Thoughts on Progressive Ethnic Politics and El-Sayed

Mark Graber

Contemporary Democrats might benefit from thinking about how Democrats built winning coalitions during the New Deal and Great Society despite significant ethnic differences within progressive movements.  Winning Democrats of the time understood that political actors are pulled by ethnic ties, that there is a difference between seeing the world from a particular ethic and religious perspective and wishing to harm members of other ethnic groups.  Adopting such attitudes might help progressives in the second quarter of the twenty-first century distinguish between inevitable ethnic bias and unacceptable ethnic or religious prejudice.

The Italian Americans in my neighborhood, I believed, had a soft spot for Italy and other Italian Americans.  They were inclined to favor policies that unduly benefitted Italy and Italian Americans.  They were slow to recognize when pro-Italian attitudes crossed over into ethnic or religious prejudice.  They did not always criticize as quickly or as harshly as appropriate those Italians whose behavior clearly crossed the line.  Curiously, my Italian friends thought that the Jews in the neighborhood had a soft spot for Israel and other Jews.  Jews were inclined to favor policies that unduly benefitted Israel and other Jewish Americans.  They were slow to recognize when pro-Jewish attitudes crossed over into ethnic or religious prejudice.  They  did not always criticize as quickly or as harshly as appropriate Jewish behavior that clearly crossed the line.  To be clear, my positions were strictly based on reason.  My Italian friends exhibited ethnic bias (they mistakenly thought just the opposite).  Still, my Italian friends and I did not wish the other harm per se.  When ethnic or religious interests were not at stake, my Italian friends actively and enthusiastically supported Jewish concerns and, I would like to think, they recognized that when Jewish interests were not at stake, I actively and enthusiastically supported the concerns of the Italian American community.  In short, we were better described as pro-Italy and pro-Jewish than as anti-Italian or antisemitic.

I confess to seeing Abdul El-Sayed and many other Muslim American progressives in the same light.  I think El-Sayed has the same soft spot for other Muslim Americans and Muslims around the world that my Italian American friends had/have for other Italian Americans and Italy.  El-Sayed favors politics that I think romanticize Muslims/Palestinians.  He is slow to recognize when pro-Muslim/Palestinian attitudes cross over into antisemitism. He does not always criticize as quickly or as harshly as appropriate those Muslims whose behavior clearly crosses the line.  I have no doubt he thinks similar of me.  I am right and he is wrong.  Still, El-Sayed and other Muslim progressives demonstrate no desire to harm Jews per se when Israel is not on the table.  When their religious or ethnic interests are not on the table, they seem as sensitive to Jewish issues (unrelated to Zionism) as other progressives. And, obviously, Muslim progressives and Jewish progressives share common understandings of religious freedom.  In short, El-Sayed strikes me as being pro-Muslim in the same way my Italian friends were pro-Italian/Italy rather than being an antisemite who wishes to harm Jews independent of any benefit to his religious/ethnic community. I hope progressive Muslims think that I am merely a Jew who has a soft spot for Jews and Israel rather than an Islamophobe

The experience of the New Deal and Great Society demonstrates that progressives who regard other members of progressive coalitions as having soft ethnic and religious spots that influence their behavior can nevertheless work together to promote common causes.  Progressive Muslims, progressive Jews, progressive Christians, progressives who practice some other religion or no religion at all can work together on such consensual matters as making life more affordable for ordinary citizens, saving the environment, fighting political corruption, protecting religious, ethnic, and sexual minorities, and related causes where our only religious or ethnic interest is a universal wish for justice to be done.  On matters where our ethnic and religious issues clash, all we can do is agree to disagree or, perhaps, compromise on some ground that is very uncomfortable for each of us.  Most important, the experience of the past demonstrates,  progressive cooperation is far more likely to the extent that we can understand the behavior of other progressives as reflecting a natural tendency to have a soft spot for fellow members of our ethnic or religious group and not as manifestations of antisemitism, Islamophobia, and the like.