Taste
Susan Sarandon, a five-time Oscar nominee and one-time winner (for best actress, in 1995’s “Dead Man Walking”), was dropped by United Talent Agency after making comments at a pro-Palestinian rally last week. An agency spokesman, Richard Siklos, confirmed Tuesday that the agency no longer represented Sarandon but declined to elaborate.
…
United Talent dropped Sarandon after she made remarks at a rally in New York City last week. “There are a lot of people that are afraid, afraid of being Jewish at this time, and are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country, so often subjected to violence,” she said at the rally, where she called for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, according to a video published by The New York Post.
Ahh that’s lovely – that “getting a taste of.” That’s what vindictive sadists say when torturing someone they dislike. It’s also grotesque when you stop to think about what Jews have had “a taste of” over the centuries.
[A] former speechwriter for Israel’s delegation to the United Nations said on the X platform, formerly Twitter, that she had interpreted Sarandon’s remark as implying that Jews “have it coming — that we don’t deserve to live free from harassment and assault.”
Assuming what she said wasn’t scripted, I think it’s possible Sarandon meant “a taste of” as “a small fraction of” but that’s not a whole lot less disgusting.
Sarandon said at the rally that being critical of Israel should not be considered antisemitic. “There’s a terrible thing that’s happened where antisemitism has been confused with speaking up against Israel,” Sarandon said. “I am against antisemitism. I am against Islamophobia.”
Yeah well that’s another dumb thing to say. “Semitism” names an ethnic group; “Islam” names a religion.
https://www.justice.gov/crs/highlights/2022-hate-crime-statistics
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/
Jews make up 1.9% of the American population.
Muslims make up 0.9%.
So a taste of what it would be like to be Muslim in America, would ironically be having a lower risk of being the victim of a hate crime.
In recent days and weeks, Sarandon has retweeted the likes of Jackson Hinkle and other genocide deniers.
In recent years, Sarandon has retweeted and promoted various war crime deniers and apologists for authoritarian and fascist regimes. For example, she subscribes to the conspiracy theory that Assad’s chemical weapon attacks were “staged” or a “hoax”. This is Infowars type stuff. Note: Palestinians living in Syria were killed in those attacks, and in Assad wider bombing campaigns that have killed hundreds of thousands. One of Sarandon’s favourite “sources” of news on that conflict is Max Blumenthal, who mocks the deaths of dead Syrians and claims “rescue workers” were responsible. So, I am not convinced she’s really concerned about the deaths of Muslims at all. There is obviously something else that drives her hate, or should I say, ‘concern’.
She comes from the same stance as racists such as Roger Waters. She echoes the same conspiracy theories, the same antisemitic tropes, the same war crime denial (see also: Sarandon’s views on Russia/Ukraine, where she sides with Russia, of course), etc. Her go to news sources are conspiracy websites and pro-Russian garbage like Grayzone.
Her latest statement is actually on the mild side for her. At least people are starting to notice. A bit late, but it’s good it is happening.
I don’t know; it seems, in current buzzword lingo, “antisemitism” refers to antipathy toward Jewish people, mostly the ethnic group called “Jewish” but also other people who might be called “Jewish” by religion, and not any other Semitic people. Similarly, “islamophobia” refers to antipathy toward “Muslims”, primarily “brown-skinned people from the Middle East”, including those who are Muslim and those who seem likely in Western eyes to be Muslim. Sikhs or Hindus (or Christians or atheists) are attacked by anti-Muslim assailants who don’t really care that their victims don’t follow the religion.
Regardless of derivation, I think both terms (“antisemitism” and “islamophobia”) can be seen as a antipathy based on a mix of religion and ethnicity. It is unfortunate that criticism of the relevant religion itself is sometimes claimed to be hatred of the practitioners, a distinction swept under the rug by using these poorly-defined buzzwords.
Thanks for the additional information Bruce and Richard. Grim.
It is a bit complicated… I hate Judaism and Islam (to differing degrees based on sect) and I absolutely loathe Catholicsism, and for the most part the cultures associated with said religions, but I want all of them in our collective gene pool with a passion.
@Sackbut:
Around the world, one of the commonest uses of the term “Islamophobia” is by Islamic countries, to shut down and disallow criticism of Islam by moderates, reformers and apostates. Indeed, that was the original meaning and usage of the term, before it got adopted in the West (promoted in the UK by the Runnymede Trust).
When the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation countries asks the UN to denounce “Islamophobia” they explicitly take the word to mean “hatred of Islam”, by which they mean any dissent from the idea that Islam is a peaceful and laudable religion and a great boon to the world.
They exploit the ambiguity of the word (is “Islamophobia” a dislike of the religion, or a hatred of people?) by saying “See, even the West realises that Islamophobia is wrongful!”, to help shut down any dissent or criticism of Islam.
