Why did the ADL slam Whoopi Goldberg but give ‘grace’ to Elon Musk?As a Black Jew, I wonder why some antisemitic actions get a pass

When the Anti-Defamation League, the self-described “leading anti-hate organization in the world,” gave Elon Musk an immediate pass for the Nazi salute he gave at President Donald Trump’s inauguration, I thought of Whoopi Goldberg.

In 2022, Goldberg made a comment that the Holocaust wasn’t about race, rather that it was a beef between two groups of white people. Back then, the ADL, more specifically its CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, took to social media to tell the world that Goldberg’s “comments about the Holocaust and race are deeply offensive and incredibly ignorant.”

He went on to demand an apology and that Goldberg, “actually commit to educating herself on the true nature of #antisemitism.”

Not long after that, Greenblatt was invited on to “The View” where he and Goldberg hashed things out. Goldberg said that she “misspoke” and that she stood with the Jewish people.

The next day, ABC suspended Goldberg for two weeks.

At the time, I wrote an open letter in the Forward telling Greenblatt that if he truly wanted to build bridges to the African American community, he would call upon ABC to reverse its decision and reinstate Goldberg. Greenblatt did go on CNN to argue that Goldberg shouldn’t be “canceled” — but the suspension wasn’t rescinded.

So much for the benefit of the doubt.

Save your outrage: Elon Musk’s inauguration salute is just another distracting meme

As for me, I learned the hard way that being critical of an organization like the ADL can get you cancelled by the American Jewish community. After my piece was published, many of the Jewish donors to my organization, MASK, discontinued their support.

African Americans are not blind. And those of us who identify as Jewish have 20/20 vision.

After Musk gave his Nazi salute — twice — the ADL assured the world that Musk’s gesture was most definitely, absolutely, positively not a Nazi salute and asked for “a bit of grace” and “perhaps even the benefit of the doubt.”

Because I live in an African American neighborhood that is overwhelmingly not Jewish, I have to pick a side when Blacks are called out for alleged antisemitism. When the ADL decides it has no grace for a Black woman like Whoopi Goldberg, and is quick to decry antisemitic comments from  a Black man like Nick Cannon, I feel it in my neighborhood.

As latest Elon Musk controversy swirls, some American Jews come to his defense

Even Greenblatt and Cannon’s reconciliation plays differently in the African American community than it does in white America. Black people understand what it means to get “Nick Cannoned,” and are afraid of running afoul of the ADL.

Now when that same organization that is so quick to decry antisemitism when it comes from people in my community, but seems to have an abundance of it for a South African-raised oligarch whom even Stephen Bannon has called a racist and a “truly evil guy,” I can not sit back in silence.

I choose to give grace to the ones who deserve it, and Musk certainly does not deserve it.

True moral leaders speak truth to power; being an apologist for the richest man in the world is not a good look. Especially when you are never as generous with your grace when it comes to people who look like me.

Tamar Manasseh is the founder and president of Mothers Against Senseless Killings.MaskChicago.bsky.social

Article published January 24, 2025 Forward

forward.com/opinion/691282/elon-musk-did-the-adl-slam-whoopi-goldberg-but-give-grace/

MASK IS HOSTING FREE FAMILY TREE FEBRUARY

MASK will be hosting free genealogy clinics in person and online for the entire month of February. It’s time. The mission of MASK is to stop violence and killing and to challenge ourselves to constantly come up with more innovative solutions. 

While we’re still pushing for speed bumps on the block and fulfilling as many of the needs of the community as we can, we know that it's still not enough. 

They say if you want to change what's around, you must first change what's inside of you. That could be difficult if you don’t know what that is.

  This is why a specialized education can play a huge role in combating violence. The majority of community service is education and connection. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are all very important and are undoubtedly taught in some of the same classrooms where we learned them. However, on the block, we plan on making knowledge of ourselves and how we came to be wherever we are in this country a top priority.

The story of Black people is as unique as that of other groups. Yet, it's often reduced to slavery, freedom, the civil rights movement, and now Barak Obama. There's more to us and our history than that. 

 Other communities don’t suffer the level of human loss that we do because they belong to someone or a people, and membership in that group comes with a level of responsibility to preserve their history, teach their children that history, and charge their children with taking their people into the future. Each community member is important because they have been entrusted with growing their community. Everyone has value.

  Other cultures make their history central to their identities and communities. Their history is often tied to their survival. They never forget. We’re just the opposite. We don’t know the history, and if we do, it doesn’t have much value.

Meanwhile, we’re celebrating other people's heritage and holidays. While not paying very much attention to our own. Juneteenth is great, but it’s not the day many former enslaved people learned about their emancipation. Other formerly enslaved people were just as jubilant the day they found out they were free. Those stories are part of the histories of some of us, and they are important, too. Not just the ones that Congress has given us a day off to “observe.”   

