This is Democracy – Episode 172: Anti-Semitism

This is democracy, a podcast about the people of the United States, a podcast about citizenship, about engaging with politics and the world around you. A podcast about educating yourself on today’s important issues and how to have a voice in what happens next. Welcome to our new episode of this is democracy.

This week, we’re going to discuss a series of recent incidents and, uh, a terrible challenge that our society faces today, but also a challenge that’s not new and a challenge for which we, as a society have a long history that we can draw upon to, uh, deal with. Uh, in our present moment, uh, and the challenge is of antisemitism and other forms of hate.

Um, I’m speaking to you today from Austin, Texas as always. And in the last couple of weeks, we have suffered a series of antisemitic incidents in Austin, Texas, including, uh, arson at, uh, one of the largest synagogues in town, a congregation, Beth Israel and arson attempt that was designed to burn down the synagogue.

Thank you. Didn’t um, and we’re going to talk today about, uh, why these anti-Semitic incidents are increasing in our society and what we can do about them, uh, part of democracy is about confronting hate and, uh, trying to do things that not only limit hate, but allow our society to come together and move beyond the hate.

That is so old. And now so new in our society as well. We’re joined by two individuals who have been on the front lines, uh, addressing these issues in thoughtful, historically informed and courageous ways. Uh, first we have, uh, Renee L’Affaire, who is the regional director of the Anti-Defamation league here in Austin, Texas.

Renee, thank you for joining us. My pleasure, happy to be here. And thank you. And we also have Dr. Alison alter, who represents district 10 on the Austin city council. And it is Allison’s district, uh, that has, uh, many of the locations, including the synagogue that was recently attacked. These are within areas that she represents.

Uh, Dr. Altra. Thank you for joining us. So before we get into our conversation as always, we have a Zachary series, a scene setting poem. This is a difficult topic to write a poem about Zachary. Isn’t it? Yes, indeed. What’s the total. Our knots, our knots as in K N O T S. Yes. Okay. Let’s hear it. I can see you from here.

Maybe you’re a girlfriend, a Cypress tree or a passer-by, maybe you’re a grocery clerk or a memory or a homeless man at the library, but I hear you your car as it floats over the Creek and fades away, but I feel you and touch you. The wind that falls easily into the rhythm of. Likewise, several laws of the universe have been broken for me to exist.

Likewise, it is a miracle that we are not the imaginary unfulfilled progeny of peasants, that we are not all sinking in the bottoms of their ocean. They are so hard to define these knots, those seats seat in the tallest of my stomach. If I ever find them, we can press them together, hold them. And maybe our prayers can be answered for now.

It is as if someone has already taken our holy books and shredded them into a thousand pieces that we can only put back together by holding hands and staring up at something we didn’t and still don’t understand. Then I will wonder where you came from divinity, love electricity, then I will wonder how it can all be true kindness, hatred absurdity for now.

I am wondering how fast Oak burns and how many minutes can the sanctuary fall to the ground. And how many minutes can you be broken and overwhelmed? And my cracked in my hands no longer a God, but the injured illusion of inviolability. It’s a very moving poem. Zachary, what is your poem about? I think my poem was really about, uh, trying to understand, uh, what it’s like to be an American Jew in, uh, this moment, uh, in a time when it seems like we’ve made so much progress and we are already looking ahead to all, all the future progress that we’re going to make.

But at the same time we are, we are wracked by, uh, these. Very powerful and symbolic moments of hate, uh, that that really threatened, uh, the very heart of what our communities have been. And you feel this personally? Yes, indeed. So Renee, you you’ve spent so much time at the Anti-Defamation league studying and thinking about these issues, how would you describe, uh, what’s happened in Austin in the last few weeks?

I was talking about this with someone today. The last three weeks has been the most challenging in my eight plus years at ADL and how the intensity and even the number and scope of what we’ve faced is almost it’s. It’s, it’s almost as much in scope as, as the last few years combined. That’s that’s how intense the last few weeks has been in terms of having, um, outsiders come in.