It’s a propaganda word; it always was and was coined as such (functioning much like its offspring, “transphobia”.) Ophelia is quite right to distinguish it from “antisemitism”.
To be fair, Sarandon has been a nut for a long time. This is just more of the same.
@Bruce:
It’s similar in the UK. The press will regularly highlight the “plight” of Muslims in the UK, with 42% of religious-based “hate crimes” being against them. Only 23% are against Jews.
But then one factors in that Muslims are 6.5% of the population and Jews only 0.5%. So that makes a British Jew seven times more likely to be a victim of a hate crime than a British Muslim. [Note, these are 2021 numbers, so before current events.]
What the mainstream media also omits is that Muslims and blacks are highly over-represented in those committing those hate crimes against Jews. Which might be why the UK media makes less of an issue of anti-Jewish hate crime than anti-Muslim hate crime.
Where it does report it, the media instead tries to give the impression that it is whites of the “far right” variety, and, yes, there are some such. But there’s a media self-censorship about reporting the reality of the situation.
Try pointing out that recent-immigrant populations can lack fondness for Jews and you’ll get accused of being “antisemitic”.
I don’t know enough about Sarandon’s various statements to comment, but I will say I am sick to the back teeth of being labelled “anti-semitic” every time I criticise Israel’s government, the IDF and Likud. I am always very careful whenever I write “Jew(s)” to ensure any critique of them will be based on my understanding of Judaism, and nothing else. I am always careful to not lump all Jews in with Likud or to blame all Jews for the horrors that have unfolded since 1948. But still, I am, apparently, an anti-Semite.
Antisemitic. Islamaphobe. Transphobe. Loaded words designed to shut down debate.
@Rev David Brindley:
While all three can be used to shut down debate, the difference is that one of them has a legitimate use whereas the other two don’t. After all (to Godwin the thread), Hitler was antisemitic, agreed?
I personally feel that as long as one avoids direct comparisons between Nazis and Israelis one can freely shit on Israel without being antisemitic (whatever the Israel-aligned identarians think), but when you cross that line it isn’t really debatable.
Sorry, Coel, all three are used to shut down debate. Almost every criticism I make of Israel is labelled anti-semitic, any support for Palestinian aspirations is also labelled anti-semitic.
But do you know what is really anti-Semitic? Christian Zionism, the philosophy that was developed in 19C Europe to rid Europe of its “Jewish problem”. And therein lies the root cause of today’s problems in Palestine, the belief that Jews were destined to return to Israel, convert to Christianity (or burn in Hell if they refused), and the arrival of a shiny new Jesus to rule the world.
My feeling is the line is crossed from criticism of Israel to anti-Semitism when one uses criticism of Israel to justify action against Jews outside of Israel, or to deflect attention from someone else doing exactly that.
#2 Richard
“Obviously”? I think this word is misplaced no only because you reached this conclusion based on (potentially true) speculation. It is also entirely possible that she genuinely does, but has placed her trust in some bad sources. I think there is room for some charity before reaching that conclusion.
___
#10 Coel
All three words have legitimate uses, as all three referred-to groups experience hatred, cruelty etc. from others on the basis of that specific trait.
@Holms:
OK, you have a point, so to rephrase:
In the last 5 years I’ve never encountered a use of “transphobe” or “Islamophobia” that I thought was fair and appropriate. All of them seemed to be “shut this person up” attempts.
For “antisemitism” it’s running at about 50:50.
But “Islamophobia” doesn’t refer to a group, that’s my point. It refers to a religion. To refer to a group it would have to be Muslimphobia.
@Opelia:
Even “Muslimphobia” is a dubious concept, since the distinguishing characteristic there is an idea system, and it is legitimate to regard an idea system as harmful.
Thus, while it is fair to have words for prejudice against innate characteristics (“racist”, “homophobe”, “antisemite”, “misogynist”), we generally don’t have such words for groups defined by idea systems (we don’t have “communist-phobe”, “capitalist-phobe”, “Christian-phobe”, “Hindu-phobe”, et cetera).
I do get that “Muslim” can be a marker for something else, e.g. “Pakistani-origin immigrant”.
The word “islamophobia” refers to a religion in its derivation, but the term is often enough used to refer to a racial animus. People assume certain brown-skinned people are Muslim based on appearance. There is a conflation of “Arab” or “South Asian” with “Muslim”. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that “islamophobia” and “antisemitism” share the characteristic of being used in reference to BOTH an ethnic group and a religion. Not to the same degree, not the same way, but similar.
And “antisemitism” is not ever used in reference to non-Jewish Semites, except cynically. And it is sometimes used in reference to Jews who are not of Semitic origin.
But yes, the word origins are based on different things, ethnicity versus religion.
“Transphobia” is indeed another word that gets bandied about indiscriminately and used as a cudgel, but that wasn’t the point I was trying to make.