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Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Why I refuse to walk with the Washington Women’s March
Interesting...
Interesting...
I walked away from the Women’s March on Washington two years ago absolutely electrified by the promise of what a movement built around sisterhood and solidarity could accomplish.
Today, sadly, I must walk away from the national Women’s March organization, and specifically its leadership.
While I still firmly believe in its values and mission, I cannot associate with the national march’s leaders and principles, which refuse to completely repudiate anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry. I cannot walk shoulder to shoulder with leaders who lock arms with outspoken peddlers of hate.
Instead, this weekend, I will join a movement of women around the nation who are participating in local marches that have distanced themselves from those national Women’s March leaders who still ally with bigotry.
I am not alone. Teresa Shook, who launched the movement with her viral Facebook post, has publicly called for the co-chairs to resign, writing that Bob Bland, Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez and Tamika Mallory "have allowed anti-Semitism, anti-LBGTQIA sentiment and hateful, racist rhetoric to become a part of the platform” of the march.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, EMILY’s List and the Democratic National Committee I once led are among the groups distancing themselves from the national event. The Washington State Women’s March rebuked the national group, noting its leaders’ failure to “apologize for their anti-Semitic stance.”
Since that first march, I witnessed a disturbing spike in hatred aimed at Jewish homes, schools and synagogues in my own community. And with anti-Semitism and white nationalism apparently on the upswing in America and globally, the associations that Sarsour, Perez and Mallory have had with Nation of Islam (NOI) leader Louis Farrakhan have been most troubling.
NOI has been deemed a hate organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Mallory's attendance at NOI’s annual Saviour’s Day event last year was especially alarming.
It was there that Farrakhan said Jews were “the mother and father of apartheid,” and claimed that Jewish people are responsible for “degenerate behavior that Hollywood is putting out, turning men into women and women into men.”
Today, sadly, I must walk away from the national Women’s March organization, and specifically its leadership.
While I still firmly believe in its values and mission, I cannot associate with the national march’s leaders and principles, which refuse to completely repudiate anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry. I cannot walk shoulder to shoulder with leaders who lock arms with outspoken peddlers of hate.
Instead, this weekend, I will join a movement of women around the nation who are participating in local marches that have distanced themselves from those national Women’s March leaders who still ally with bigotry.
I am not alone. Teresa Shook, who launched the movement with her viral Facebook post, has publicly called for the co-chairs to resign, writing that Bob Bland, Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez and Tamika Mallory "have allowed anti-Semitism, anti-LBGTQIA sentiment and hateful, racist rhetoric to become a part of the platform” of the march.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, EMILY’s List and the Democratic National Committee I once led are among the groups distancing themselves from the national event. The Washington State Women’s March rebuked the national group, noting its leaders’ failure to “apologize for their anti-Semitic stance.”
Since that first march, I witnessed a disturbing spike in hatred aimed at Jewish homes, schools and synagogues in my own community. And with anti-Semitism and white nationalism apparently on the upswing in America and globally, the associations that Sarsour, Perez and Mallory have had with Nation of Islam (NOI) leader Louis Farrakhan have been most troubling.
NOI has been deemed a hate organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Mallory's attendance at NOI’s annual Saviour’s Day event last year was especially alarming.
It was there that Farrakhan said Jews were “the mother and father of apartheid,” and claimed that Jewish people are responsible for “degenerate behavior that Hollywood is putting out, turning men into women and women into men.”
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