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Notes -
Is the left-right distinction really the relevant political metric we should look at the in US?
The president of NYU's student bar association lost their job offer after expressing support for Hamas. I say they, because it's a trans person who also happens to be black. Can you hit higher on the diversity bingo? Well, take the wrong side where Israel is involved and apparently that does not help you. And it's not like NYU is a conservative campus.
I'm sure this person has a history of anti-White statements (that is usually the case with black progressives). But what got them into trouble was taking the wrong side on Zionism. So, this isn't a case of being a leftist or a rightist. It's a case of being against perceived Jewish interests. Sometimes people talk about the progressive stack and we have once again found out that being black and trans is no defence if you go against Jews. No such punishment against being anti-White. This seems to imply two things:
The highest position on the progressive totem pole is being Jewish, not black or trans.
People who claim Jews are White must explain why making anti-White statements rarely carry punishments but going against Jewish interests does. In other words, Jews have relative privilege in America in a way that is not available to Whites.
Citation needed? I don’t even think you’re wrong that someone willing to make maximally-inflammatory statements about Hamas has probably said some racist nonsense. I am skeptical that it describes the average black progressive. Unless you’re playing with definitions, and saying that the Berniebros and tankies don’t count?
Anyway, the people who “talk about the progressive stack” are wrong. Not least because it’s only observed in the breach. There isn’t a defined hierarchy of privilege, at least not in a way that shields certain groups from criticism. That would defeat the purpose of an ever-shifting battlefield of social dynamics. Goodhart’s law is in full effect. Politics is a social game, and any ideology which doesn’t allow playing the game is no use at all.
I would argue that it’s much more practical to reverse the model: is the victim sympathetic? How diverse/marginalized/dispossessed is the subject of an attack? Can it be described as “punching down?”
Such a model explains the usual incidents of a privileged individual condemned for stomping on a marginalized one. But it also covers cases where the privilege isn’t clear, or “live by the sword” situations where the victim becomes the perpetrator. The difference is who played a better social game.
It explains why intersectionality gets so much attention, despite its anti-inductive nature; listing all the reasons why a group deserves sympathy is the first step in arguing importance. It explains the need for a monolithic model of systematic bias favoring whites, as otherwise, attacks on the solidly Red “basket of deplorables” would be far more risky.
In this case, Mx. Wickman’s statement came at the expense of one of the all-time classics of sympathetic victims: grieving mothers. Or at least that’s how it was portrayed, since I don’t expect many Israeli parents are reading a law school newsletter. The point is that they became a target not by upsetting a fixed stack, but because they looked like an ass for victim-blaming the one group who looked least blameworthy. Blood in the water.
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