Well, there’s a bunch of layers of this, but having outsiders come in with the goal of fomenting and eliciting response by using anti-Semitism as the vehicle to do it in the most horrible and angry and, and. And I don’t know, using all of the tropes, just trying to be provocateurs and, and elicit response and trying to get people to react to them has been something I’ve never seen before.

It’s, it’s, it’s kind of, I have more thoughts on this later. I don’t want to like take up, but, but that’s kind of like the intensity of the last few weeks, I would say. And Renee, what makes this moment so different from your prior eight years? Is it the number of incidents or the kind of incidents or what is the source of that intensity?

I guess? Um, I think, well, one is, there was a, there’s almost like bookends to a group that came into town and the first bookend was a, you know, a graffiti at a, at a local high school. You know, targeted Jewish, black and LGBTQ students. And then the following day, a group coming to town and setting themselves up on a bridge over the highway.

Um, you know, doing Heil Hitler there, and this bridge kind of is like a bridge that a lot of people take to get to the Jewish, you know, like the Jewish community center. So it’s one that’s known for kind of in the Jewish community is kind of being like an entrance to Jewish life here for a lot of people.

Um, so it was symbolic, it was chosen and, um, they came and. Um, they made their mark and their goal was to make a mark. And so for me, two things happen. One is didn’t like that they made them. And two is, I don’t like that, that I’m re I had to react to that also because I didn’t want to give them that win.

Does that make sense? Yes. That makes a lot of sense. That’s the paradox that the, the more attention we give them, the more we’re helping them in a certain way. Right. That’s that’s the, that’s the tricky part of this. And then of course, as I already mentioned, there was the effort to, um, well, to destroy a synagogue.

Right. And that was, that was the bookend. So a Friday was the graffiti. The group was, was touring, you know, visiting Texas cities. So San Antonio and Austin got the brunt of that. So they were here three times that week. They finished that weekend in, um, probably Hayes county. Um, and then the following day, um, Halloween, someone, uh, set a synagogue here on fire and that investigation is still ongoing.

So we can’t say who did that or if it’s related, but that was just the intensity of that particular week and the bookends of, of a group in between and, and two events on either side of that. But growing and scope and growing and seriousness as the week progressed. Yes. Yes. Uh, Alison you, as, as the representative of this part of Austin, and of course you, you represent all of Austin in some ways as a, as an elected official, how did you experience this?

I was shaken as many were, um, but I was also proud of the way that Austin said this doesn’t belong here and there’s no place for hate in our community. Um, some of this may be homegrown. We don’t know yet. Um, but many of the worst acts, peer to be, um, from outside of Austin, um, the verdict is still out on the arson incident.

What is, what is troubling is the way that hate spreads and how you handle a situation. As you just mentioned, where, what they want is attention. How do you confront something like that? And I think we have to, to respond in the way that Zachary suggested in his beautiful poem, um, with love and positivity is kind of how, how you get out of that did not, or, you know, um, how you, how you move forward.

And Alison, what has been, um, for you, what has been most helpful as a guidance in, in thinking about this? So has there been a particular policy approach, a particular way of thinking about this that’s guided how you’ve reacted as an elected official? I think it’s really important that elected officials can do.

Anti-Semitism racism, homophobia hate in general and speak loudly and clearly about that. And we have to do it though in a way that gives voice to the better angels in our community, as opposed to providing oxygen to the groups of hate. Renee. Why, why is this happening? I know this is something ADL has studied, uh, along with a number of other groups in that we as historians often ponder over.

Why do you think this is happening now in Austin, Texas. And, and of course this has happening around the country. There was a growth by many, many orders of magnitude of these kinds of incidents in the last few years. Why do you think this is happening? Um, I think we are as a society. Kind of in a perfect storm.

Um, one part of that storm is the political divide and the divisiveness, um, add on top of that, a worldwide pandemic that people disagree on how to handle add on top of that social media, which provides echo chambers on the one hand for people just to reinforce their beliefs as opposed to seeking understanding of other.

And then you add on top of that. Um, when you have this divisiveness, there’s scapegoating and hatred that comes out of it, and social media provides people, the tools to find other like-minded people and a way to amplify that hatred and, and spread it, um, like a virus, you know? So, so you, you kind of add all of those societal things on top of.

