To put Garrison’s comment a bit more bluntly, I challenge you to name 1 left-winger who might feasibly be invited to speak at Manifold and has said anything about Jews as a group comparable to Hanania saying “these people are animals” about Black people*. That’s not a dogwhistle, or a remark that reflects stereotypes, or applies double-standards, or cheering for one side in a violent conflict because you think their the aggressors it’s just explicit open racism.
*(The claim made below that Hanania really meant woke people not Black people, strains credulity. He was talking about not just the lawyer who prosecuted a man for violence towards a black man who was harrassing people on the subway, but also the . The full quote was “these people are animals, whether harassing people in the subway or walking around in suits”. There is no reason to think the harasser was woke or shared any other characteristic with the lawyer except being Black. And your prior on “man who was a neo-Nazi for years, and never apologised till he got caught actually meant the racist reading when he said something that sounded racist” should be high.)
One person I was thinking about when I wrote the post was Medhi Hassan. According to Wikipedia:
During a sermon delivered in 2009, quoting a verse of the Quran, Hasan used the terms “cattle” and “people of no intelligence” to describe non-believers. In another sermon, he used the term “animals” to describe non-Muslims.
Medhi has spoken several times at the Oxford Union and also in a recent public debate on antisemitism, so clearly he’s not beyond the pale for many.
I personally also think that the “from the river to the sea” chant is pretty analogous to, say, white nationalist slogans. It does seem to have a complicated history, but in the wake of the October 7 attacks its association with Hamas should I think put it beyond the pale. Nevertheless, it has been defended by Rashida Tlaib. In general I am in favor of people being able to make arguments like hers, but I suspect that if Hanania were to make an argument for why a white nationalist slogan should be interpreted positively, it would be counted as a strong point against him.
I expect that either Hassan or Tlaib, were they interested in prediction markets, would have been treated in a similar way as Hanania by the Manifest organizers.
I don’t have more examples off the top of my head because I try not to follow this type of politics too much. I would be pretty surprised if an hour of searching didn’t turn up a bunch more though.
Hassan: Those comments were indeed egregious, but they were not about Jews specifically. Indeed much more recently (although still a while ago) Hassan has harshly criticised antisemitism in the British Muslim community. I can’t link on my phone but google “the sorry truth is that the virus of antisemitism has infected the British Muslim community”. I grant that this was comparably egregious to what Hanania said (I do think it is slightly less bad to attack literally everyone outside your small community than to target a vulnerable minority, but I wouldn’t rest much on that.*) If Hassan had said that more recently or I was convinced he still thought that, then I would agree he should not be invited to Manifest. But it’s not actually an example of prejudice against Jews specifically except to the extent that Jews are also not Muslim.
Tlaib: Well I wouldn’t use that phrase, and I’m inclined to say using it is antisemitic yes, because at the very least it creates an ambiguity about whether you mean it in the genocidal way. Having said that, given that there is a very clear non-genocidal reading, I do not think it is a clear example of hate speech in quite the same sense as Hanania’s animals remark. I’d also say that my strength of feeling against Hanania is influenced by the fact that he was an out and out white nationalist for years, and that he remains hostile to the civil rights act that ended Jim Crow and democratised the South.. If you can show me that Tlaib is or was a Hamas supporter, then yes, I’d say her saying “from the river to the sea” is at least as bad as Hanania’s animals comment. (Worse inherently, since that would make it a call for violence and genocide/ethnic cleansing. But I do think Palestinians are subject to forces that make resisting bigotry harder vis-a-vis Israelis, than it is for white Americans to resist white nationalism.)
*For example, I think the NYT should have fired Sarah Jeong even though her racist comments were “only” about whites, if you know that incident.you
If Hassan had said that more recently or I was convinced he still thought that, then I would agree he should not be invited to Manifest.
My claim is that the Manifest organizers should have the right to invite him even if he’d said that more recently. But appreciate you giving your perspective, since I did ask for that (just clarifying the “agree” part).
Having said that, given that there is a very clear non-genocidal reading, I do not think it is a clear example of hate speech in quite the same sense as Hanania’s animals remark
I have some object-level views about the relative badness but my main claim is more that this isn’t a productive type of analysis for a community to end up doing, partly because it’s so inherently subjective, so I support drawing lines that help us not need to do this analysis (like “organizers are allowed to invite you either way”).
Most Israeli Jews would call the phrase “From the river to the see” antisemitic. Myself being relatively on the far left in that group, and having spoken a lot with Palestinians online before the war, I’d argue that it’s antisemitic/calls for ethnic cleansing of Jews around 50% of the time. I would not prosecute or boycott someone based on it alone.
Edit: but most Israelis might choose not to come to a conference that would platform such a person, I guess. I think this is a different situation from the current real controversy, but make of it what you will.
For what it’s worth, I’m 75% confident that Hanania didn’t mean black people with the “animals” comment.
I think it’s generally bad form to not take people at their word about the meaning of their statements, though I’m also very sympathetic to the possibility of provocateurs exploiting charity to get away with dogwhistles (and I think Hanania deserves more suspicion of this than most), so I feel mixed about you using it as an example here.
