Ignoring ugly antisemitism in Modesto doesn’t mean it isn’t there | Opinion
How should a newspaper handle hateful antisemitism when it’s happening in local neighborhoods?
I’ll tell you the wrong way: Reporting each and every time some idiot flings onto Modesto driveways literature blaming Jews for society’s ills.
The first time it happened, over the Fourth of July weekend, I used this column to air disgust. “You are pathetic cowards,” I said to those who mass-copy ignorant lies and use cover of darkness to spread their bigotry.
When similar spineless propaganda arrived in other Modesto neighborhoods during Hanukkah, and again in February, and again last week during Passover, I muttered to myself but wrote nothing (a colleague covered the December incident).
I’m breaking my silence now for two main reasons: to explain why newspapers sometimes stay quiet, and why we sometimes make exceptions. This may seem contradictory, so stay with me.
We don’t report each incident for the same reason you’re not supposed to open a closed door when you suspect fire on the other side: doing so could provide oxygen, the very thing needed to make flames explode with deadly ferocity.
It’s similar to the reason news agencies rarely show graffiti or identify gangs by name. When bad actors see their handiwork in print, they can feel recognized, something akin to legitimized, even if the intent could not be further from that. It’s a variation on “no such thing as bad publicity” logic.
News agencies each time weigh the value of people knowing truth against the damage done by inadvertently boosting a scoundrel’s ego and profile. It’s rarely an easy call.
At this point, many readers are thinking, “But aren’t you giving them oxygen with this very column?”
I abhor the thought, with white-hot hatred, that small-minded morons behind these propaganda drops will get any measure of satisfaction by reading this. They are scum.
If their cause were just, they would go door to door in daylight and not scurry around at night like the cockroaches they are. They know what they’re doing is repulsive, so they hide.
But let me answer the question. I’m making an exception today because the scale has sufficiently tipped toward people’s right to know what’s going on around them.
1) Last year, the roaches hit a variety of Modesto neighborhoods on three occasions. We’re only a third of the way into 2023, and so far this year they’ve hit eight times, Police Chief Brandon Gillespie told me Monday. Four of those came last week, on the first four nights of Passover. Some were just down the street from our synagogue.
“It’s definitely picking up,” Gillespie said.
This isn’t specific to Modesto. The Anti-Defamation League last month released numbers showing a 36% increase in antisemitic incidents across the United States in 2022, up from from 2,717 the year before.
2) Targets of harassment must be reassured that they are appreciated and supported.
I used the possessive “our synagogue” above not because I’m Jewish (I’m not) but because an attack of intimidation on any group defined by race, religion or other feature is an attack on all.
Claims that Jews are responsible for gun control, COVID-19, LGBTQ activity, slavery, pedophilia, media and immigration are ludicrous and rejected by a majority of Modesto residents. We soundly denounce these messages and the fear they instill, and we stand arm-in-arm with all targets of misinformed, misplaced hate.
3) Sunshine, as they say, is the best disinfectant. Too much well-intentioned silence can be perceived as complicity. The news has an obligation to warn and to inform.
Most recipients of this printed hate speech immediately let it join the refuse in their garbage cans, where it belongs. Several let us know, because we can let others know, when the time seems right. As it does now.
“It outraged me and incensed me,” said Irene Lytle, among those brave enough to share what’s happened with police and The Bee. “We can’t ignore it when it’s a sickness in our culture. People need to know what’s going on so they can make a stand.”
