SocraticGadfly: Counterpunch drops an antisemitic dime

April 26, 2024

Counterpunch drops an antisemitic dime

Disgusted by Counterpunch running actual antisemitism, not anti-Zionism.

David Yearsley, who is a regular contributor at Counterpunch, as in for more than 15 years, ran a piece about the intersection of O.J. Simpson and culture, "Sounding Out O.J." At the end is an embedded video of a Jay-Z rap.

At 2:36, it says:

You ever wonder why Jewish people own all the property in America?

That's antisemitic, period and end of story. Not anti-Zionist, antisemitic.

Dude is a tenured music prof at Cornell and a published author. I have no doubt he knows the full video, especially given the way he teed it up.

No mention of football or murder is made in what I consider the towering musical monument to Simpson erected in 2017: Jay-Z’s “Story of O.J.” I cannot find its refrain—“I’m not Black, I’m O.J.”—anywhere before this song engraved his epitaph in sound seven years before his death.

I listened through to that point to hear the refrain he mentions. And, did a WTF. Yearsley nowhere says something like: "It's good except for this," or, "I'm posting this ONLY for the OJ angle; I disagree with Jay Z's antisemitism," or anything similar.

We're getting nearer to deblogrolling Counterpunch.

And, this is of importance ever since Oct. 7. To have ethical standing in calling out Zionists for conflating anti-Zionism and antisemitism, I have to call out actual antisemitism.

And, as part of that, I Tweeted both Counterpunch and St. Clair. (We follow each other.) No response. I emailed Yearsley. No response.

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Update, May 7: And now, engaging in "gotcha leftism," something I deplore, especially when it's fact free.


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