“Didn’t mean” is fuzzy in this sort of case. I’d put “he expected a good number of readers would interpret the referent of ‘animals’ to be ‘black people’ and was positive on that interpretation ending up in their minds” at more likely than not.
I think many people are tricking themselves into being more intellectually charitable to Hanania than warranted.
I know relatively little about Hanania other than stuff that has been brought to my attention through EA drama and some basic “know thy enemy” reading I did on my own initiative. I feel pretty comfortable in my current judgment that his statements on race are not entitled charitable readings in cases of ambiguity.
Hanania by his own admission was deeply involved in some of the most vilely racist corners of the internet. He knows what sorts of messages appeal to and mobilize those people, and how such racists would read his messages. He “know[s] how it looks” not just to left-wing people but to racists.
More recently, he has admitted that he harbors irrational animus (mostly anti-LGBT stuff from what I know) that seems like a much better explanation for his policy positions rather than any attempt at beneficence from egalitarian first principles. If you just read his recent policy stances on racial issues, they are shot through with an underlying contempt, lack of empathy, and broad-strokes painting that are all consistent with what I think can fairly be called a racist disposition towards Black people in particular.
Charitable interpretation of statements can be a sensible disposition in many settings. But giving charitable interpretations to people with this sort of history seems both morally and epistemically unwise.
The prior on “person with a white supremacist history still engaged in right wing racial politics still has a racist underlying psychology” should be very high. Right-wing racists also frequently engage in dogwhistles to signal to each other while maintaining plausible deniability. Reading that statement (and others of his) with those priors+facts in mind, I feel very comfortable not giving Hanania any benefit of the doubt here.
There’s also a textual case that I think supports the racist reading. Woke people walking around “in suits” is not at all a common trope—I’ve literally never heard of someone talking about a woke person wearing a suit as some sort of significant indicator of anything. But racists judging Black people by what they wear—e.g., purporting to be willing to be nicer to Black people if only they dressed more appropriately—is a huge trope in American race discourse. This sort of congruence between racist tropes and Hanania’s language similarly applies to “in subways” and “animals.” These are racist tropes consistently used about Black people, not woke people.
He explicitly said that he sent an emotional and unthinking tweet.
This seems to me like also what you do if you’re in an elaborate game of secretly communicating hate. I think a sensible prior is that more people are emotional and unthinking than playing an elaborate game, but I don’t think his claims about his own intentions are strong evidence here.
Also, while “elaborate game of secretly communicating hate” is a pretty weird and specific hypothesis, I think we’ve also seen evidence from time to time that some people are very much doing it, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable for people to suspect it (e.g. I think of the things Lee Atwater said about switching from being openly racist to covertly racist in US politics).
To put Garrison’s comment a bit more bluntly, I challenge you to name 1 left-winger who might feasibly be invited to speak at Manifold and has said anything about Jews as a group comparable to Hanania saying “these people are animals” about Black people*. That’s not a dogwhistle, or a remark that reflects stereotypes, or applies double-standards, or cheering for one side in a violent conflict because you think their the aggressors it’s just explicit open racism.
*(The claim made below that Hanania really meant woke people not Black people, strains credulity. He was talking about not just the lawyer who prosecuted a man for violence towards a black man who was harrassing people on the subway, but also the . The full quote was “these people are animals, whether harassing people in the subway or walking around in suits”. There is no reason to think the harasser was woke or shared any other characteristic with the lawyer except being Black. And your prior on “man who was a neo-Nazi for years, and never apologised till he got caught actually meant the racist reading when he said something that sounded racist” should be high.)
One person I was thinking about when I wrote the post was Medhi Hassan. According to Wikipedia:
Medhi has spoken several times at the Oxford Union and also in a recent public debate on antisemitism, so clearly he’s not beyond the pale for many.
I personally also think that the “from the river to the sea” chant is pretty analogous to, say, white nationalist slogans. It does seem to have a complicated history, but in the wake of the October 7 attacks its association with Hamas should I think put it beyond the pale. Nevertheless, it has been defended by Rashida Tlaib. In general I am in favor of people being able to make arguments like hers, but I suspect that if Hanania were to make an argument for why a white nationalist slogan should be interpreted positively, it would be counted as a strong point against him.
I expect that either Hassan or Tlaib, were they interested in prediction markets, would have been treated in a similar way as Hanania by the Manifest organizers.
I don’t have more examples off the top of my head because I try not to follow this type of politics too much. I would be pretty surprised if an hour of searching didn’t turn up a bunch more though.
Hassan: Those comments were indeed egregious, but they were not about Jews specifically. Indeed much more recently (although still a while ago) Hassan has harshly criticised antisemitism in the British Muslim community. I can’t link on my phone but google “the sorry truth is that the virus of antisemitism has infected the British Muslim community”. I grant that this was comparably egregious to what Hanania said (I do think it is slightly less bad to attack literally everyone outside your small community than to target a vulnerable minority, but I wouldn’t rest much on that.*) If Hassan had said that more recently or I was convinced he still thought that, then I would agree he should not be invited to Manifest. But it’s not actually an example of prejudice against Jews specifically except to the extent that Jews are also not Muslim.
