Randolph and anti-semitism.
What working at a board game bar has taught me about anti-semitism.
It's been over a month since I started working at a board game bar. I expected to acquire a range of skills from this job, and hoped to delve further into Quebec society — being that Quebec folk make up the vast majority of their clientele. Well, I have learnt a lot, but I’m afraid that I may have learnt too much about those who I must animate (as my job ‘animateur’ entails) every weekend.
Anti-semitism is a word I’ve put a lot less weight on since October 7th of 2023. Perhaps that is wrong of me. Anti-semitism, for many of the older generation is a term burned into the brains since the remnants of the second world war. A word that, rightly so, is met with instant repulsion, cringe and stories that we would seem date back millions of years ago but seem right around the corner to our grandparents. However, since October 7th this term has been used, I argue, far too liberally. It has served as a sharp talking point to de-legitimise those who share a sense of Palestinian solidarity, to demonise students protestors and professors who are vocal against occupation, apartheid, genocide. This isn’t, of course, the full part of the story. I understand and recognise that the creation of such a wide coalition of people, governments and international institutions who denounce Israel and consider it an apartheid state, has, in some fucked up way, provided validation to real anti-semites. But that isn’t the point I’m arguing. What I am saying is that by categorizing an entire population as anti-Semitic simply because they fail to recognize the legitimacy—or at the very least question the legitimacy it has been given on the world stage—of a state whose armed forces are massacring civilians in the 10’000s, and is purposefully sniping unarmed children, is profoundly unhelpful and dangerous to the ultimate goal of eradicating anti-semitism.
Note for those who may not take my words seriously.
On the 10th of January, 2025, after the ceasefire was brokered, a video captures Israeli forces gunning down an adult man who is trying to recover the body of a child who lay dead on the rubble. If you chose to scoff at my words, watch the video.
A common rebuttal to these atrocities is citing of similar atrocities committed by members of the Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas. My only response to this can be, have I, or anyone for that matter, cited you as Islamophobic for being against such unjust acts of violence?
Today, I was wiping the sharpie excess left-over on the TELESTRATIONS. It’s like ‘téléphone arabe’ but with drawing. We were told to just say its like the téléphone game because of it perhaps not being political correct anymore to say ‘téléphone arabe’. I didn’t quite understand why but I was happy to comply. Each booklet is separated into 24 pages, each with an illustration or a guess of the previous illustration. After wiping 3 or 4 booklets I came across one that on page 4, had somebody doing the Heil with a big nazi sign besides it. The guess on the next page was “Hugo qui fait du velo comme un nazi.” I was like, umm, weird. As I went on through a douzen booklets of different sizes which pertained to different groups of clients, I saw more and more swastikas and photos of people doing the Nazi salute. I was really confused. I feel like, in times like these especially, this type of shit just isn’t funny. Nor should be it be normalised. I thought back to last week when I walked past a big family where the slightly over baring and loud parent was enthusiastically explaining to his family and friends the game “Secret Hitler” — yes this really is a game that is similar to Lugaru actually — and in his excitement said something along the lines of “…and if Hitler wins then he’ll deal with all the jews accordingly.” I remember looking at the table and seeing his family laugh with an eerie tone and then meekishly look around to see if anyone heard. Me and what I presumed was the mans wife locked eyes and she gave me a nervous laugh. I turned around and walked away. It was a long shift.
I discussed this incident with a co-worker today and she did told me, funny enough, that she too was getting confused by the number of nazi references she had heard around the bar. I asked her, “… is this a Queb thing?” She responded with a piercing “no.”
If not a Queb thing, what?
Then I thought about to some recent world events while thanking Amy Goodman from Democracy Now. Elon Musk, Trumps very own bootlicker, and Steve Bannon, his former closest advisor , gave nazi salutes publicly at globally televised speeches, like weeks from one another. Some third guy, a conservative — ofcourse, just let out another one earlier this week. Oops!
I mean if your still finding ulterior explanations to these, very blatant, salutes then ask yourself why this has never happened before by such top government officials, and why it has now happened at least 3 times in the past month!
My mouth is starting to foam, I must return to my point.
How can we deem to protect the sanctity of the place anti-semitism holds in our society, if those we have put in place to protect it, clearly just don’t give a damn about it. I mean I find it truly astonishing people hear a chant like “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and find it more directly anti-Semitic than a guy doing a fucking nazi salut and following it by saying
Source: A Live Video.
That was Steve Bannon.
Elon responded to peoples reactions to his nazi salut saying “Bet you didn’t Nazi that coming” on X. He then gave a speech to Germany’s far-right AfD party, an ultra-conservative political party whom several of its parliamentary members have been “convicted of using the banned Nazi slogan “Alles für Deutschland” (Everything for Germany) in campaign speeches.” What did he say? Oh nothing, just that German values should not be lost “in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything.”
Yeah this is your mans. This is the guy that rubs elbows with arguably the most powerful man in the world.
Like.
Huh?
I don’t know man I don’t like this one bit. I don’t like the fact that those in power have chosen to scapegoat a group of people in order to further their political ambitions and have in the process made the issue a whole lot worse. This is literally the history of the fucking world how can we not see this is happening again?
Your biggest enemy is not your muslim neighbor, it’s not your pro-Palestinian friends, it’s not activists that demand higher wages, it’s not illegal immigrants — it’s those you chose to follow blindly for an extra cookie and some milk.