~~ recommended by newestbeginning ~~
Watch Zeteo's editor-in-chief (please click on the link above - as I was unable to post the video here, thanks, NB) respond for the first time to the violent and racist remark directed against him, and explain why he walked out of a live TV debate for the first time in his life.
Some of you (around 68 million people!) have watched this CNN clip of me from Monday on Abby Phillip’s show ‘NewsNight’. It was upsetting and disturbing, to say the least, to have a Trump-supporting panelist direct a racist and terroristic comment at me, “I hope your beeper doesn’t go off,” for saying something as simple as “I’m a supporter of the Palestinians.”
I haven’t spoken about this incident since Monday night, despite multiple news stories being published about it around the world.
I have been inundated with requests for comment, words of support (and shock), and yes, even tweets online pushing false claims about what I said on air. But I have held back from responding… until now.
The video above is my reaction to what happened – and why it matters. It’s the first time I’m speaking about it. We’ve seen this kind of violent and offensive rhetoric used on Palestinians and their supporters on live television before. I wish that no one has to respond to such attacks ever again. Though sadly, I don’t think that will be the case.
Nevertheless, perhaps there are lessons here for political commentators and for the mainstream media.
Here is the transcript:
I have interviewed, debated, sparred with controversial, opinionated, offensive people from across the world, sitting presidents and prime ministers, former directors of the CIA and Mossad, Trump officials, Biden officials, a Netanyahu spokesman, a Hamas spokesman, an IRA leader, Vivek Ramaswamy. But never,
never in my 25 years as a journalist and 15 years of doing live TV have I been so stunned by what was said to me that I had to walk off set in the middle of a live show, as I did on Monday night on CNN in New York when this happened.
If you don't want to be called Nazis, stop doing... You're called an anti-Semite. You've been called an anti-Semite more than anyone else's table.
And people will sit there and... No, by me. I've never called you an anti-Semite. I mean, I'm not sitting here saying... I'm a supporter of the Palestinians. I'm used to it. Well, I hope your beeper doesn't go off. The thing is, is that... Did you just say I should die?
You should not... Did you just say I should be killed?
No, I did not say that. No, I did not say that. Hold on. Did you just say I should be killed? On live TV? Yes, that was far-right pundit Ryan Gerduski reacting to me saying I support Palestinians by basically inciting violence against me, suggesting I might be blown up in the way that Hezbollah members and Lebanese
civilians were blown up via their beepers by Israel in what the former CIA chief Leon Panetta called a clear terrorist attack. That's what Gerduski casually suggested might happen to me. J.D. Vance associate Ryan Gerduski. Trump supporter Ryan Gerduski. Because in his head, when he hears Palestinian, he hears Hamas.
When he sees a Muslim in front of him, he sees Hamas. Now, he and his right-wing friends are saying, I called him, I called all Republicans Nazis, which, of course, I didn't. Although apparently white supremacist Richard Spencer claims Godusky used to write for him. What I did say was that if you, if people, if one,
if you don't want to be called a Nazi, don't say Nazi-like things, as was said at the Trump rally in New York on Sunday. Jews are cheap. Black people like watermelons. Muslims are terrorists. And this guy's response to that was to imply, I'm a terrorist who might be killed by Israel.
a line that wasn't a joke and that he almost certainly came pre-prepared with, thinking he could get away with it on live national television. That's how bold these MAGA Republicans have become with their racism. That's the permission structure Trump and Vance have created with the help of some in our media who've just happily platformed it.
But as shocked and stunned as I was, there was no way I was going to let him say that to me unchallenged. and I'm glad to see CNN has since banned him from their airwaves, and I appreciate host Abby Phillip apologizing to the viewers and to me after I walked off set.
I do want to do a shout-out here, by the way, to my fellow panelist Ashley Allison, a former Biden-Harris 2020 campaign staffer who was with me on that panel.
What you just said right here apologized, but I will tell you, I don't accept that apology and you didn't even say it to me. That was disgusting, but I can be offended when you don't even say it to me. I'm not Puerto Rican, but I was offended by what he said yesterday.
Where would we be as a country without black women holding the line against racism and bigotry and showing us what solidarity looks like? If Harris wins next week, it'll be partly because of her fellow black women holding that line. And if she loses, and to be clear, because of her refusal to budge even an inch on Gaza,
Harris morally deserves to lose. We will get a Trump presidency, a white supremacist presidency, an anti-black, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic presidency, in which people like the bigot I had to deal with on CNN will be emboldened like never before. They won't just be running their mouths on TV panels against public figures like me.
They'll be at your kid's school gate. They'll be at your grocery store. They'll be in your subway car, proudly and shamelessly saying this stuff to you, too. They'll also be in charge of U.S. foreign policy, egging on Israel to do more beeper attacks, even more acts of terror, egging on Trump and Vance to be more racist,
more violent, both at home and abroad. A white liberal friend of mine, while sending me a very supportive text yesterday, asked me, in good faith, is it emotionally taxing to face this bigotry, or is it par for the course at this point? To which my answer is, sadly, we Muslims don't have thicker skins than everyone else,
nor should we have to have thicker skins than everyone else. We're human beings, so of course it's emotionally taxing. That's the whole point. That's why they do it. Racism is about not just dehumanizing you, but demoralizing you and depressing you. It's about beating you down and keeping you on the defensive, forcing you to fight an uphill battle,
and apparently even threatening you with a terrorist attack. As the one and only Toni Morrison so wisely, so eloquently, so rightly said, the function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining over and over again your reason for being. Well, to be clear,
less than a week out from the most consequential election of our lifetimes, with genocide on the ballot, yes, but also fascism plus genocide on the ballot, I'm in no mood to explain myself to the racists and bullies. But I will continue to speak out. I will continue to do the work. And so should you.
Thank you for watching, and thank you for being a subscriber to Zateo.
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