The Black community is missing a common story and history that we can center our communities around. This project makes it personal. It approaches the issue of gun violence unconventionally. Genealogical research is quite personal because it clarifies why we are the way we are. 

 The problem isn’t only the guns. It’s why we need them in the first place. We don’t know each other anymore, and that makes us feel fearful and paranoid.

 If we knew our history, we would know that those emotions used to be reserved for those who enslaved us. 

They were the ones who wronged us and constantly feared uprisings and retribution.

  Why did we have to be fearful or paranoid of what we might do to one another? Especially when you consider the slave who damaged another slave could be beaten, sold off, or even killed for harming the property of a white slaveholder.

That was their job. But somehow, now it's ours?

 We used to be in this together. We had an enemy but it wasn’t each other. 

When the knowledge of our history and our own story no longer exists in your consciousness because it's been erased and you’ve been convinced it doesn’t matter, someone else's stories and all the things that come with it will occupy that space. 

That is one of the main reasons we kill each other.

  Learning about one's history could once again familiarize us and our children with each other. 

You may find out your difficult neighbor is actually a relative, and we have more in common than we previously thought. This project can go a long way to helping kids with no family who may be wards of the state. Perhaps they find out the opp that they’re contemplating shooting or vice versa, maybe kin? It may save both lives? It could potentially give a kid who has been alone in the world for so long an actual family and not just a gang that acts as a surrogate.

So much of our personal information and the vital stories that tell us who we are and who we’re connected to have been hidden away from us, and our children are dying because of it. 

This is us doing what we do best: trying to find solutions. Summer will be back soon. We’ll still want our speed bumps to accompany our lights and cameras. People will still be screaming for shot spotter and they’ll put more police on the street. Will that work? We don’t know. But we do know we can’t say we did or are doing everything we can if we’re not battling this issue from every angle, even this one. So please take advantage of this free opportunity, FREE y'all, to improve yourself and your community. Knowing where you come from shouldn't be a privilege. It's a right! 

Sign up today!

Are you better of than you were 48 years ago?

   There was a time in my life when people asked me my age, and I told them that I was born during the Carter administration. That was funny to me for so many reasons. One of them was because some people had no idea when that was or my fave, when some beautiful fool would ask if that was my last name. Cute. It told me a lot about who they were, but it wouldn’t become meaningful until much later that a sixteen-year-old girl from the hood knew who Jimmy Carter was and when he was the President. 

One of my earliest memories is of when Carter faced off against Reagan. The way it was talked about in my house made Reagan sound like a monster, and he was to my community. Until his party would one day spurn even bigger, badder monsters. 

I remember when Reagan took the oath of office, and then hostages were released, and my uncle railed about how Reagan took credit for Carter's work. I wasn’t even three years old yet. But, my family talked politics more than anything else when I was growing up, much like we do now. And perhaps I can’t remember exactly, or I’ve watched tv clips and heard vivid retellings? What I do know is that this country and my community would take a drastic turn after that day. 

Black women would be labeled “Welfare Queens”. We’d learn that only urine trickles down, and my community, still reeling from COINTELPRO, would be hit with a bomb called the crack epidemic that still produces victims to this day. 

I know some will have a problem with my recollections of the Reagan era, but you didn’t come from where I did. For you, “crack babies” were the subject of salacious articles in the NYT or WaPo. For me, they were the shame of my neighbors. And the problem was always those who sold the drugs and not the ones who let them in. Some families could lose loved ones to drug addiction and the street violence that came with selling it. 

Meanwhile, the first Jimmy Carter work project would be held in NYC, and he would start building. 

The accomplishments and selfless work of the man during whose presidency I would enter the world always inspired me, especially as he aged. His example may be part of why I started an organization designed to help people.

 At a time when many of us still struggle to find purpose and relevance, he was building his 100,00th house! 

As I got older, being born during his administration became a massive source of pride.

Americans can debate the merits of his accomplishments while he was president, but no one can ever challenge the fact that the presidency wasn’t his last or most defining act.

It was the concern for humanity that he would still show long after votes no longer mattered. 

Because of Jimmy Carter I am in no rush to run for office, if ever. Party affiliations and backroom deals can hinder you. It can make you “obstinate,” “difficult to work with,” and “unproductive.” The White House took much away from the life of someone like him, but he got every minute of it back by building homes for others. 

At this moment, I think we should all ask ourselves if we’re better off now than we were 48 years ago. Some may say no, but others, pondering the question under a roof built by the hands and heart of the 39th President of the United States, may disagree.