Um, social media on top of algorithms on top of, you know, the, the political discourse on top of the anger and, and this is the kind of things that happen and, and, and, and people wanting attention. It’s, it’s just, it’s, it’s kind of like a stew and an angry stew right now. And this is, what’s what what’s popping out of it.

How should we think about, and Rene, how should we think about the. The security and the place of a Jewish community like that of Austin. One that has been in many ways, incredibly successful that has contributed in, in, in, in, in great measure to, to its community. But it’s also still a very, very low, a very, very small minority in, in a very large city.

Um, I think that one way that, that. The Jewish community. And right now all, all communities are, are affected by this because, you know, there’s, you know, religious institutions of all faiths are targeted by lots of different people for different reasons. But I think that if you look at, let’s just say in this industry of, of religious institutions, I think that they are all looking at security in new ways.

And I know that the Jewish community here. Spends a lot of time and effort on security. Um, Shalom Austin, um, is a great partner in this and leader in this. And we work closely with law enforcement, with other groups, with, you know, letting people know what the dangers are, having good relationships with law enforcement and analysts and understand kind of the dynamics that are at play both online and off.

I think that that’s the best defense and then letting people be aware. Um, but I, I really think that what, what Alison was talking about was great. I mean, I think. The silver lining in this was watching the community, especially under the leadership of, I act come together and, and, and a statement, you know, that we are standing with the Jewish community and our elected representatives at city hall, um, under the leadership of Alison and all of the city council members.

Speaking from the highest elected place in the city and saying, this is not okay. And we are going to work together to a community to push this stuff. And this hatred to the fringes, because this is not who we are. That leadership is huge. Very well. Very well said, Renee and I act is the interfaith, uh, organization and interfaith action of central tech.

And involves a religious leaders from, uh, the Muslim community, Christian Jewish, uh, many, many, many different communities. And it was very powerful to see all these communities coming together as Renee and Alison I’ve said in speaking out against, against. Uh, yes. Uh, I, as, uh, as a member of congregation Beth Israel, I was in, uh, post confirmation, uh, religious school with, uh, rabbi Fallburg, our, our, our main rabbi at, uh, uh, the Sunday.

And he mentioned that the first person who called him after the incident, uh, was the mom from the local mosque who, uh, who, who, who gave a sizable donation from the Muslim community here in Austin to help rebuild our synagogue. That’s beautiful. That’s a beautiful. Alison your perspective as an elected official, someone who spends a lot of time getting to know the different neighborhoods and the different communities in Austin.

Why do you think we’re seeing more of this? Well, as Renee said, there’s a huge amount of hate that’s in the air and heat brings hate and, um, people have been under COVID restrictions. Um, they’ve forgotten how to interact with one another. In some way, they’re feeling insecure. Um, but the hate has also just always been there and it’s amplified with the social media.

It’s amplified when they get attention for their specific actions. Um, and it’s, it’s something that we have to learn how to respond to. We have to get over our initial shock. Of this going on in our community, which is not normal in our community for the antisemitism portion of this in particular, and to be so overt.

And then we need to take that and channel that into all their ways so that what we are end up with is something. Reflects our values and how we want other people to be treated. And it very simply comes down to being kind. And that was in many ways, the message of the interfaith leaders was we’re going to stand in support with you, and we need to love one another and understand different people’s backgrounds and beliefs.

And we can still be one together as a community in Austin or wherever this has happened. The unfortunate thing is this is not unique to Austin. The past couple of weeks, we have seen a lot of it. Um, but this happens all over the country, all over the world. Antisemitism is not new. Um, but we have an opportunity.

With social media, with all of those other things to respond differently and in different ways than we have in the past. And Alison, do you see the anti-Semitic part of this, which is overwhelming and obvious. Do you see that as different from, for example, the anti-Asian incidents we were seeing in Austin and other cities and continue to see, um, In prior months, are these the same thing?

Is it the same as racism? Is it different? How do we think about the relationship between these horrible actions of hate and against different communities? Renee mentioned that I, uh, sponsored a resolution to condemn anti-Semitism and racism. That was actually the third. Resolution that I passed in 19 months, the first one was standing up today’s unAmerican hate in the week of the start of COVID.

