A Neo-Nazi Future that Jews and Blacks Can Stop
The presidential candidate sporting a swastika on his arm, John Taylor Bowles, should be taken more seriously than your average crack-pot. He’s a neo-Nazi running for president in the 2008 elections and his campaign is founded on anti-Semitic and racist ideologies. Facing this new reality, Jews and African-Americans can remember the common bond they forged in the U.S. during the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s. If they join forces once again, their combined voices will have a stronger impact in combating Bowles’s bigotry.
Before the onslaught of the Holocaust, a select few German Jewish intellectuals — including Albert Einstein — escaped oppression in Europe, seeking refuge in the American melting pot. With little more than the clothes on their backs, these Jews set sail, hoping to find a new freedom beyond Hitler’s grasp. Because so few were permitted this escape, the chance to travel to America was a great privilege that seemed to offer great hope; but life wasn’t as easy as had been expected on the other side of the pond. Although many of these refugee professors had excellent qualifications, they were turned away when applying for positions at prestigious Northeastern universities. To their astonishment, anti-Semitism was alive and well in the U.S. — a nation not nearly as progressive or “free” as it professed to be.
But some scholars found acceptance at all-black colleges in the Old South. From Swastika to Jim Crow chronicles their story, examining the lasting alliances they forged with the African–
American community. Through touching testimony, their African American students, many of whom have gone on to become professors or prominent artists, fondly recall their foreign teachers, testifying to their tremendous contribution to social equality in this country.
During the 1940s and ’50s, segregation, lynching, and institutionalized racism were rampant — and Jews who’d seen so much persecution throughout their history empathized with the African-American struggle. “At a black university, I felt I had so much in common with teachers and students,” one professor recalls in From Swastika. Likewise, the black community identified with the exiled Jews. They, too, understood displacement and suffering: “The notion of man’s inhumanity to man was not foreign to African American citizens,” another professor said.
The empathy among Jews and blacks in these schools and communities led the Jewish professors to do what they could to help their persecuted fellows. In many ways, they set the precedent for the strong Jewish communal involvement in the Civil Rights movement that was to come.
Today, the relationship between Jews and the African-American community has seen a lagging in this partnership. At times, the alliance has been strong (fighting for continued inclusion in American society), while at others it has been weak or wrought with tension (Brownsville and the Crown Heights Riots).
But with America’s leading neo-Nazi organization bent on expansion and hoping to get its foot in the door of mainstream politics in the 2008 election, according to the Anti-Defamation League, now would be a good time to solidify the Black-Jewish partnership. Bowles is being presented as a viable candidate for the Commander in Chief. It’s conceivable that debate regulations will have him spewing his hatred to a national audience with the same prestige of place as major party candidates.
Columbia City Paper’s reporter Corey Hutchins gives us a preview:
Pulling on his red swastika armband the National Socialist Movement’s presidential nominee, John Taylor Bowles, will tap it and say, ‘This … now this is coming back into style.’ And then he’ll smile. And while you looked at him, smiling like that, dressed the way he is and running for president, you might think this is all just a really bad skit made for a Youtube.com presidential joke-fest. But – and I’m sorry but there’s no other way to say this – he and his party are as serious as the Holocaust.
Bowles’s candidacy presents what could be a worst-case scenario for both Jews and African-Americans: hate gone mainstream. And Bowles’s group, the National Socialist Movement, is forming strategic alliances with the Ku Klux Klan, as well as other white supremacist groups . If they can partner up to hate us, surely we can partner up to protect ourselves.
Lest you think this is a fringe issue, when all anti-Semites in America get together, they can be a rather potent force. About 15% of Americans maintain views that are “unquestionably anti-Semitic,” according to the ADL, and at least 5% of Americans wouldn’t vote for a black presidential candidate. Sure, those numbers are only about on-par with Ross Perot’s support, but certainly their message is of far greater concern. It’s one thing to have a guy representing that portion of America ranting about free-trade agreements; it’s quite another to have one calling for the whitening of America.
The Black-Jewish alliance has done a lot for this country. If hatred really is on the rise, the country could use it again, and the subjects of From Swastika to Jim Crow provide us with a good model for re-launching that partnership.
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I really hate how you portray Komodant Bowles and his party. You have constant refrences to the Holocaust. First of all the holocaust wasn’t as bad for jews as you make us think. 6 million weren’t killed it was only about 2 or 3 million and secondly there were way more physically and mentally handicapped people who were killed than the jews, and unlike the jews these handicapped weren’t given the chance to live and work they were immediately killed. I hate how this country (US) has turned away from our Christian values and turned to pleasing everyone. We were founded by White Christians for White Christians. John Bowles isn’t talking about killing blacks (btw they aren’t african-american africa is a continent not a country and most of them have never even set foot on african soil), jews and the rest of the non-Whites. He is saying send them back to their homelands. I have my support behind him 100 percent. I also realize you won’t even post this because as jews you won’t allow opposition. If you do post this you will trash me I am happy to recieve your persecution for my cause. Also if jews are suppossed to be so godly and everything why don’t you post an update about John Bowles’ heart attack? You could ask for prayers for him to get better. If you really worshipped and loved GOD that is what you would do. But you really don’t. I say let’s get the USA free from the zionists and quit being a zionist oppressed government like we are now. Thank you for your time and maybe you will post this, but most likely not.
Comment by A. Brott — July 17, 2008 @ 9:19 pm