LEFT: Emory Douglas showed this slide of his work
during an Oct. 4 Stamps Speaker Series lecture
from the U-M School of Art & Design.
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the
SCAN THIS PAGE TO
SEE THE LECTURE
BY ARTIST
EMORY DOUGLAS.
ALEXA SMITH/FACEBOOK
Crossing A Line
Artist’s lecture features slide of his
work equating Netanyahu with Hitler.
STACY GITTLEMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
E
mory Douglas, a California graph-
ic artist and former Minister of
Culture for the Black Panther
Party, drew the ire of University of
Michigan students, parents, alumni and
Jewish community members when, as a
guest lecturer Oct. 4 at a Penny Stamps
School of Art & Design program, he
presented a slide of one of his artworks
comparing Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.
The image labeled both men “guilty
of genocide” and gave the definition of
genocide at the bottom of the artwork.
Douglas’ lecture, “Designing Justice,”
also included two pro-Palestinian, pro-
BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions)
pieces and his depictions of oppressed
people around the world. Slides also
showed satiric images of Henry
Kissinger, Barack Obama and Donald
Trump, and others accused the U.S. of
genocide for perpetuating war in the
Mideast and blamed the U.S. for advanc-
ing diseases like sickle cell anemia.
The artist showed a brief film about
his life, then presented his 200 or so
slides with little context or commentary,
other than reading the text in his art.
The lecture at the Michigan Theater
in Ann Arbor was free and open to the
16
October 11 • 2018
jn
public. The lecture series
is a one-credit mandatory
course requirement for
Stamps students. They
must attend all 11 lec-
tures; if they miss more
than two, they fail.
Alexa Smith
Stamps senior Alexa
Smith of Livingston, N.J.,
attended the lecture and then posted the
offending slides on social media.
Smith, a graphic design student who
has created her own works focusing
on promoting social justice, said she is
no stranger to the controversial nature
of art when used in politics. She knew
the political and radical nature of
Douglas’ work and knew he had created
a pro-Palestinian mural in favor of the
BDS movement in Oakland, Calif.
But she said his poster juxtaposing
Adolf Hitler with Benjamin Netanyahu
with the definition of genocide under-
neath crossed a line for her.
“That was no longer about boycot-
ting Israel,” said Smith, who is active
in pro-Israel activities on campus and
designed the logo for the campus pro-Is-
rael group WolvPAC. “It was a complete
attack against Jewish students and it
made me sick to my stomach that he
equated the atrocities of the Holocaust
to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. When
things like this become the norm, it
makes Jewish and pro-Israel students feel
they don’t have a big voice on campus.”
Smith said her frustration was com-
pounded because two years ago the
Stamps series invited graphic novelist Joe
Sacco to speak. In his novels Palestine
and Footnotes in Gaza, Sacco did not
draw faces of Israeli soldiers because, he
said, it would humanize them.
After Sacco’s lecture, Smith went to the
Stamps administration asking to invite
Artists 4 Israel, a group that uses art to
treat Israelis traumatized by war. She said
this suggestion went ignored.
U-M spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald
said the Stamps speaker series is inten-
tionally provocative.
“(Douglas) presented and discussed
a wide array of topics, much focused on
the oppression of people across the globe
by governmental powers,” Fitzgerald
said. “The university understands how
people may react differently to different
speakers and disagreeing with contro-
versial speakers is part of the learning
process. Pertaining to its lecture series,
Penny Stamps clearly states on its website
that discovering what you do not agree
with will help you find your voice as
much or more perhaps than the things
you find resonance with.”
On Monday, U-M Hillel leaders sent a
letter to students and parents concerning
this incident, noting it comes just weeks
after a professor refused to provide a
student with a recommendation letter to
study abroad at an Israeli institution.
“We at Michigan Hillel share your
concern that this image denigrated the
memory of those killed in the Holocaust
by suggesting a false equivalence to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict today,” the
letter stated. It went on to say Hillel staff
and students have been communicating
with U-M top administrators, expressing
concerns about these incidents and “the
broader concern of professors and lec-
turers inserting anti-Israel politics into
the classroom or their actions without
regard to the impact on the student.”
“We have suggested avenues and
resources for more training and under-
standing around modern-day anti-Sem-
itism and have offered steps to ensure a
more inclusive classroom atmosphere,”
the letter stated. “We were pleased to
hear the university leadership’s repeated
rejection of BDS, including the specific
boycott of Israeli academic institu-
tions. Based on our conversations, we are
confident the university is taking these
issues very seriously.”
Carolyn Normandin, Michigan direc-
tor of the Anti-Defamation League, said
since the Emory Douglas lecture, ADL
has been in close contact with Michigan
Hillel and with U-M administrators.
“Any time a person equates Israeli
leadership to Hitler, it crosses a line from
criticizing Israel into anti-Semitism,” she
said. “It is one thing to criticize Israeli
policy, as any country’s policy should be
criticized in an open and free society ...
but no Jewish student in a required lec-
ture should feel so blindsided.”
On Monday, news media in Israel
reported that Israeli Minister of
Education and Diaspora Affairs Naftali
Bennett sent a letter to U-M President
Mark Schlissel voicing strong condem-
nation of the comparison between Hitler
and Netanyahu, which, he, says breached
the accepted International Holocaust
Remembrance Alliance definition of
anti-Semitism.
Bennett cited the recent U-M study
abroad recommendation letter refusal
and writes: “The time has come for you
as head of the university to take a strong
stand against what has clearly become
a trend of vitriolic hatred against the
Jewish state on your campus.” ■