10 January 17 • 2019
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attended our Detroit community’
s vigil
to mourn the 11 victims. She also vis-
ited the Holocaust Memorial Center in
Farmington Hills with her son and spoke
about her meeting with survivor Mania
Salinger and her family. For those in the
activist community and beyond, Rashida
is known as a woman with a big heart
and an unwavering sense of justice.
Rashida is also Palestinian American.
Like many Jews, Rashida has personal
and family connections to Israel and
Palestine. She has visited her family there
many times and has seen the growing
discrimination against Palestinians, the
implementation of the separation bar-
rier, the daily experience of waiting in
long lines and being harassed at check-
points, as well as the encroachment of
settlements on Palestinian land in the
West Bank. Palestinians have different
colored license plates than Israelis, drive
on different roads and stand in separate
lines — ultimately living by a separate set
of rules.
Rashida supports human rights for all
Palestinians and Israelis and has repeat-
edly stated this, calling for more connec-
tion between the groups and a fair and
just solution that protects the rights of all
people living in the land. When Rashida
speaks about the discrimination her
family and other Palestinians face, she
is not attacking the Jewish community.
Rather, she is bringing to light issues of
oppression that affect us all.
To chalk up Rashida’
s recent remarks
to “chasing the global spotlight” (Dec.
13, page 8) is extremely unfair. At best,
this is a tactic to deflect the issues facing
Palestinians and, at worst, a harmful
insinuation that a woman of color
has an ulterior motive in her position
of service. This narrative upsettingly
echoes anti-Semitic tropes of Jews being
seduced by power, which have been
wielded at our own community to dehu-
manize and alienate.
As young Jews in Metro Detroit, we
know how hard it is to have nuanced
conversations about the complexity
of Israel and Palestine. But we also
know that we must. We will not stand
for divisive rhetoric that attacks one
of our Detroit community’
s best lead-
ers and allies simply because she is
shedding light on Israeli oppression of
Palestinians, which she has witnessed
firsthand.

Daniel Hurwitz-Goodman,

Hannah Miller and Rachel Lehrman

Members of IfNotNow Detroit/Ann Arbor

“Pure Michigan” advertising cam-
paign to draw tourism, there’
s also
the soft underbelly of racism that
isn’
t so pure.
Racism doesn’
t get the same
attention in rural and urban
communities across the state
(and nation), especially as mass
media continue to shrink. Detroit
News editorial page editor Nolan
Finley opined that the new face
of anti-Semitism in America is
increasingly black, liberal and
famous: “Last weekend, LeBron
James, the biggest name in basket-
ball, posted on Instagram the lyrics
to a song by the rapper 21 Savage,”
he said in a recent column. “The
line James typed out to his followers
feeds off the ancient libel against
Jews, that they control the world’
s
money supply: ‘
We been getting
that Jewish money, everything is
kosher,’
” he continued.
“James quickly apologized, saying
he didn’
t understand the historical
context of the slur or even that it
was offensive,” Finley wrote. “The
NBA and James’
Los Angeles Lakers
accepted that lame excuse and now
want to move on. No mandato-
ry sensitivity training for James,
no scrutiny of pro basketball for
evidence of a broader problem.
Starbucks should cry foul.”
Unfortunately, people like
Meyerson and Finley often stand
out among only a small group of
objectors. When first learning about
the situation, many empathize and
say, “How terrible!” as the incident
is forgotten, and most people move
on with their lives.
Petoskey Library
Director Meyerson
also wrote: “Thinking
that these acts are
small, thinking that
these acts will not
amount to anything;
keeping quiet and not
making waves, was the beginning
of the Holocaust. I will not forget,
and I do not want my community
to forget. I found my line, it is not
only when views lead to violence or
destruction of property, but if there
is intent of violence.
“While graffiti is more than a
freedom of speech issue — it is also
destruction of property — in this
political climate, a swastika has

a strong and terrifying meaning.
Maybe the person that drew these
symbols does not know the true
meaning and the nauseous feelings
that they evoke. But maybe they do.
We may never know.”
Like newspapers, Meyerson finds
herself in the same position of pro-
tecting the first amendment when
it’
s not popular and refusing to
accept swastika graffiti as “informa-
tion” explaining a point of view but,
rather, as an act of aggression and
power.
“Information about the swastika
symbol and information about the
Nazi party will always have a place
in the public library,” she writes.
“The first amendment is a core
public library value and, as a public
librarian, I will always fight for this
right in and outside of the library.
But, the value of providing a ‘
safe
environment’
is key to our service.
Graffiti swastikas invoke a feeling of
fear, hatred and death.”
Our five-member library board
meets later this month to discuss
the issue. Personally, I am strug-
gling and — like many others have
asked — what can we do about rac-
ism? I don’
t think there is a quick
fix.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
I have seen and heard so much
firsthand working for 34 years at
the Petoskey News-Review. My worst
exposure was hiring international
interns through the University of
Michigan master’
s in journalism
program.
A mid-career professional intern
from Japan was called a “Jap” at a
local ski resort during the winter
night-ski league races. Another
African American intern had to
stay at my home temporarily when
I received anonymous calls telling
me to watch out for the “n****.” The
caller asked if she would become a
permanent staff after her internship.
One time, I threatened a local
apartment complex manager with
a call to our local prosecutor if
he continued to refuse to rent an
apartment that had been available.
Another time, a Lebanese physi-
cian called and asked if an intern
was Christian or Muslim before
answering whether he would allow
a Lebanese journalism graduate stu-

dent to interview him.
I know from experience that
building a culture of tolerance
is much harder than tolerating a
divided one. We know that from
the last decade living under two
U.S. presidents. There are the
urban-based associations like the
InterFaith Leadership Council
of Metropolitan Detroit and the
Mosaic Youth Arts and Music pro-
gram that work hard to change peo-
ple’
s acceptance of others. In small-
er communities and neighborhoods,
there are opportunities.
Unfortunately, I think it’
s going
to take more to change a racist
cultural attitude that has existed
since the founding of this country.
Surveillance cameras, arming the
public, the mass media and public
service announcements won’
t do
the job.
I was intrigued after watching a
television interview of U.S. Sen. Ben
Sasse (R-Nebraska). He shares simi-
lar concerns in his new book, Them:
Why We Hate Each Other — and
How to Heal. He talks about Hitler’
s
obsession with bloodlines and com-
plained that the United States was
“not a nation, but a hodgepodge.”
Sasse points out that Hitler was
partially right: In the U.S, we are
all minorities but came up with
the wrong solution to the issue of
bringing a nation together.
Unfortunately, Sasse writes, “… at
home, we’
re scared of real intimacy.
As both the size of our residences
and the distance between houses
increase, people are physically more
isolated. Strolls around the neigh-
borhood and time on the stoop fade
away.”
Sasse suggests that while technol-
ogy improves some people’
s quality
of life, we also need to think about

The Petoskey Public Library

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Library Director

Val Meyerson

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