I think there are similarities and differences. Um, they, in any of these instances, the targets of the hate feel it deeply, and it’s designed to make them feel insecure and unsafe. And what we have to do as a community is to envelope. Communities and show our support and say that, you know, we’re here for you and this is not how, how we view you.

This is not the values of our community. Um, the similarities are there. Um, I think the histories and the dynamics in each case are perhaps different and. So be really clear that in the instances that we’re seeing in Austin, um, the anti-Semitism is felt strongly by those of us who are on this podcast right now, but there were elements of homophobia.

There were elements of racism. There were anti BLM elements too. Um, it’s just the locations, et cetera, were very targeted at the Jewish community. Um, so the people who are propagating the antisemitic. Um, hate are also propagating other types of hate, and they’re very much interlinked as they have been throughout history.

Th I, I would, I would, sorry. I would picture this as a Venn diagram. Um, where you could have racism in one circle and you could have anti-Asian Hayden, another circle and the antisemitism and another, and you like, kind of like Melvin together. And there’s going to be a lot of parts that are very similar in that overlap, but then there’s some elements to each one of them that are unique.

Right. Um, but I, you know, so, so. So when you have hate against one group, you’re going to get it against another. This is not something that just is ever stays limited to one group. Renee. Why do you think though, the Jews get targeted so often obviously other groups get targeted as well, and I’m not sure Jews get targeted more often than other groups, but it is astounding to some of my students, at least who think of Jews as not necessarily standing out in many think of Jews in a place like Austin is.

People in Austin. Right. Um, and we’re often not racially, uh, obvious. Uh, so, so why, why do you think Jews repeatedly, uh, are targeted? Um, I think that there’s anti-Semitic trips that are as old, you know, the thousand over a thousand years old, uh, of, of different antisemitic tropes because in the, in the history of.

Of Judaism Jews have, have been kind of like if you look, have been expelled from one country after another, over the, over the centuries. Um, and a lot of that has to do with being the other and the, the, the reasons and the scapegoating that caused some of the, some of the historical, um, problems. You know, in the Jewish community, whether it was in, in Europe or, um, or in the middle east or wherever it was, those those things get picked up when different countries are in disarray or having problems or F a leader, doesn’t like the Jewish community, then it becomes dangerous for the Jewish community and they use it as a scapegoat, or they look at old tropes and it’s just something that if you are a student of Jewish history, you know, That, um, that this is a pattern that kind of has repeated itself in various places throughout the world over the last 2 cent to what two millennia, I guess you could say, right.

I think this is very well said, Renee, that. There are patterns of thought patterns of speaking attitudes that even if they’re largely rejected, they don’t go away or they seem to, they seem to sprout up during moments of tension. And when Mo, when people are looking to scapegoat or to explain difficult issues such as a pandemic, uh, for example, Alison has an elected official, have you felt some of what.

Renee is talking about that, that Jews, uh, still confront certain attitudes, historical attitudes within the community, even among progressive people. Um, that would surprise some, but are still there. I think they’re still there, but I think part of what was so jarring about the last few weeks is that they are in the circles that I’m in.

At least they are, um, very much under the surface. And part of what was revealed here is, um, things like the fact that the governor hasn’t said anything about the anti-Semitic acts in our community, um, that, you know, we, we can be who we are, but yet the responses reflect the antisemitism. Even if it’s not overtly out there.

Yes. I, I agree. I mean, I think it would, it, it would be a different situation. We’d hear different voices if this were a, um, uh, an immigrant, uh, attacking a Christian Church. Right. I think we, we might hear a different voices from certain people. And the image that we have for the arsonist is the white man.

You know, and so that, that, that extra element isn’t there at this, at this point. For folks to react to who might react to that, but not to the anti-Semitism. Right, right. Well, I think this takes us to the last part of our discussion, which is, uh, in some ways the most important part of our discussion each week on the podcast with this.

