Laugh or cry? What’s the best reaction when you are greeted with the news that a D.C. Councilman thinks Jews control the weather, or that that a woman frog-marched through German streets by Nazis for being with Jews was being “protected” by the jackbooted SS storm troopers surrounding her? How about when his staff thinks the Warsaw Ghetto was akin to a gated community?
I don’t have to tell you what party the councilman belongs to, because while D.C. celebrates diversity harder than almost anywhere, they don’t care much for it in ideas or party affiliation. All Democrat with just a couple of independents, you have to go back a decade to find a Republican on the D.C. Council. Another way to tell the council member in question is a Democrat is that you probably haven’t heard the story. For some reason, it seems the legacy media and so many local news outlets report on any idiot dog catcher if he’s a Republican, but wildly ignorant, racist, or sexist comments from elected figures with a D for party affiliation aren’t similarly profiled.
Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8) is the officeholder here. After his postings about B’nai Israel’s climate changing abilities, he was invited to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. What happened next was detailed in the Washington Post which, to be fair, has been on top of this local story. They sent reporter Peter Jamison, uninvited, to cover Mr. White’s visit:
The photo, taken in 1935, depicts a woman in a dark dress shuffling down a street in Norden, Germany. A large sign hangs from her neck: “I am a German girl and allowed myself to be defiled by a Jew.” She is surrounded by Nazi stormtroopers.
D.C. Council member Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8) studied the image. “Are they protecting her?”
Lynn Williams, an expert on educational programs at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and White’s tour guide for the day, stared at the photo.
“No,” she said. “They’re marching her through.”
“Marching through is protecting,” White said.
Simon Wiesenthal would disagree, but hey this is basically a poor black guy representing poor black people in a poor black district. In the intersectionality analysis, he should get a pass. He even has a rabbi writing in his defense in a popular Jewish publication:
White serves as councilman of Ward 8, one of the front lines in the American war against the American poor. His district is home to the lowest incomes and highest disinvestment in D.C.
How is this information important to evaluate whether Mr. White likely harbors anti-Semitic sentiments? Like a Soviet system of justice, in which truth must often be sacrificed for the good of socialist goals, so too must we ignore behavior we wouldn’t tolerate for a New York second if uttered by a WASP – so long as it’s delivered by a person with black or brown skin or a member of the LGBTABCDEFG+++ community. That is intersectionality at work, and it’s why you should find out a person’s racial, economic, and sexual identity before you judge their behavior.
Mr. White abruptly left the museum halfway through the tour. Rabbi Batya Glazer of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington was questioned about his absence. He said: “I do not know what happened, and I find it confusing.” The Post’s intrepid Mr. Jamison found Councilman White out on the sidewalk:
Asked why he left the tour halfway and where he went, he said nothing and held his cellphone to his ear.
The chutzpa! The icing on the cake is this vignette from the tour after Mr. White’s departure:
Seven of White’s staff members stayed with the guide, who soon was showing them an exhibit on the Warsaw Ghetto. As she explained the walling in of Polish Jews, one aide asked whether it was similar to “a gated community.”
Glazer spoke up.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t call it a gated community,” she said. “More like a prison.”
WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 20: DC Council member Trayon White Sr. during a meeting of the DC Council in Washington, DC on March 20, 2018. White apologized for his comments promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. (Photo by Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Do we need to discuss what would happen if a white Republican in small-town Mississippi had a similar experience with blacks and a slavery museum? The kvetching would be deafening.
We’re not supposed to care that Mr. White gave $500 from a fund meant for his Ward 8 constituents to a Chicago event for Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam. Both Mr. Farrakhan and his organization are known for longstanding, virulent anti-Semitism. Last week White’s supporters held a rally outside City Hall organized by Josh Lopez, a mayoral appointee to the city’s public housing authority board. At the rally, a representative of the Nation of Islam called one of two Jewish D.C. council members a “fake Jew.” Mr. Lopez resigned on Tuesday.
What of Mr. White’s future? He brushed past AP reporters at city hall when asked for comment. He is two years into a four-year term.
