Hate speech has no place on our campus

Tuesday, May 7, 1996

By Nathaniel Wyckoff

I found your front page article, "Speakers challenge limits of
campus free speech" (May 2) to be highly disturbing, and I
therefore feel it necessary to respond.

The Hebrew Israelites, the subject of Thursday’s article, are
nothing but racists and anti-Semites. No person who values the
Western notion of equality can view them in any other light. I
refuse to dismiss the Hebrew Israelites as simply another group
with controversial ideas. The expression of their racism and
anti-Semitism should not be tolerated on our campus.

Only a racist such as Banahya, the group’s apparent spokesman,
would call for the killing of all white men and state publicly that
"Hitler was cool" during Holocaust Memorial Week. If a white man
stood on Bruin Walk and said, "All black men should be killed," he
would immediately be labeled a virulent racist, and rightly so. The
fact that Banahya is not white does not make him any less of a
racist than those whites who advocate the murder of blacks.

Banahya views the issue of race in simplistic, demagogic,
hateful terms. Instead of recognizing the tremendous gains that
have been made by blacks in the American political, economic and
social spheres since the 1960s, and instead of seeking ways to
bring blacks and whites together in a peaceful and cooperative
sense, he resorts to the spiteful, revolutionary mentality that
sees blind hatred and violence as the only possible solution to the
problems of any oppressed or under-represented minority.

Furthermore, Banahya’s decision to express his anti-Semitism
during Holocaust Memorial Week is a disgusting insult to the memory
of those who died in the Holocaust and to those who survived ­
only to find their entire families and communities gone from the
face of the earth. He also offends those of us who are committed to
the continued survival of the Jewish people and the traditions that
our ancestors fought for centuries to preserve.

Which brings me to the most ludicrous of the Hebrew Israelites’
many falsehoods: that individuals alive today who claim to be
descendants of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, Rachel and
Leah (in other words, who claim to be Jews) are not, in fact, who
they claim to be.

Forget their several millennia of history, say the Hebrew
Israelites, or the fact that their basic traditions, beliefs and
codes of behavior have remained the same throughout 2,000 years of
exile from their homeland. Forget that they have spread to and
inhabited nearly every country of the globe, including Spain,
France, Germany, Russia, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, India, Ethiopia, Japan,
China and the United States. No, says Banahya, they are not "true
Jews" ­ they are simply "white people" who deserve death along
with the rest of them. Only the Hebrew Israelites can rightly be
considered Jews. Thus spoke the "true Child of Israel."

Such outlandish remarks represent a new kind of anti-Semitism
never before encountered by Jews anywhere in the world. The Hebrew
Israelites are no garden-variety Jew haters. While the anti-Semite
of yesteryear was content to crusade across Europe, massacring the
population of any bothersome Jewish village that obstructed his
path to the Holy Land, or to burn Jews alive for refusing to
believe that Jesus was the son of God, the one thing they did not
remove was our identity.

Today’s anti-Semite may wear a suit and run for political office
instead of walking the streets with a baseball bat in search of
Jews to club, but he still delivers the same message: "I hate you
for who you are." Banahya’s group, by contrast, hates us for who we
allegedly are not. Not only does he want to see us dead, he won’t
even grant us our sacred heritage.

Even more despicable than the actual remarks made by these
venomous fiends was the weak, almost approving, response to their
vitriol by UCLA students and faculty. First-year student Shannon
Brooks agreed with Banahya’s statements, and praised him: "He gets
people thinking. He diminishes ignorance." Only a true ignoramus
could believe Banahya’s rubbish. Either Brooks is ignorant of what
Hitler did, and would be better off seeking her education in a
history book than on Bruin Walk, or she is an anti-Semite who
thinks it was right for Hitler to murder 6 million Jews.

In addition, I fail to understand how telling a crowd of
students that all white men deserve death diminishes their
ignorance. Does this action not create additional barriers between
whites and blacks, and thereby promote ignorance?

One might not expect outright disapproval of racists from people
who do not know any better, but the comments made by Joe Levin,
Jewish Student Union president, were outrageous. "Exchanges of
ideas and cultures are really important," Levin was quoted as
saying, "You learn a lot from sharing ideas."

Since when does standing in a public area and telling whites
that they will be killed by Jesus (a Jew whom, no doubt, Banahya
thinks was black) because they are "devils," constitute an exchange
of ideas and cultures? What can possibly be gained by giving those
who preach complete and absolute hatred for all Caucasians and for
all Jews (Caucasian or otherwise) a forum?

Banahya wants to see Levin dead, for in his eyes, Levin is
guilty of being both a white man and a "false Jew." Why is the
president of a group that purportedly exists to promote the
well-being of Jewish students afraid to call a racist a racist? Has
he not learned by now that when Jews, when any people, cower in
fear of those who hate them, their cowardice only further empowers
the haters? Any child who has ever encountered a bully on the
playground can attest to this reality. Has Levin learned to
overlook anti-Semitism for the sake of promoting political
correctness and "multiculturalism?"

Even the one student who was unafraid to speak against the
Hebrew Israelites felt the need to temper that criticism with
politically correct stupidity. Farzin Keliddari, a second-year
student, told The Bruin that "people like him (Banahya) who preach
hate become dangerous." Yet, Keliddari later added that, "At least
at these types of spontaneous forums, people start to talk about
these issues" (race, religion and oppression).

There is a distinct difference between conducting a calm,
intelligent discussion of the ways in which people of different
ethnicities and religions might learn to live together peacefully,
and shouting racial epithets at passersby in a public place. Such
"forums" as those conducted by the Hebrew Israelites are not
discussions; they are breeding grounds for angry confrontation
between a group of hatemongering fools and those whom they offend.
Any angry confrontation between people of different ethnicities who
do not respect each other has the potential to become violent.

With this potential for violence in mind, I must now respond to
the opinion of Professor Robert Goldstein, who feels that the Black
Hebrews are protected by the First Amendment. I consider their
sickening remarks to be fighting words, which are not protected by
the First Amendment. Additionally, there is no convincing me that
the Hebrew Israelites’ sickening remarks do not constitute hate
speech. To recapitulate, Banahya of the Hebrew Israelites has
called all white men demonic beings who "should be killed" and has
labeled Adolf Hitler, murderer of more Jews than any individual in
history, "cool." (I doubt that he meant the dictator required a
sweater).

My dictionary defines hatred as "intense animosity or
hostility." Only a moron would not consider words in support of
Hitler to be expressions of animosity and hostility towards Jews.
Only an idiot or a person blinded by all the politically correct
nonsense pervading the campus today would not consider the call to
exterminate Caucasians a hateful remark. Banahya’s speech is hate
speech, and should not be protected by the First Amendment. If it
is, then our current interpretation of the First Amendment must be
reevaluated.

Those who hide behind the First Amendment in order to defend
their public expressions of racist views must be stopped. The
Hebrew Israelites have no place at a public university, or at any
place where human decency is valued. Jews must be willing to combat
anti-Semitism, regardless of where it occurs and how "important" an
"exchange of ideas and cultures" that anti-Semitism represents.
When Hitler, darling of the Hebrew Israelites, first stood on
public streets and proclaimed his hatred of Jews, most of the
German public considered him a harmless clown. The world soon paid
a heavy price for failing to silence him at once. Let us not make
the same mistake.

Wyckoff is a graduate student in biomedical physics.