On the November 21st episode of the podcast The Back Room With Andy Ostroy, actress Juliana Marguiles, famous for her roles in ER, The Good Wife, and most recently The Morning Show, has decided to speak before she decided to think-by calling out Black and queer people for supporting the liberation of Palestine. Her remarks, which created a firestorm on Xitter, ooze of thinly veiled racism and a mindset that Black people and the LGBTQ community-groups which are still actively oppressed-owe a group that is oppressing others their unconditional support. Going as far as saying that both groups are “brainwashed,” attributing the current anti-Israel sentiments to people getting their news from TikTok, and thusly it should be banned. ‘Ok Boomer,’ as the kids say.
On the podcast, she opines that because Jewish people were in fact integral to the Civil Rights Movement, that Black people therefore owe their unwavering support to Israel, adding that Jews have been persecuted since the beginning of time-yes because Black and queer people know nothing about centuries of oppression.
Somehow Jewish support during the Civil Rights Era means that Black people owe some sort of blind favor to the Jewish community. Well, if that is the case, then I’m sure she would be happy to know how the Black community saved the lives of many Jewish refugees by sponsoring their visas during the Holocaust, and giving them employment and a sense of community during a horrific moment in history for both Blacks and Jews. I’m sure that required a bit more effort than her putting a Black square box on her Instagram, in solidarity with the Black community after the death of George Floyd, which she proudly mentions as her response to Black trauma, and how she ran to her “Black brothers and sisters,” the same siblings she feels are brainwashed.
When it comes to the LGBTQ community, Marguiles mentions how she-a straight woman-plays a gay character on television. I guess that makes her eligible to speak for the gay community.
“It’s those kids [who use pronouns] who are spewing this anti-Semitic hate that have no idea if they stepped foot in an Islamic country,” she said. “These people who want us to call them they/them or whatever they want us to call them — which I have respectfully really made a point of doing, like, be whoever you want to be. It’s those people that will be the first people beheaded and their heads played [like] a soccer ball. Terrorists who don’t want women to have their rights, don’t want LGBTQ people…this is who you’re supporting?”
While Israel is the most progressive country in the Middle East when it comes to LGBTQ rights, just ten years ago, that same Israel was sterilizing Jewish Ethiopian refugees. Ethnic cleansing, where have I heard that one before? She further tastes her shoe by saying, “I want to say to them, ‘you fucking idiots, you don’t exist [to Hamas]. You’re even lower than the Jews [to Hamas] A: You’re Black. B: You’re gay.” Wow lady, calling us idiots, way to rally support.
Black people are a collective, not a monolith, and this assumption that we are not able to see our oppression or the oppression of others is ironically based on the purview of those who don’t see how they are oppressive. There are absolutely Black people who hate Jews, just as there are ethnic Jews who hate Black people (Ethiopia reenters the chat), but there is a difference between hating Jews and hating Zionism. Many Black people who are skeptical of Jewish people are because they feel Jews control the media, which ironically Marguiles mentions by stating, “by the way, all of our great material on television is pretty much from the Jews,” ha. She said it, I didn’t, but I guess that means that Black people and Black creatives who clearly lack creative talent (eyeroll), owe their entertainment to Jews and therefore we should sit in front of the television and be happy and dumb, hmmmm that sounds like brainwashing, doesn’t it?