Deeper appreciation for the history and the context and, and Alison and Renee. You’ve given us so much, you’ve educated us in a few minutes here on so many elements of this very complex and disturbing story. What do we do? How can we do better? Uh, and you’ve both spoken about speaking out, uh, Of course that helps, but that’s clearly not sufficient.

So what, what should we as a society be doing, recognizing now that we have a problem that some people might’ve thought was not there, we have a problem of antisemitism racism, all kinds of hate directed at all kinds of groups. Um, what should we be doing about it? And even at a very fine grain level, what should citizens in a city like Austin or Chicago or somewhere else?

What should they be doing when they see. Renee, sorry. Alison, you want to go first? Sure. Um, I think, you know, first you have to speak out, but when you have an opportunity to respond, With love and with kindness and with positivity, you should do that. Some of the brightest moments of the last few weeks, where when the congregation got together for a Shabbat outside in community, um, facility, Shababa just celebrate, standing against hate in that way.

Another really bright spot was when a high school student and a mom at the high school, unrelated put together a program called painting positivity, where they painted bright, cheery things like earth and rainbows and Austin scenes on picnic tables to remind the students of the positivity that should be what’s in their lives.

And to, you know, if you’re going to stand up. The hate, you know, it’s that light that combats the darkness. Um, and there’s so many different ways you can do that. Um, people are feeling heard and they’re feeling hateful, but when they, if they get surrounded by kindness, it’s going to be a lot harder. Um, and if that is what is expected in our community, we can do more.

Um, so I think there’s that piece of just everyday life. And then for elected officials, you know, people like the governor need to stand up and speak up. Um, and we also have to learn how do we respond to hate and this new environment that we’re in with the social media, et cetera, what does it mean to cover these stories in ways that doesn’t amplify the hate?

Lets people know what’s going on, but doesn’t give oxygen to what we don’t want. To be breathing. Um, is there a really challenging balance, but it has to happen, um, with intention that you spread the kindness and with intention that you make sure everyone who’s involved in a response, understand how understands, how hate works and how you stop it.

Well, it’s hard to be fat. I mean, the only thing, I mean, I think that, um, that Alison, that was, um, I think what I think about these things, I do think reaching across, you know, a, the religious aisle or the, you know, or, or to other people who you don’t know and, and, and, you know, surrounding them with love, as Alison said, I think is amazing.

I think. Being willing to learn about the other right now, and opening yourself up to learning about people who are different than you. Um, I think is super important. And I agree with Alison being a smart purveyor of social media, understand what you’re consuming and understand what you’re putting out there.

One thing that I learned through this was that social media had much more influence in the messaging. Then sometimes the, the regular media did in terms of how the story was spun and what was, what was focused on and what wasn’t and what people were enraged by and what they weren’t. And just everybody understanding like the big issues, what the goals are of the perpetrators and being very strategic and thoughtful and not giving them what they want.

So they go away. I think as a way, you know, just thinking strategically about, about who the players are and how do you respond in a way that doesn’t give them a win that’s. That’s how I would think about this. And of course, contacting organizations that do the work and asking them how you can help those kinds of things.

What about. Other more forceful actions. You, you both spoken eloquently and compellingly about the interpersonal ways in which we can replace hate with love and try to encourage better behavior. Um, but what. What about the role of, of law enforcement? What about the role of, um, taking action to prohibit people from doing certain things?

Are there, are there coercive elements available to us? Should we be thinking in those terms? Alison, so as I understand it, if you can label something as a hate crime, there are additional penalties. Um, the challenge comes between the balance of free speech. And hate and what that means in, in our, in our country.

Um, what we’ve seen though, is that hate speech leads to hate crimes as we saw with the arson. Um, and so you can’t, you can’t wait until it gets to the violence. You need to stop it, uh, beforehand. And that means really well-developed intelligence networks. It means, um, It means that you do have to do investigations every time there is a crime, a crime that happens and catch those folks, um, so that you do deter them.

I think that you’re, you’re talking Alison very eloquently about local. I think that we’re going to have to have a national recognized reckoning. How we live in the online world and does freedom of speech mean freedom of reach and there’s, you know, all sorts of debate about, um, how to think about social media and how to encourage better algorithms that don’t spread misinformation.

