Randi Weingarten's Anti-Semitism

Isn’t it interesting that the head of the teachers’ union, one Randi Weingarten, has tried to justify her union’s appalling behavior by trotting out anti-Semitism. On today’s American left, anti-Semitism is the one bigotry that dare speak its name.

Given the influence of people like Louis Farrakhan, Jeremiah Wright, Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour and Ilhan Omar, anti-Semitism is alive and well on the American left.

In fairness, anti-Semitism is being supplanted by anti-Asian bigotry. The latter is perfectly acceptable, event though, or perhaps because Asian-Americans count among the successful citizens. Obviously, whatever unacknowledged bigotry haunts out great nation, it has not kept Asian Americans down. In truth, it seems not to have had any effect at all on their ability to achieve.

This means that it’s a bad idea to use anti-Asian bigotry as an argument. If you want to attribute the underperformance of certain groups to bigotry, Asian Americans refute your argument, decisively.

Of course, given the destitute state of the American mind, one should not be surprised. One is surprised to hear that major media outlets have nothing to say about Joe Biden’s senility, any more than they care in the least about Hunter’s influence peddling and felonious ways. You know the old saying, trotted out to defend Bill Clinton against a rape charge-- boys will be boys.

A country that has two sets of standards for members of different political parties is divided against itself. Where have we heard that before?

Anyway, as Daniel Greenfield points out, (via Maggie's Farm) the teachers’ unions are keeping schools closed, thus depriving children of an education, of socialization, of emotional support from their peers. Worse yet, there is no real reason to think that this can be reversed or overcome. For all we know-- and many people are speculating about it-- all proposed policies designed to undo the damage that these unions are doing to children are pure speculation. And rather self-serving speculation, at that.

After all, if these unions have irreversibly damaged millions of schoolchildren, their leaders belong in federal prison, charged with child abuse.

Anyway, we all stood up and took notice when teachers’ union leader Randi Weingarten denounced rich Jews, of all people, for the fact that she and her union members are engaged in systematic abuse of children. 

Daniel Greenfield cogently argues that none of it makes any sense. He suggests that Weingarten was engaging in rhetorical deflection, shifting the focus away from her own dereliction on to a scapegoat group. It is all the more horrifying, as we and many others have pointed out, that those who are suffering the most from the teachers’ failure to uphold their commitment to educate children are minority children and their parents.

Greenfield notes:

But the whole point of antisemitism is that it doesn't make sense. It's an expression of rage to deflect from some horrible thing the perpetrator is doing. And it's very often a case of projection. Take public school teachers, a privileged class whose unions decided that it wasn't going to show up to work during the pandemic, while hiding that privilege behind increasingly bizarre claims of racism and sexism even though the people who suffered the most from union privilege were minority single parents.

An interviewer from the Jerusalem Post asked Weingarten this question:

I think some people are very skeptical of the power that they perceive teachers unions to have. They look at, for example, the ongoing struggles in Los Angeles, where they see this big dollar figure of aid being given for school reopening and are baffled by the perceived resistance of teachers to going back to work.

In a previous question, Weingarten had supposedly addressed the issue, raised by the interviewer, that many Jewish private schools had been offering in-class learning, without there being any notable outbreaks of infection. 

Evidently, Weingarten, who descends here into complete incoherence, is still thinking of that question. She seems to single out Jews for wanting to bring back in class learning:

I have a very pointed response here for Jews making this argument.

American Jews are now part of the ownership class. Jews were immigrants from somewhere else. And they needed the right to have public education. And they needed power to have enough income and wealth for their families that they could put their kids through college and their kids could do better than they have done. Both economic opportunity through the labor movement and an educational opportunity through public education were key for Jews to go from the working class to the ownership class.

What I hear when I hear that question is that those who are in the ownership class now want to take that ladder of opportunity away from those who do not have it.

Greenfield responds correctly. This is ridiculous. It makes no sense. Think about that, the head of the teachers' union cannot offer up a coherent sentence in English. How much does that explain?

The most obvious problem with this isn't even the antisemitism, it's that it's complete gibberish.

The accusation that Jews are part of the "ownership class" (whatever the hell that means, everyone owns things) is a familiar Marxist justification for antisemitism, but what the hell does that piece of familiar bigotry have to do with the failure to reopen schools?

The "ownership class" of whatever race or religion has the most resources. That means money for private schools, special tutoring, and parents who can work from home.

Randi Weingarten's antisemitic rant isn't actually addressing the issue that the AFT's refusal to go back to work is hurting the working class most.

But that's how antisemitic rants are used to deflect from the issue, pounding the pulpit, despite being wholly irrational.

And then there's the antisemitism.

Let’s see, the Jews who want teachers back in their classrooms are part of an ownership class that is trying to prevent minority schoolchildren from ascending the ladder of opportunity. If Weingarten counted herself as the leader of the Jews who wanted to destroy educational opportunity for minority children, we would find her self-criticism plausible.

Does she fear that her behavior will reflect badly on Jews, even though most Jews strongly favor a return to the classroom? Is she saying that Jews have become counterrevolutionaries, traitors to the leftist cause? As it happens, she is married to an anti-Israel rabbi, by name of Sharon Kleinbaum.

Naturally, Weingarten has been defended by leftists. Because what could be more characteristic of the American left than standing up for anti-Semitism.

Greenfield comments:

Weingarten's lefty defenders keep pointing out she's Jewish. At least by way of her last name and ancestry. Of course so was Marx, who spewed violent antisemitism. In the early years of the Soviet Union, the Communist officials of the Yevsektsia or Jewish Section who persecuted the Jewish community were of Jewish ancestry. There's ample evidence that you can have a Jewish last name, and be antisemitic. There's zero evidence otherwise.

But it's also the kind of antisemitism that has long since become normalized on the Left.

Weingarten will face zero consequences for her antisemitic rant even as rank-and-file teachers have lost their jobs for minor offenses against political correctness.

Indeed, in a time when people are routinely canceled for utter the least derogatory word, or even implication, against designated victim classes, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, the AFT, which Joe Biden confuses with the ATF, the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms, gets away with blaming Jews for her own derelict behavior.

As I said, she and her cronies on the board of the AFT should be in jail for systematic child abuse.