Women’s March identity politics 101
This will be only a very short post – I’m busy learning
identity politics from the Women’s March. I mean, it’s clear that without a
proper understanding of identity politics, one can’t be really woke, right?
Admittedly, since I’ve never had the privilege of holding
hands with Louis
Farrakhan, I’m not sure how woke I can ever be.
But I’m trying. So last week, the Women’s March issued a
really inspiring #SignOfResistance “from the white women of WM.” Linda Sarsour
re-tweeted it, so I’m sure it’s really very very woke!!!
So impressive!!! It got me thinking: clearly, that means
that also Muslim silence = Muslim consent, right? To get a bit creative, maybe
it could be presented like this – what do you think???
Now, related to identity politics, there was a bit of
confusion because after Al Jazeera decided a few days ago to feature
Manal Tamimi as a “Palestinian supermom,” Elder tweeted a
screenshot of one of her super-duper tweets.
Some people wondered if Al Jazeera’s Palestinian
supermom really meant to compare the Palestinians to the Nazi figure in the
image. As I explained when I wrote
about Manal Tamimi’s remarkable Twitter output, an obviously well-meaning Twitter
user warned her in Arabic that she had posted “a picture of Nazism” even though
“the Palestinians are more honorable than the Nazis, they are defending their
land and their freedom.” But Manal Tamimi wasn’t fazed and declared confidently:
“The important thing is the idea, we the Palestinians are the ones who are
going to teach Israel a lesson, we are going to hurt them and we will achieve
victory over them as well.”
Now, I’m pretty sure that identity politics requires that
everyone must respect the fact that Manal Tamimi self-identifies with the Nazis
because she hopes to emulate how they “hurt” the Jews and achieved “victory
over them.” Really, how could anyone dare to dictate (mansplain??? Whitesplain??????)
to a proud Palestinian supermom what she aspires to??? And last but by no means
least: let’s remember that Linda Sarsour often emphasizes that she’s
“unapologetically Muslim and Palestinian,” and “Palestinian supermom” Manal
Tamimi is clearly someone she’d admire – after all, Tamimi sends her kids to
throw stones at Israeli soldiers, which is, according
to Sarsour, “the definition of courage.”
Now excuse me, I have to make a list of all the things
Muslims and Palestinians have advocated while Linda Sarsour remained silent and
thus gave her consent…