Tuesday, November 25, 2008

The Emory Wheel and Other "Antisemitic" Incidents at Emory

EDITED 10:27 A.M. [EDITS IN ITALICS]

The editor of the Emory Wheel has an editorial in today's paper regarding the editorial board's decision to run the cartoon. It is written in a way that will allow people to interpret it as they wish, though it does seem to acknowledge that many people in the Emory community found the editorial distasteful. After posting this I heard from the editor. He said that, since there are still letters coming in to the paper, he did not want to shut down conversation by making a definitive statement one way or the other. [Or, at the least, that's how I understood him...]

Another Emory related item: Last week on a Sunday evening there was a fire set at the fraternity house a fire at the AEPi house. The fraternity is known as a "Jewish" fraternity. Many people linked this to the Emory Wheel cartoon and the excitement on campus over a demonstration about the West Bank fence/wall. For the Atlanta Journal Constitution coverage of the story see here.

There were those who assumed it was an antisemitic act. The police don't know if it is. The situation is complicated by the fact that at Kappa Alpha house this past Friday morning there was an incident of vandalism and one at the Sigma Chi house last Tuesday.

People should wait for the police investigation to be completed. Then they should look at it and decide if it is a fair and comprehensive effort rather than one that is designed to calm fears.

There is always time to yell, scream, and accuse. Now is the time to let professionals do their jobs.

2 comments:

DANIELBLOOM said...

OUCH. I hope the fire was just an accident. It was a hate crime, shame on whoever did it. If it was lit by someone in the frat, to make it look like an attack, these things happen too, remember that girl at GWU in DC last year, write hate stuff on her dorm room door and it was she who wrote the antisemitic stuff, and she was Jewish. A kook. Let's hope this was mere accidental fire. Doesn't look good.

Anubis said...

please read Chattanooga Times Free Press 1/20/09 letters to editor. Re:Edna Taylor.