To: Fredrica Bey, executive director,
Women in Support of the Million Man March
From: Andrew Silow-Carroll
Date: June 28, 2007

Dear Ms. Bey,

You and I have never met, which in the context of what I am about to write is as much an existential as a factual statement. Lately it seems that the only time a Jewish journalist seeks a conversation with an African-American leader is in a time of discord.

And so it is this time. Gov. Jon Corzine is facing pressure, in part from Jewish lawmakers, to veto an earmark contained in the state budget that would award your organization $100,000.

Under normal circumstances, the earmark would be uncontroversial. WISOMMM has lofty, essential goals to deter violence among youth and encourage at-risk students to stay in school. You have provided safe haven for hundreds of children in your child care center and have a wonderful opportunity in the charter school you plan to open in the fall. With Newark facing a plague of shootings and murders and a 60 percent dropout rate for its public high schools, there could be no more important mission.

And yet the earmark has drawn attention for all the wrong reasons. Some lawmakers see your continued support for divisive figures like Louis Farrakhan and Amiri Baraka and question both your principles and the wisdom of the state funding your activities.
You may consider Messrs. Farrakhan and Baraka to be "heroes," but for members of the Jewish community — indeed for people everywhere who abhor bigotry — the two represent a noxious strain of anti-Semitism.

In Mr. Farrakhan's case, that is the unmistakable impression left by almost two decades of pointed comments about Jewish control of media and finance and Jewish racial and religious iniquity. He has accused Jews of sucking the economic lifeblood out of black communities and maneuvering American into war in Iraq. Most bizarrely, he doesn't consider us "Jews" at all, but liberal imposters who have turned our backs on precepts of a Bible that he himself ignores.

All of these themes — themes that are soaked in the blood of Jewish victims — came together in his "Savior's Day" speech last year: "These false Jews promote the filth of Hollywood," he declared. "It's the wicked Jews, the false Jews that are promoting lesbianism, homosexuality, [and] Zionists [who] have manipulated Bush and the American government" into the war in Iraq.

The usual defense of Farrakhan is that he is not speaking of all Jews, just the "wicked" ones in finance, media, and government. It's a meaningless distinction. Don Imus was rightly made a pariah for his derogatory comments about members of the Rutgers women's basketball team. Imus tried to make amends in many ways, but even he didn't try to claim that he was just addressing his remarks to an isolated cohort of curly-haired women with questionable sexual mores. Once you begin to traffic in age-old stereotypes, even when talking about individual members of a group, you are responsible for how that language is heard by every member of that group.

Mr. Baraka also claims he is no anti-Semite but merely raising uncomfortable "truths" about the events of 9/11. Fair enough. But when the "truth" he espouses has been discredited and was so preposterous to begin with, you'll forgive us for questioning his motives. As so many have pointed out, on what beside Internet rumors does he base his belief that thousands of Jews were warned away from the Twin Towers by Israeli officials who had prior knowledge of the attack? What would you have to believe about the Jews to believe that thousands of them would keep such a message secret?

Of course, attributing diabolical conspiratorial powers to Jews has been the stock in trade of anti-Semites for centuries. And the fact that Mr. Baraka refuses to acknowledge how absurd his claim is or why it might give offense to Jews who wept over the graves of loved ones after 9/11 tells me he doesn't value eduation or critical thinking as much as you might think he does.

Still, looking at all the good your organization does leaves me ambivalent about joining the chorus of critics. I worry about the children who might not be reached without adequate funding. Or about the message it will send to our black neighbors if Jews are seen blocking efforts to promote a worthy cause. I worry about carrying water for politicians who care more about scoring partisan political points than healing communal divides. I worry about our relationship with good friends in Newark who vouch for your group. And about the work of our community relations experts, who desire to build and maintain relationships long after the politicians have moved on to other things.

But I also worry about the message it sends when people who say bigoted, hurtful things are offered positions of respect in a community. I worry about my tax dollars going to support an institution where yet another generation might be taught Mr. Farrakhan's self-defeating message that the uplift of one people somehow depends on, or is inseparable from, the denigration of another.

For those reasons, I can only hope that Gov. Corzine thinks twice about signing a budget that includes your $100,000 earmark. But what I hope most of all is that this public controversy might lead to some private dialogue between you and the Jewish community. Perhaps in conversation we'll see how we are united by a vision of a future in which young people are able to value education in communities free from violence. And perhaps you'll see why we believe that there is nothing "heroic" about men whose views ultimately contradict that vision.