With organizations like Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC), we Jews need no enemies. (In the early 1970's, I was AJC associate area director of the Los Angeles chapter.) It would benefit all Americans if the ADL and AJC simply quit operations and stopped spreading the polarizing Identity Politics, aka Woke DEI.
I believe that for years, the ADL and AJC have been promoting the racist anti-White and anti-Semitic Identity Politics (Woke DEI) propaganda in our schools from K-12 and at colleges and universities as well as in business and government. It is vital that everyone, Jews and non-Jews, recognize that Wokeism DEI is inimically hostile to America’s founding values of individual inalienable rights and the government’s purpose is to protect those rights. (Declaration of Independence) Wokeism is also staunchly opposed to our constitutional Republic, one of whose purposes is to secure the Blessings of Liberty. Martin Luther King formulated the most American of memes: Judge a person by character and not by skin color (race, religion, gender, etc.) Wokeism is the opposite: judge a person by his group and not by his own actions.
Wokeism Pretends to be Good, While Bringing Hate-filled Polarization
Wokeism is so anti-American inalienable rights that Americans have trouble grasping such an ideology exists in the land of the free. Because it clothes itself in “social justice” garments, people are deceived about the true nature of Identity Politics. Too bad Snow White did think before accepting the apple from the wicked queen. Too bad so many Americans have swallowed the poison of Wokeism. Wokers, like the wicked queen, are not open-hearted do-gooders. They are not adherents of Tikkun Olam, e.g., working to improve the world.
As Identity Politics has developed in present day America, Wokeism is a polarizing ideology that there are two groups in the world: (1) Oppressors – Whites and Jews, and (2) Oppressed – everyone else are the victims. Wokers’ solution is to overthrow individual inalienable rights and the US Constitution which they claim are the core of White Racism. Under Wokeism, Whites and Jews are successful because institutional racism has favored us so that our well-being is based on stealing the hard work and wealth of Blacks.
It is oxymoronic for the AJC to claim that it rejects Wokeism’s binary Oppressors vs Oppressed classification. Without that dichotomy, there is no Wokeism. One may claim that she is only a little bit pregnant, but the fetus still exists.
The Declaration of Independence Rejected Group Rights in Favor of Individual Inalienable Rights
The Declaration totally and absolutely rejected the idea that any person is born with more or less inalienable rights. At that time, the British had the Peerage System. At the top of the heap was the King. In 1215, The Magna Carta had limited the King’s rights and increased the aristocracy’s position. But worldwide, Britain was definitely a class system where different persons were born with different rights.
The fact that the Declaration held that each individual had the same inalienable rights did not mean that everyone respected other people’s rights. The Declaration was necessary because no nation held that each person had the same innate rights. It states our core philosophy and our national goal but left it to future governments to create institutions which would provide each person the best opportunity to make the most of his inalienable rights. In fact, that is why the US Constitution imposes on Congressmen, Senators, Judges, and Presidents mandatory duties to protect inalienable rights. Our society has made great progress since 1776. After the Civil War, we added the 13th Amendment which ended the Identity Politics of slavery. The 14th Amendment affirmed that individuals and not group(s) have rights.
Mandated Constitutional Duties
Politicos love their rights and privileges, while ignoring their duties. The people with the most compelling duties – which require them to risk life and limb and their standing in their communities – are elected and appointed government officials. They all take an oath to defend the US Constitution, which imposes a myriad duties. The Constitution’s Preamble establishes the government duty to secure the “Blessings of Liberty.” Because power tends to corrupt, the Constitution’s oath imposes mandatory duties on elected officials, especially on Congresspersons, Senators, the President and judges.
Individual Rights and Wokeism Are Immiscible
While we are free to discuss whatever we wish, we need to admit that Identity Politics (Wokeism) opposes core American values. For more than a decade, the ADL and the AJC have supported Woke DEI, which is a perniciously racist concept and is totally incompatible with both the Declaration and the US Constitution. Other countries have experienced similar ideologies. Contemporary identity politics is not equivalent to Soviet Marxism or German Nazism, but I believe it can share one troubling characteristic with those ideologies: reducing individuals to their assigned group identity. Soviet Marxism principally divided society by economic class, while Nazi ideology created a racial hierarchy that elevated so-called Aryans and demonized Jews and other groups as inferior or dangerous. Some contemporary activists instead divide society into “oppressors” and “oppressed,” frequently placing Whites and Jews in the former category and racial minorities in the latter. Although the historical circumstances and consequences are profoundly different, judging individuals primarily by group identity can still encourage division, collective blame and prejudice.
First, the Nazis said the solution was to remove all the Jews; US Wokeism proposes replacing Whites and Jews with minorities. In Germany, replacement transitioned into extermination. Right now, American Jews are being excluded from the Dem Party unless they accuse Israel and by extension most of world Jewry of genocide. For example, State Senator Scott Wiener succumbed, but even then, he is harassed. Read Leftist Insider Joel Rubin Within some Jewish circles, however, AJC and ADL have earned the name erev rav, i.e., Jews who work for the destruction of the Jewish people.
Wokeism and Individual Rights are Mortal Enemies
Abraham Lincoln was right that a house divided cannot long endure. Just as the “Wokeism of the 1860's” with its two groups of Free vs Slave could not continue, today the nation cannot survive when an individual’s rights rest on the group to which he has been assigned.
Under what critics describe as “Wokeism,” moral judgment can become distorted by a rigid division of society into oppressors and oppressed. When Hamas is cast as the oppressed and Jews collectively as oppressors, some activists have minimized or rationalized Hamas’s atrocities—including sexual violence and the murder and kidnapping of innocent civilians—as acts of “resistance.” These atrocities are neither resistance nor justice; they are indefensible crimes that must be condemned without qualification. Some progressive activists have also pressured Jews to denounce Israel or fellow Jews over alleged wrongdoing as a condition of political acceptance. Against that background, the continued alignment of the AJC and ADL with certain progressive causes warrants closer examination.
(Richard Lee Abrams is a former Los Angeles-based attorney, an author, and political commentator. A long-time contributor to CityWatchLA, he is known for his incisive critiques of City Hall and judicial corruption, as well as his analysis of political and constitutional issues. Abrams blends legal insight with historical and philosophical depth to challenge conventional narratives. A passionate defender of civic integrity and transparency, he aims to expose misuse of power and advocate for systemic reform in local government. You may email him at [email protected])