Tlaib: Well I wouldn’t use that phrase, and I’m inclined to say using it is antisemitic yes, because at the very least it creates an ambiguity about whether you mean it in the genocidal way. Having said that, given that there is a very clear non-genocidal reading, I do not think it is a clear example of hate speech in quite the same sense as Hanania’s animals remark. I’d also say that my strength of feeling against Hanania is influenced by the fact that he was an out and out white nationalist for years, and that he remains hostile to the civil rights act that ended Jim Crow and democratised the South.. If you can show me that Tlaib is or was a Hamas supporter, then yes, I’d say her saying “from the river to the sea” is at least as bad as Hanania’s animals comment. (Worse inherently, since that would make it a call for violence and genocide/ethnic cleansing. But I do think Palestinians are subject to forces that make resisting bigotry harder vis-a-vis Israelis, than it is for white Americans to resist white nationalism.)
*For example, I think the NYT should have fired Sarah Jeong even though her racist comments were “only” about whites, if you know that incident.you
My claim is that the Manifest organizers should have the right to invite him even if he’d said that more recently. But appreciate you giving your perspective, since I did ask for that (just clarifying the “agree” part).
I have some object-level views about the relative badness but my main claim is more that this isn’t a productive type of analysis for a community to end up doing, partly because it’s so inherently subjective, so I support drawing lines that help us not need to do this analysis (like “organizers are allowed to invite you either way”).
Most Israeli Jews would call the phrase “From the river to the see” antisemitic. Myself being relatively on the far left in that group, and having spoken a lot with Palestinians online before the war, I’d argue that it’s antisemitic/calls for ethnic cleansing of Jews around 50% of the time. I would not prosecute or boycott someone based on it alone.
Edit: but most Israelis might choose not to come to a conference that would platform such a person, I guess. I think this is a different situation from the current real controversy, but make of it what you will.
For what it’s worth, I’m 75% confident that Hanania didn’t mean black people with the “animals” comment.
I think it’s generally bad form to not take people at their word about the meaning of their statements, though I’m also very sympathetic to the possibility of provocateurs exploiting charity to get away with dogwhistles (and I think Hanania deserves more suspicion of this than most), so I feel mixed about you using it as an example here.
“Didn’t mean” is fuzzy in this sort of case. I’d put “he expected a good number of readers would interpret the referent of ‘animals’ to be ‘black people’ and was positive on that interpretation ending up in their minds” at more likely than not.
I’d bet against that but not confident
I think many people are tricking themselves into being more intellectually charitable to Hanania than warranted.
I know relatively little about Hanania other than stuff that has been brought to my attention through EA drama and some basic “know thy enemy” reading I did on my own initiative. I feel pretty comfortable in my current judgment that his statements on race are not entitled charitable readings in cases of ambiguity.
Hanania by his own admission was deeply involved in some of the most vilely racist corners of the internet. He knows what sorts of messages appeal to and mobilize those people, and how such racists would read his messages. He “know[s] how it looks” not just to left-wing people but to racists.
More recently, he has admitted that he harbors irrational animus (mostly anti-LGBT stuff from what I know) that seems like a much better explanation for his policy positions rather than any attempt at beneficence from egalitarian first principles. If you just read his recent policy stances on racial issues, they are shot through with an underlying contempt, lack of empathy, and broad-strokes painting that are all consistent with what I think can fairly be called a racist disposition towards Black people in particular.
Charitable interpretation of statements can be a sensible disposition in many settings. But giving charitable interpretations to people with this sort of history seems both morally and epistemically unwise.
The prior on “person with a white supremacist history still engaged in right wing racial politics still has a racist underlying psychology” should be very high. Right-wing racists also frequently engage in dogwhistles to signal to each other while maintaining plausible deniability. Reading that statement (and others of his) with those priors+facts in mind, I feel very comfortable not giving Hanania any benefit of the doubt here.
There’s also a textual case that I think supports the racist reading. Woke people walking around “in suits” is not at all a common trope—I’ve literally never heard of someone talking about a woke person wearing a suit as some sort of significant indicator of anything. But racists judging Black people by what they wear—e.g., purporting to be willing to be nicer to Black people if only they dressed more appropriately—is a huge trope in American race discourse. This sort of congruence between racist tropes and Hanania’s language similarly applies to “in subways” and “animals.” These are racist tropes consistently used about Black people, not woke people.
He explicitly said that he sent an emotional and unthinking tweet.
That seems much more likely than he’s playing an elaborate game of secretly communicating hate.
This seems to me like also what you do if you’re in an elaborate game of secretly communicating hate. I think a sensible prior is that more people are emotional and unthinking than playing an elaborate game, but I don’t think his claims about his own intentions are strong evidence here.
Also, while “elaborate game of secretly communicating hate” is a pretty weird and specific hypothesis, I think we’ve also seen evidence from time to time that some people are very much doing it, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable for people to suspect it (e.g. I think of the things Lee Atwater said about switching from being openly racist to covertly racist in US politics).