When it happened, K.C. Johnson was outraged. Not only was the resolution blindly, by which I mean ignorantly, biased, but what business did the Professional Staff Congress of CUNY, the union representing faculty in labor negotiations, have taking a public position condemning Israel? The irony, given the history of CUNY aside, aside, this was a union. It has one job and that job has nothing to do with conflicts in the mid-east.
I am an ardent, lifelong supporter of organized labor. In the past, I served on the executive board and two contract negotiating teams for the Los Angeles College Faculty Guild. In recent years, I have focused on other areas and done other work — so during my five years teaching as an adjunct in the English department at Queens College, CUNY, my participation in the City University of New York’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC) has been limited to membership and reading union communications (many of which over the past couple of years concerned contract negotiations and the COVID-19 pandemic).
I first learned of the PSC’s so-called “Resolution in Support of the Palestinian People” on the very day, June 10, that the union’s delegate assembly was scheduled to vote on it. Like much American campus activity that is part of the malign campaign against Israel, it was a stealth act. Not primarily the supportive statement it labels itself to be, the resolution is really a malicious attack on the moral legitimacy and character of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
Forget whether you support the resolution or not. That’s critical to the formerly due-paying union members for whom this resolution launched a thousand resignation letters. But consider why a public employee union would feel compelled, entitled, to reach beyond its purpose to take a stand so offensive and absurd to so many of its own members?
Whereas, as an academic labor union committed to anti-racism, academic freedom, and
international solidarity among workers, the PSC-CUNY cannot be silent about the continued
subjection of Palestinians to the state-supported displacement, occupation, and use of lethal force by Israel.
See it? It’s right there. It comes before academic freedom, which relates to its core mission. It even comes before “international” solidarity among workers, which is a stretch if you’re not a wobbly, but at least relates to unionism. There it is: anti-racism.
That a union would never promote discrimination, particularly among its members, is entirely understandable, not to mention the law, but anti-racism isn’t non-discrimination. It’s the “moral” imperative to put all purposes aside and put the affirmative mission of discriminating in favor of those deemed “oppressed” ahead of everything else. It might be characterized as mission creep, but it’s more than that. It’s Mission Capture, where the primary mission becomes secondary (or worse) to dying on the hill of social justice.
And then came the protests in the streets of Cuba, hardly a surprise given the circumstances. But what is a surprise is who took the side of the protesters and who screamed Viva La Resolution.
Most prominent among these is the Black Lives Matter movement, whose statement posted yesterday blamed Cuba’s economic troubles on the United States embargo and hailed the Cuban regime’s “solidarity with oppressed peoples of African descent.” According to the BLM statement, “The people of Cuba are being punished by the U.S. government because the country has maintained its commitment to sovereignty and self-determination. United States leaders have tried to crush this Revolution for decades.” Preposterously, the statement also accuses the U.S. of “undermining Cubans’ right to choose their own government.”
Biden came out strongly in support of the protesters, but a certain cohort in his party did not follow his lead.
But BLM was not alone. Democratic Socialists of America, whose membership includes four progressive House Democrats—Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York, Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri—also declared its solidarity with “the Cuban people and their Revolution in this moment of unrest.”
DSA stands with the Cuban people and their Revolution in this moment of unrest. End the blockade. pic.twitter.com/jzFVrthoMm
— DSA International Committee
(@DSA_Intl_Comm) July 12, 2021
The passionately initiated will meander down the rabbit hole of rationalizing this as some sort of logical offshoot of their support for the oppressed, which someone decided meant they had to support a totalitarian regime because it called itself communist (because “real communism” has never been tried, you know). Then again, one might wonder how elected representatives of the United States would explain supporting a totalitarian regime over protesters demanding freedom. But when the die is cast that there is a laundry list of the oppressed and no variance will be tolerated, they have little choice, not that they would have chosen differently.
When the universe of purpose, of right and wrong, of good and evil, has been reduced to a handful of insipid slogans and a list of naughty and nice, the latter of which must be supported no matter what with a few irrational caveats,* its sycophants will argue, with the burning passion of a million suns, that they aren’t constrained by fear of their mob to adhere to the orthodoxy of their “movement” to eschew all thought, all considerations, other than the one they’re told is correct. No, they will use whatever excuse they can muster to explain that they arrived at that conclusion by themselves. They side with the oppressed because they believe, not out of fear or compulsion.
If excuses could be monetized, they would be Jeff Bezos.
We used to have different organizations that were formed for a purpose, to accomplish a discrete task or goal. Black Lives Matter sought to end violent treatment by police. PSC-CUNY sought to negotiate labor agreements for the colleges’ faculty. The ACLU defended civil rights and the ABA represented the interests of lawyers.
Oddly enough, the organization with the best claim to choosing a totalitarian regime over protesters for freedom is the Democratic Socialists, of which a few notable members of Congress belong. Why anyone would be elected to Congress when they profess to favor totalitarianism over democracy and freedom is a mystery, but that’s what happens when you’ve forgotten the mission and instead become a grocery clerk checking a list.
*Always back the black guy, unless he’s accused of sexual assault. Always believe the woman, unless she calls the cops on the black guy because she’s afraid. Always support the defendant unless it’s a sex or financial crime. Everybody loses to a transgender person, no matter what.