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Behind the Aegis

(53,823 posts)
Fri Jul 17, 2020, 03:17 PM Jul 2020

(Jewish Group) I'm a Jew of color. I won't be quiet about anti-Semitism.

I still remember the look of discomfort my friend Danielle Scruggs shot me as our professor went on an extended rant in an undergraduate journalism class at Howard University.

He’d started by bitterly complaining about a white editor who’d insisted on characterizing Louis Farrakhan as anti-Semitic in a story the professor had written. He was allegedly informing us Black would-be journalists of the importance of protecting our work from white editors who would sully it with cultural ignorance. But he soon spiraled into a larger rant about “the Jews,” assuming he was speaking to an audience who shared his opinions.

Silently, Scruggs caught my gaze and grimaced. “I’m sorry,” she mouthed silently. I grimaced, too. Neither of us really knew what to do or say in the moment, but we knew he was in the wrong.

“I remember feeling really taken aback, because there’s a Black-and-Jewish person right in front of you,” Scruggs said when I called her this week. “I should have said something instead of looking around in horror. Even if you’re part of a marginalized class, you can still have prejudices that can be really harmful and that’s something we should keep in mind.”

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A rather long article, but an excellent read! She has a voice we don't often hear, even in situations like this. I hope we hear more from her.

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