Where Do You Draw The Line with Antisemites?

In the days since the shooting of their son, both of Blake’s parents had made many public appearances. His father, Jacob Blake Sr., spoke at the March on Washington on Aug. 28 at which Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1963 event was commemorated. In his remarks, he pronounced America “guilty” of racism and other crimes in a speech that was widely broadcast and published in leading newspapers. Indeed, as The Washington Post put it, the Blake family represented the feelings of all African-Americans.

But a few days later, when the elder Blake’s views became known to the public, the same news media that was transfixed by his angry speech in Washington lost interest in him.

As it turns out, Jacob Blake Sr. has been angry about a lot of things long before his son’s scuffle with the police led to tragedy. His Facebook page had been filled with hate for years. Most of Blake’s posts were violently antisemitic in which he reproduced traditional memes about “pink toe Jewish people” controlling the economy and the media. It was no surprise that a person who spewed antisemitism would say he was “with Farrakhan 100%.” As a Nation of Islam sympathizer, it’s also unsurprising that he posted a picture of Jesus in a toilet bowl to show his antipathy for Christianity.

Blake’s hatred doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t feel sympathy for a family that is dealing with a tragedy. But all of this became public knowledge before Biden was scheduled to meet with the Blake family on a visit to Kenosha. The Democratic nominee chose to meet with him anyway. That Biden’s camp did so was clearly based on its calculation that offending Blake and the Black Lives Matter movement was politically more perilous than offending Jews or people who care about antisemitism.

That might have been a controversial decision, but when the mainstream press is acting as your bodyguard, such risks are minimal.