Don’t feed hate. I mean, hate and fear. Get more clicks than love and, you know, nice story. So, um, I’m thinking about the deeper mechanisms behind what’s driving some of these bad actors and how do you, and how do you, you know, do things that stop them in their tracks and how do you keep them? From using certain platforms for nefarious purposes.

That that’s, that’s how I think about this from like a bigger perspective. And I think both of you in, in, in, in speaking so thoughtfully about the local and the national, you know, bring up. A lot of deeper policy questions, right. About how we allocate our resources as a society for the last 20 years, we’ve put an inordinate number of resources into tracking and trying to prevent acts of terrorism that were generally assumed to be occurring.

When someone from a foreign society who looked different from us, uh, was undertaking violent activity. And, uh, ADL has been pioneering and showing that in the last 10 years, at least. The greatest threats are often from people within our society who look like the average American. Right? And so there is a policy question about how we allocate our resources through the FBI, through the justice department, as well as through local law enforcement as well.

And I think that’s, that’s a conversation. I think both of you are very well, uh, pushing forward right now that we have to, we have to talk about these things. Um, Zachary, as a young person, who’s lived through this as. Congregation Beth Israel, as you said, who’s who goes to Sunday school and became a bar mitzvah in the sanctuary that was attacked by the arsonist as someone who lives near where.

These, uh, individuals who came from out of town were putting up horrible signs or blaming Jews for COVID things of that sort first, how do you react to all of these events? How has it changed or affected your thinking as a young person? Oh yeah, we were discussing this, uh, in, in great detail, um, uh, during religious school, um, last weekend and I think, uh, But we really like all sort of agree on is that it’s not that we feel now unwelcome it’s that we feel, um, different that our experience of our community and the experience of living as an Austinite is, and has been, and will continue to be different from, from others that the threats we face are not the same threats that others face.

And I think that’s a very startling realization. Um, another is really the ignorance that many of our fellow Austinites, who are not Jewish have towards these issues. Um, I found it, uh, somewhat disturbing that, um, my school and, uh, other activities that I participated in my community didn’t speak out on this immediately when it happened.

Um, I understand, of course, that obviously. All follow the news 24 7, and sometimes local events happen that slip under the radar. But I think that to me, it was, it was disturbing not to see the same outpouring of, of, of love, um, from, from, from. From less religious institutions here in town. And I think, honestly, I don’t think it came from a place of hate.

I think he came from a place of ignorance. There isn’t the same education around anti-Semitism and the Holocaust as there is necessarily around race and slavery and. That that, that, that to me was a startling realization. And do you think that’s part of the solution is educating people better about this?

I really do. I, I don’t think the majority of, of, of, of Americans, um, have been raised on this, the same antisemitic tropes as their parents. I think, I think there, there is progress in that, but the problem is that they’re not aware of the potency and then the danger of, of these. So, I guess that’s a perfect place to turn to our last question for Alison and Renee and this bridges Zachary’s poem too, is a really thoughtful comments right now.

What is the one thing we need to do to educate people better? How can we. Help people in this environment, as Renee has said, a number of times where they’re bombarded by social media, images of hate. Um, how can we, in addition to speaking out against this, how can we educate people about what this experience is?

And, and so they can understand how hurtful and terrible this kind of behavior is, and, and at least work in their own lives to eradicate that. What, how do you think we can do that? Because it’s so hard sometimes to get through to people. What works for ADL? Renee? What are you trying. Hmm. Um, the million dollar question there.

Um, so, well, that’s the perfect segue. Um, adl.org is a treasure trove of information. There is a section of ADL which defines the. You know, I don’t know the seven different kinds of antisemitism, which is, you know, a very well-written well thought out history of antisemitism, where different things are used.

The, the, the, the different categories of antisemitism, it’s all there. I mean, that’s something I would share. Other things that we do is we’ve just developed a course for high school student. It’s I don’t know, an hour, an hour and a half long. That talks about anti-Semitism that we’re just rolling out now, but we are always like, we have tabletops on our website that talk about anti-Semitism of things you can talk about with your family.

