea:

You know, I’m getting tired. I’ve walked the walk of classical liberalism and meant it all my life, and now I’m basically being told that because I am a white woman I don’t know anything, I’m not worth anything and I should just shut up and fall in line or I’m the “other” who will never understand and never be good enough.

Isn’t that precisely the message we liberal whites have been rejecting for the African-American community as we joined hands and sung ‘we shall overcome’?

Apparently nothing has been overcome. Apparently for the past 40 years we’ve been maintaining polite fictions, and those of us stupid enough to have been sincere when we sang it? Seems we were deluded or wasting our time. At least according to the Wrights and Walkers – the elitists of the movement that once upon a time was supposed to free all of us.

Good post, Ms. Chesler. America is in more trouble than we ever knew, and like you, I fear for this country no matter who becomes the next American President.

Apr 1, 2008 - 11:47 pm 26. melk:

And, Ms Chesler might have added, how do you exclude the disgraceful Mugabe from your list? Does he get a free pass because he is black? Does it ever matter when black people kill other blacks?

Apr 2, 2008 - 7:07 am 27. Fred:

The best way to deal with intelligent people like Ms Walker is to show them the facts. Lots of facts. This means you first have to study the subject yourself, and to then explore the subject over time with Ms. Walker. I don’t know if either Ms. Chesler or Ms. Walker have the time or inclination to do this, but anything else, is at best, unreliable.

I’d guess Ms. Walker is both busy and an avid reader. Finding fair and helpful books on the topic might be a way to approach her.

Apr 2, 2008 - 7:36 am 28. tanstaafl:

From Alice Walker’s recent statements on returning from a long sojourn in Mexico…

I want the Israeli government to be made accountable for its behaviour to the Palestinians, and I want the people of the US to cease acting as if they don’t understand what is going on.

What is it Ms. Walker thinks I’m missing in observing nearly the entire duration of Israel’s history since its formation in 1948 ?

Does Ms. Walker have some insights to offer as to how she might deal with individuals lobbing missiles and rockets into her backyard ? Or coming to a seminary or shopping center or university cafeteria near her with the express purpose of killing as many “Jews” as possible ?

It’s grandiose statements and pontification, Ms. Walker, that blocks human understanding. Something that (most recently) might be attributed to yourself, to Barack Obama, to another award winning writer, Doris Lessing, to Rowan Williams and to all the would be spokespeople for the human condition that absolutely continue to muddy the waters.

Apr 2, 2008 - 11:15 am 29. Brad:

Libs, Dems, “progressives”–all totally obsessed with race and racial identity politics. I thought colorblind was the idea. Maybe when liberalism dies.

Apr 2, 2008 - 12:37 pm 30. Sue:

When my first child was born I was given the, then, “it” book on child rearing: Dr. Spock. One event with my new baby and I threw Spock out. When I became a “feminist” and walked for women’s rights, I never expected that to come at the expense of men or others, ever. But there it is! The feminists hated women of ALL COLORS, not just white women. Folks all this is simply about hatred, pure and simple. Whatever your belief system, if it includes hate as does Alice or Wright or Michelle, then it is wrong…wrong and cannot be supported by any reasonable human being. Now, as to unreasonable, hating others, than human, I simply can’t say. All I know is that I “threw out” the feminism being preached in the 70’s and have never regretted it my entire life.

Apr 2, 2008 - 1:24 pm 31. Tyrone Brown:

This is what Alice walker said in her letter concerning Cuba and Israel:

“I want a grown-up attitude toward Cuba, for instance, a country and a people I love; I want an end to the embargo that has harmed my friends and their children, children who, when I visit Cuba, trustingly turn their faces up for me to kiss.”

Phyllis, Alice Walker was clearly talking about the PEOPLE of Cuba and NOT Castro or his totalitarian government. And while our imperfect America may not be as bad as most imperfect countries, our country does persecutes its own, including artists, politicals and homosexuals for that matter.

Ms. Walker went on to say “I want the Israeli GOVERNMENT to be held accountable for its behavior towards the Palestinians…”

Where is the anti-Semitism in that statement? Are we to NEVER to question the behavior of the Israeli government? What is the correct way to voice a critical opinion?

Ms. Walker also went on to say “…I want the people of the United States to cease acting like they don’t understand what is going on. All colonization, all occupation, all repression basically looks the same, whoever is doing it.”

Where is the anti-Semitism in that statement?

What if someone finds themselves uncomfortable with an action or policy taken by the Israeli government?

Is it anti-semantic to even think or agree with her statement that “all colonization, all occupation, all repression basically looks the same, whoever is doing it?”

Have we reached a point where the very use of the word “anti-Semite” is no different than labeling someone a “terrorist” or “narco” (if you are in Central or south America) to silence the voice of reason or dissent?

I for one will continue to speak out against anti-Semitism and the miss-use of that label as well. There are plenty other people in the public eye to legitimately questions as anti-Semitic (like a Fidel Castro or the current Pope for that matter), but I have to say that for millions of people around the world…Alice Walker is not one of them.

Sincerely,

Tyrone Brown
Seattle, WA
brownty@seattleu.edu

Apr 2, 2008 - 2:05 pm 32. Ken Wibecan:

Dear Ms Chessler:
I just read your letter to Alice Walker and it disturbed me greatly. I, too, was a part of the New York civil rights struggle during the 1960s, along with my friends–black and white. Many were Jews, but somehow that didn’t matter because we were concentrating on our objective. I strongly object to your statement about black men viewing white women mainly as sexual prey. I am a black man and saw no evidence of that and consider your remark quite insulting and racist.
It is so stereotypical that I am surprised that anyone would say such a thing these days.
As for Israel, it is interesting that anyone who criticizes Israel is accused of anti-semitism (which I assume means that one is anti Jewish even though Arabs are also semitic people). And, yes, I agree that there are many other nations in the world deserving of criticism. But why can’t Alice Walker criticize israel? Is there something that makes it immune from criticism? And if one chooses to say something negative about Israel is one obliged to criticize all other nations in the world that have human problems?
You and I both know that Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel receive different treatment within Israel. And that Arabs are treated as inferior pweople much like the blacks in South Africa were treated. Do you wish to ignore this? Do you also want to ignore that settlers in the West Bank are daily breaking international and Israeli law with impunity?
Why can’t we talk about these subjects? The one thing I agree with you about is that there are many parts of our world in need of improving their treatment of their fellow humans–and Israel is among them. It is time we engaged in this discussion withoiut being tarred with the brush of anti-semitism.

Apr 2, 2008 - 6:56 pm 33. Raita:

I feel exactly like Thea.We were needed to march and sing.We, white women, were also needed by black men for sex and status.Today it’s the same thing with Muslin men.God if they knew that I’m part Jewish!
But then:’We are all partners in humanity.’ Tell me, why doesn’t it show?
Thank you Dr.Chesler,you clean my head every day.

Apr 2, 2008 - 7:01 pm