Anti-Semitism refers to the hostility or discrimination against the Jews on racial or religious grounds (Britannica). Paulsson calls it the new racist version of the old Jewish-hatred. Semitic-speaking people include the Arabs, the Jews, the Ethiopians among others but anti-Semitic hatred is only directed at the Jews. Discrimination against the Jews began when they refused to acknowledge the Christian God who had gained prominence in Europe, giving rise to Christian Anti-Semitism. Racial Anti-Semitism discriminated against the Jews based on their biological characteristics (Britannica). The Spike Lee film, BlacKkKlansman, based on real events, is full of racial undertones perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), who, though they hate the blacks, also hate the Jews with equal measure.
My opinion is that blind hatred against a group of people can lead to discrimination, social exclusion, and genocide. It is hatred that ended up annihilating six million Jews under Nazi terrorism between 1933 and 1945. I am aware that in December 1941, death concentration camps began to emerge when two opened in Semlin (Serbia) and Chelmno (Poland) where pproximately 265,000 Jews were killed, with their bodies plundered and burnt by exhaust fumes in specially modified vans (Paulsson). In BlacKkKlansman, the lead actor, Stallworth, faces racial slurs when he reports to the Colorado Police Department. His girlfriend, Patrice, is sexually assaulted by a corrupt, white patrolman by the name Andy Landers. One of the KKK members, Kendrickson, suspects that Zimmerman, a police officer who has infiltrated them, is a Jew and plans to do a polygraph test on him. The movie has an appendage at the end about the tragic incident in Charlottesville in 2017 when a car rammed into a group of anti-racists protestors, killing one (Al Jazeera).
I feel that media, among other sources, is mainly responsible for spreading racial hatred. In the movie, for example, a racist white is heard on the radio talking about the unfairness of a multicultural system where white people are not proud of being white anymore. In a phone conversation between Stallworth and Patrice about their favorite movies, Hitman, Cleopatra Jones, Shaft and so on are splashed across the screen. Patrice insists that some of these movies have hurt America's perception of black people. Also, when BlacKkKlansman ends, there is an indication that it is critical of Trump's public desire to ‘make America great again.’ Believing that the Jews are out to dominate the world, propaganda is conjured up and spread through media with the intention of influencing people’s attitudes. That’s why Paulsson says it’s not only peasants or the uneducated who picked up the Nazi war cry, but also people with distinction such as policy makers, philosophers, academicians and so on. Thus the Jews stood accused of evils such as moral decadence, liberalism, communism, socialism, wars, revolutions, economic crises, plagues, and capitalism (Paulsson).
My view is that the effort of making such a movie can go a long way to influence people’s attitudes positively. Spike Lee deliberately splashes The Birth of a Nation which elicits cheers from the white supremacists because it depicts KKK as a heroic institution while blacks come off as a sorry people. Movies can also use certain characters to pass forth a message of goodwill as does Kwame Ture in BlacKkKlansman. Also, KKK members in the film have been depicted as moronic, sadists, useless white supremacists who do nothing but embarrass humanity. I also think that Stallworth’s infiltration of the KKK is one of the ways that can be used to challenge Anti-Semitism. Police have received information that an attack against the blacks and Jews is imminent. Indeed his idea works because he averts a disaster when Connie, one of the KKK members, plants a bomb in the wrong place that ends up killing her husband and two other KKK members. Thus to challenge racism, the government, through the police department, must be involved.
Works Cited
Al Jazeera. "Charlottesville attack: What, where and who?" 17 Aug. 2017, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/08/charlottesville-attack-170813081045115.html.
Accessed 27 December 2018.
Berenbaum, Micheal. “Anti-Semitism.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 Dec. 2018, https://www.britannica.com/topic/anti-Semitism. Accessed 27 December 2018.
Britannica. “Semite.” https://www.britannica.com/topic/Semite. Accessed 27 December 2018.
Paulsson, Steve. “A View of the Holocaust.” BBC, 17 Feb. 2011,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/genocide/holocaust_overview_01.shtml
Accessed 27 December 2018.
