You Want to Talk About Antisemitism? Let's Talk About Who Gets to Be a Victim

Imagine a courtroom. Not one with a judge and jury, but the courtroom of public memory. One group walks in with binders full of evidence, international lawyers, and a hundred years of museums and documentaries. Another group walks in with shackle scars on their ankles, a photograph of a burned church, and a voice hoarse from screaming into a void. The judge looks at both and says, "We'll hear the first case. The second can wait."

That's the world we live in.

I'm not here to deny Jewish suffering. The pogroms of Eastern Europe, where drunken mobs tore through shtetls with axes and torches. The Holocaust, where six million Jews were reduced to ash and tattooed numbers. That pain is real. That history is a scar on civilization.

But don't you dare tell me that makes Jewish people more holy, more sensitive, or more deserving of global remembrance than the millions of Black people who felt the bite of a whip on their backs and the weight of chains on their ankles.

Because that's exactly what the silence says. And I'm done being polite about it.

The Word Was Invented by a Hater

Picture a man in 1870s Berlin. His name is Wilhelm Marr. He's not a rabbi. He's not a victim. He's a failed journalist with a poisonous obsession. He sits at his desk, dips his pen in ink, and decides to rebrand Jew-hatred for a modern age.

He doesn't like the old religious words "anti-Judaism," "Christ-killer." Too medieval. He wants something that sounds like science. Something that belongs in a laboratory, not a cathedral.

So he coins a word: Antisemitismus. Anti-Semitism. It rolls off the tongue like a diagnosis. Marr's book, The Victory of Jewry over Germandom, argues that Jews aren't a religious group. They are a race. A poison race. A race that can never be assimilated, only expelled or destroyed.

That's the origin of the word we now treat as sacred. A hateful German in a dusty study, inventing a label that would one day be chiseled into Holocaust memorials.

While Europe Was Coining Words, America Was Burning People

In 1619, enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia. Over the next two and a half centuries, millions were transported across the Atlantic under the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Millions died before even reaching land.

There was no global vocabulary for that hatred. No universally enforced doctrine declaring it a crime against humanity at the time it was happening.

After slavery ended in 1865, violence did not disappear. It evolved.

Public lynchings became spectacles. Families gathered. Photographs were taken. Body parts were kept as souvenirs. Thousands were killed between the late 19th and mid 20th centuries. Justice was almost nonexistent.

Then came the Tulsa Race Massacre. A thriving Black community was burned to the ground. Hundreds killed. Thousands displaced. No accountability followed.

Now compare that to post World War II responses to the Holocaust. Trials at Nuremberg Trials. Global memorialization. Legal frameworks. Education systems built around remembrance.

The difference is not in the brutality of suffering. It is in the global response.

 

And Before You Say “But Antisemitism Is Ancient”

Yes, it is.

Jewish communities faced expulsions, pogroms, and centuries of discrimination across Europe.

But they were not alone.

The Romani people were enslaved for centuries in parts of Europe and later targeted during the Holocaust in what is known as the Porajmos.

Indigenous populations across the Americas were displaced, exterminated, and erased from their lands.

Africans were commodified, transported, and exploited across continents.

Hatred is not unique. It is widespread. What differs is recognition.

 

Why Are Jewish People “More Vocal”? Because They Had Power

After World War II, many Jewish communities, particularly in Europe and the United States, had access to networks of influence. Lawyers. Academics. Political advocates. Institutions capable of preserving memory and demanding accountability.

They built museums. Influenced curricula. Secured legal protections. Ensured that their history would not be denied.

Descendants of enslaved Africans faced a different reality. Systems like Jim Crow Laws enforced inequality long after slavery ended. Economic barriers limited access to platforms of influence.

This is not about morality. It is about structure.

Access to power determines whose pain becomes policy and whose pain remains a story.

 

Modern Examples: The Double Standard Is Alive and Well

Look at recent history.

The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting received intense global attention. Political leaders responded immediately. Media coverage persisted.

The Charleston church shooting was equally horrific. Nine people murdered during a Bible study. Yet the global response faded more quickly.

Both were acts of hate. Both deserved equal weight.

But the world does not always distribute attention equally.

On university campuses, antisemitism is widely recognized, discussed, and institutionally addressed. Meanwhile, conversations about systemic anti-Black racism, colonial violence, or Indigenous erasure are often fragmented or limited to specific moments.

Even in policy debates, the imbalance shows.

 

The Namibia Example: A Living Case Study in Hypocrisy

If you want to understand how this hierarchy operates today, look at Namibia.

Between 1904 and 1908, German colonial forces carried out the Herero and Nama genocide. Under General Lothar von Trotha, extermination orders drove tens of thousands into the desert. Water sources were blocked. Survivors were placed in camps like Shark Island concentration camp, where many died from forced labor, starvation, and disease.

An estimated 80 percent of the Herero population and 50 percent of the Nama population were killed.

Now compare responses.

Germany has paid tens of billions in reparations related to the Holocaust. Direct compensation. Legal acknowledgment. Long-term commitment.

In 2021, Germany formally recognized the Namibian genocide and offered about 1.1 billion euros over 30 years. Not as reparations, but as development aid.

That distinction matters.

Aid is framed as assistance. Reparations are acknowledgment of wrongdoing and obligation.

Descendants of victims rejected the deal. Many argued it excluded them from negotiations and failed to deliver justice.

As of 2026, discussions continue. Promises have evolved. Language has softened. But the core issue remains unresolved.

Why is one genocide met with direct compensation and another with negotiated development funding?

The same country. Two different responses.

 

What This Tells Us About the Ranking Game

The Namibia case is not history. It is present.

It reveals how recognition, language, and compensation are unevenly distributed.

Some tragedies become global reference points. Others remain regional struggles for acknowledgment.

This is not about diminishing one group’s suffering. It is about confronting inconsistency.

Because if justice is universal, it cannot be selective.

 

Here’s What Actually Matters

Antisemitism is real. It should be challenged.

Anti-Black racism is real. It should be challenged.

Anti-Indigenous violence is real. It should be challenged.

Anti-Romani discrimination is real. It should be challenged.

The point is not comparison. The point is consistency.

The moment suffering becomes a competition, justice loses its meaning.

 

What I Want You to Remember

No group owns pain.

No history is insignificant.

No injustice should require louder voices or stronger connections to be taken seriously.

The goal is not to rank suffering. The goal is to recognize it wherever it exists and respond with equal seriousness.

Because the real failure is not that one group is remembered.

It is that others are not remembered enough.

Let that sink in. The term itself was born from the same sewer as the hatred it describes. Naming isn't justice. It's branding.