Letters to the Editor: How Not to Fight Antisemitism
If
Jewish Currents’s position is that the Jewish left could be more selective in which tropes we push back on, or that our efforts shouldn’t be limited to debating tropes and defining antisemitism, I’d wholeheartedly agree. But your responsa makes broader, shakier arguments: using viral tweets as a stand-in for “the left” writ large, implying that confronting antisemitic tropes is rooted in a desire to claim “victimhood,” and acting as if Bend the Arc’s list of antisemitic incidents represents the entirety of the left’s strategy to combat antisemitism.
Associated Student Government presidential slate Christian Wade and Adaeze Ogbonna received endorsements from prominent campus organizations, including NU Community Not Cops and Rainbow Alliance.
Wade, a SESP junior, and Ogbonna, a Medill sophomore, are facing off against McCormick and Communication sophomore Sahibzada Mayed and Bienen and Communication sophomore McKenna Troy in the 2021-22 presidential race.
The Wade-Ogbonna slate’s platform centers student advocacy, the prioritization of marginalized students and increased access to ASG for the student body. In Mayed and Troy’s campaign, the slate is looking to reimagine ASG’s role in student advocacy, especially as student government relates to administration.
Fossil Free NU demand divestment, abolition in Beyond Earth Day march dailynorthwestern.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dailynorthwestern.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Thoughts and prayers. Psychological counseling. Promises of reform. We’re far too familiar with these phrases and ideas, but they aren’t proof of tangible change. These are bromides statements intended to placate us with the hope of improvement but they’re not solutions. Can they be well-intentioned? Yes. Can they help? Potentially. But will they make bad things better? Not likely.
In our society, we have these things called structures. In most cases, structures run deeper than people’s feelings. Some structures are largely immovable: mountains, oceans, trees. Some are made by humans, and can be unmade, or at least modified. The 90-foot distance between first and second base seems perfect, but we made it we can change it. The same goes for the five-day work week. There are more examples than the length of this essay could possibly enumerate. Relationships can also be humanly constructed, such as how we engage with racism, legalized guns, sexism, marriage and pare
For the past year, graduate students have met with University administrators to demand Northwestern prioritize students with marginalized identities. The administration has largely responded with hesitancy, according to some students.
Sarah Peko-Spicer, an organizer of CoalitionNU and Ph.D. candidate, said the collective has demanded inclusive healthcare, increased funding for affinity spaces and other support systems after a year of pandemic mobilization and appeals to the University.
“I personally am rethinking if this is an effective pathway to be working down,” she said. “Are we just wasting everyone’s time sitting in these meetings?”
Still, Peko-Spicer said she hopes a projected return to campus may rejuvenate organizers after a difficult year where the graduate students’ academic and life responsibilities were exacerbated, particularly for caregiving students and those of marginalized identities.