You go and you just type in and on the search bar table talk anti-Semitism for things you can talk about around your family or antisemitism things you can send to your, your teacher and say, let’s talk about this. Um, And it’s, it’s, it’s a part it’s a part of history. Um, and the only way to do it as, as to educate people, you know, one at a time, I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s the way it is.

And I think people sometimes need it’s it’s weeks like this that make them understand that whoa, we do have a problem with. And that when people begin to understand that when an antisemitism starts to rear its ugly head in big ways, that it’s not just an antisemitic issue, but there’s a societal issue that’s going on underneath that, that, that is, is kind of a bad omen for society as a whole.

I love, uh, your reference to your website, the ADL website, adl.org, the Anti-Defamation league.org.org. adl.org is just a phenomenal resources. You said I use it a lot in my own teaching Renee and I, I love your point also about, uh, reaching people one on. A Thanksgiving dinner conversations. Uh, Alison, we’re going to give you the last word.

Wha how, how do you think we can move forward and do a better job addressing Zachary’s point of educating people? So they’re better informed and understand these issues better? Well, the whole last part is a conversation. I wanted to add something about education being important. So thank you factory for.

Inserting it, that education doesn’t fall under my purview as a city council member, but it does as a parent, um, and as a community member. And I think, um, we need to have some difficult conversations. We need to. Not be afraid to talk about racism, talk about anti-Semitism and it’s challenging and environment where people want to legislate us out of having those really important conversations.

That’s intentional on some part. And, and we, we need to stand up and say, no, these are conversations that we need to have. I think. What I want to leave us with is that, you know, it is tempting to see the events of the last few weeks as, as imposed on us by a bunch of outsiders and therefore not something that we have to worry about.

And we’ll certainly, um, some of the main actors were from outside of Austin. There were still perpetrators and, um, or. That we’re here in Austin and what we have to do as a city and as a community is say, we’re not gonna let hate take root. Um, and we’re, we’re gonna pull it up and we are not going to let that be what grows in our community.

And we do have a power to do that. Um, we can sit by and do nothing and let things happen, or we can stand up and say, this is not our community. Something more beautiful is, um, and that falls on us to do, and we must do it by example. As the adults, but we also need to learn from the kids who are organizing things like the, uh, a painting of the picnic tables and from our faith leaders who are saying, we are standing in solidarity and taking that time to be there in community as we navigate this new post COVID world and figure out what that means and how we can, how we can do that.

I think we have a real opportunity to. Um, the stand for our values, but we have to take the time and spread that love and that faith in it with intention. I think that’s so well said. And I just want to highlight the point you made, which is that we study the, um, less savory, the, uh, reprehensible parts of our own history, which include anti-Semitism and racism and all sorts of other homophobia, all sorts of other issues.

We studied. Periods not because we want to, um, whip ourselves, not because we’re martyrs. Uh, but because that’s the only way we can learn to understand how these, uh, tropes, how these experiences continue to affect our world. Today, we study the past, not just to glorify the past, but to better understand the challenges that are present and to improve who we are and go forward.

We can’t love ourselves. If we also don’t understand the faults that we even have. And it’s extraordinary that at a moment when we’re living through a rise in anti-Semitism and various other forms of hate, we have some people who are trying to tell us not to study these issues. Uh, when, what Zachary has told us and Renee and Alison have told us so clearly is this is exactly the moment we need to study, uh, these issues.

Um, Alison and Renee, thank you so much for joining us. You have brought a personal perspective. You’ve brought a deeper wisdom and most of all, you’ve brought an inspiring, uh, forward looking vision to this discussion. And we really appreciate it. Uh, Renee L’Affaire from the Austin chapter of the Anti-Defamation league and Alison alter representing district 10 here in Austin, Texas.

Thank you both for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me, Jeremy. And, uh, Zachary, thank you for your poem and your insights as always. And thank you most of all, to our listeners for joining us for this episode of this is Dimock.

this podcast is produced by the liberal arts its develop and the college of liberal arts at the university of Texas at Austin. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harris. Codine stay tuned for a new episode every week. You can find this is democracy on apple podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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