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Warning: ‘The blacks are taking over’

A political video recently played in an eastern state. With dramatic music, it plays into every imaginable anti-black stereotype. If the town sells 75 acres to the blacks, the locals will lose control. In fact, the video says, the locals will lose “Our Homes,” “Our Families,” “Our Schools,” “Our Way of Life,” “Our Communities.” Even: “Our Water.”

“Join us,” the video pleads. It needs people on its side to prevent what it openly labels a black “takeover.” The video speaks of “our” families as opposed to blacks whom it labels  “they.” “They” want to take over. “They” have targeted the city, and have still another target in mind once “they” have taken over the city. Which, of course, they can, because they steal votes; and because the city is selling out the locals by preparing to sell the blacks 75 acres.

“If they win, we lose,” the video pronounces ominously, against the background of the ominous music.

The one that really gets us is “Our Water.” The locals will even lose control of their water to the blacks. This reminds us of the old medieval anti-Semitic canard about the Jews poisoning the wells. Actually, it’s not  such a distant reminder, since the blacks against whom this video fulminates are not people with black skin but people with black clothing. Jews, chasidic Jews, who wear black clothing, are amply projected in this video as the nefarious people plotting the “takeover” of Ramapo, in Rockland County, New York. The chasidic people in black are poignantly stacked against the local whites: “Our Families.” In this video, on the one side is “Aron Wieder and his Ramapo bloc . . . plotting a takeover,” while on the other side are idyllic scenes of whites, minus any people dressed or pigmented in black.

This video, produced by the Rockland County Republican Party, is  “deeply disturbing,” says New York Attorney General Letitia James.

She said:

“To clearly state that members of the Jewish community are a theat to families and our safety and that they must be stopped is despicable and completely unacceptable. Attacking those who are different than we are only breeds hate and makes us weaker. We must all stand together to denounce this hateful video.”

The Republican Jewish Coalition called the video “absolutely despicable” and “pure anti-Semitism.” The New York and New Jersey office of the ADL said that the “images and language of the video strongly suggests an appeal to anti-religious bigotry, which has no place in our elections.”

Speaking of elections, Aron Wieder, a legislator representing the Rockland County town of Ramapo, was duly elected to his post. And so far, no one has been convicted, or even charged, with voter fraud.

One response to the video on the Rockland County Republican Party Facebook page said, “Last time I saw a video like this it was in black and white and in German.”

Not everybody agreed. Others charged the chasidic Jews with pushing for “overdevelopment.”

If the citizens of Ramapo want to see “overdevelopment,” let them come to Denver, where even the fiercest opponents of the dramatic increase in density in this city has no one — not one single person —perceiving any racial or religious “takeover” behind it.

Disingenuously ignoring his stark video images contrasting the black-clothed and the white-skinned, and only after the criticism started to pile up, the Republican chair in Rockland Country, Lawrence Garvey, issued a denial. He said: “This is not, nor has it ever been, a religious issue.”

Instead, he said, “it is an issue of right and wrong.”

Indeed.

Copyright © 2019 by the Intermountain Jewish News




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