At a recent political event, as we were mingling before the program started, a lady handed me an object she had found on her driveway, and asked me if I had ever seen anything like it. It was a baggie with some corn kernels in the bottom, and a folded-up flyer inside.
I had not seen this particular version of this tactic before, but I immediately recognized it for what it was: hate speech, put in a container with something to add weight, and thrown from the window of a car as it sped by.
The tactic is not new; it’s been used for a long time. But this particular topic and content I had not seen before.
The headline reads “Who is behind the rise in transgenderism?” The answer they propose is immediately obvious, with all the Stars of David on the front.
The back of the flyer begins “Pay attention to the dishonest and disgraceful ways the media and governments respond to these informational pamphlets.” It occurred to me that if you have to start your “informational pamphlet” with that sentence, it can only go downhill from there.
And go downhill it did. Between the massive anti-Semitism (in all caps, no less) and the constant whining about how their work is attacked by the “subversives in charge,” it was one of the more tiresome things I have read in some time.
But wait ... there’s more.
At the bottom of the front page was a URL for a web site (which I won't share). I went to that site, and my jaw dropped.
Here were 27 different flyers, all in full color – and all virulently anti-Semitic. Some of them began with “Every single aspect of [fill in the blank] is Jewish.”
- There was “Every single aspect of the Covid agenda is Jewish.” (I didn’t realize a virus could claim a religion.)
- Politics: “Every single aspect of the Biden administration is Jewish.”
- And, let’s not forget the Right: “Every single aspect of Trump’s campaign funding is Jewish.”
And on and on, including some topics that beggared the imagination, and which I won’t repeat here.
I was left with some thoughts, and some questions:
- Obviously, I know anti-Semitism is quite real and dangerous – but I was frankly shocked by the range of the conspiracy theories this site tied to Jews.
- Who in their right mind actually believes this stuff? It’s beyond the typical “wealthy bankers” crap; this is beyond tin-foil hat and all the way to “wrap your whole body in tin foil.”
- Even more, what sort of person thinks it is a good idea to take the time and effort to print these out, fold them up, stuff them into a baggie, add some corn kernels, and drive around (at night, of course) and throw them onto your neighbor’s driveway?
What can we do about this? I can only think of two things:
- Call it what it is – hate speech – whenever we come across it.
- Stand with all our neighbors and friends — Jewish, Muslim, LGBTQ, Latinx, Black and Brown, everyone — against hate and “othering.”
As a final act, I put the baggie and the pamphlet in the trash – where it belongs.
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