If you’re Jewish. So says Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers president
If Jewish parents want their children back in school for in-person learning, they are“part of the ownership class.” So says Randi Weingarten, the national head of the teacher unions that oppose a return to in-person learning.
These Jews, “part of the ownership class,” are, the union leader says, the descendants of Jewish immigrants who capitalized on public education in order to “go from the working class to the ownership class.”
This is Anti-Semitism 101. This is stereotyping. This is characterizing a diverse group of people as one-way. In particular, this is stereotyping Jews as monied and in control, and not only in control, but in control for their own selfish interests to the detriment of others. This is an age-old anti-Semitic stereotype.
Appalling is not the word, as we are hardly the first to note, in characterizing Weingarten’s words. No doubt, she is not an anti-Semite, but her words were anti-Semitic. The question is, how does a Jew slip into this kind of language that has led to the mass persecution of Jews? But first, Weingarten’s defense: “ . . . some are trying to distort my intent which was to talk about our responsibility 2 enable opportunity & dignity.”
The first refuge of the scoundrel is to blame someone else. Weingarten does not take responsibility for the import of what she herself said.
Her defense merely replicates the import of the original. She now speaks of “our responsibility” (italic added). As if all Jews are, indeed, part of the ownership class. As if there is no Jewish poverty today. As if there is no Jewish working class today. As if there are no Jewish students who themselves need “opportunity & dignity” in the public schools of today (not just of two generations ago). As if a call for in-person learning is tantamount to a call to endanger teachers. As if the science does not support in-person learning. As if private schools have not been open for some time now with no negative health effects out of the ordinary. As if there are no public school teachers themselves, including union members, who call for in-person learning now. As if Weingarten does not reinforce other stereotypes, such a teacher union leader out of touch with the welfare of people that the leader is supposed to represent, namely, the students; or such as a union leader cocooned in a semantic bubble that would have her dismiss advocacy of in-person learning as “a totally privileged argument.”
As if it is illegitimate to debate both sides of a public policy issue. As if it is OK to dismiss and demean one’s critics, pigeonholding them as “privileged” and “part of the ownership class” rather than address their argument.
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