opinion
Ye’s Hate Speech Awakens My
‘Triple Consciousness’ of Being
Black, Jewish and American
BY KENDALL PINKNEY
W hen I read the news about Kanye West, I
didn’t know whether to turn off my phone,
or throw it.

I knew it would only be a matter of time before
the emails and texts began rolling in: What do
you think about Kanye? What’s to be done about
antisemitism in the Black community? You must
agree that Ye is challenging systems of power,
not being antisemitic! Have you read this article
by Black person X? Have you read this thought-
piece by Jewish person Y? You know Heschel and
other Jews walked with King at Selma; what would
it take to get back to that!?
Here’s the reality: I am Black, I am a rabbi and
I am a theater artist who frequently makes work
that probes the intersections of Black and Jewish
identity. So yes, I get why any number of people
reached out to get my “take.” But to be honest,
I find the Kanye saturation of this moment to be
more exhausting than instructive, as harmful as
his incessant flow of antisemitic bile is.

The reason for my exhaustion is that moments
like this more often result in stale public rehearsals
of facts-and-figures, rhetorical whataboutism and,
in my case, private requests for explanations or
defenses. In cases where there’s a public apology,
we might get a heavily staged meeting between
a symbolic Black person and a symbolic Jew, but
no one really thinks that such a “coming together”
does the real work of forging understanding.

In short, events like these tend to result in panic
and punishment, not in introspection.

Lest I be misunderstood, let me state a few
points clearly:
Kanye is antisemitic, and, like his equally egregious
anti-Black and misogynist statements, his statements
about Jews are appalling and deeply harmful.

Despite the number of books on such topics,
Black antisemitism is not a thing, just like Jewish
anti-Blackness is not a thing. Rather, antisemitism
and anti-Blackness are longstanding structures
of social prejudice that all peoples and societies
fall prey to.

Regarding Black-Jewish civil rights solidarity,
while it is worthwhile remembering the intrepid
Jewish leaders who walked with Dr. King and
other Black civil rights leaders in Selma, that act
of righteous resistance from nearly 60 years ago
will only take Black and Jewish communities so far
into their shared futures.

Inhabiting a Black and Jewish identity in con-
temporary America can be maddening. It is like
navigating a rhetorical funhouse: You know that
your lived experience is fully coherent, but the
reflections you encounter along the path distort,
disfigure and “invisiblize” your reality. More pre-
cisely, as a Black Jew you are forced to consider
your identities from the perspectives of others,
very few of whom have given any thought to your
particular existence. If this idea sounds familiar,
well, it is. It’s actually quite old.

In his seminal 20th century masterpiece, “The
Souls of Black Folk,” the eminent Black polymath
W.E.B. Du Bois addressed the conundrum of
living in a society where the structures of racism
force Black people into a split consciousness. “It
is a peculiar sensation,” Du Bois writes, “this dou-
ble-consciousness, this sense of always looking
at one’s self through the eyes of [white] others, of
measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that
looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever
feels his twoness, — an American, a Negro; two
souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings …”
While I have reservations about aspects of Du
Bois’ broader worldview (e.g. his intra-Black elitism,
his romantic view of nations and peoplehood) I find
deep resonance in his observations on “double
consciousness.” I have been in countless situations
where I have simply sought to follow my interests,
only for my Blackness to be the cause for minor
and major slights. I have also endured antisemitic
aggression and witnessed anti-Jewish religious
sentiment up close. What is more, I have experi-
enced the above in Jewish communities and Black
communities, respectively. I am not alone in this.

Many Black Jews can attest to the same.

To live as a Black Jew in America means to live
with an awareness of just how precarious group
belonging can be. In the case of hate speech, it also
means an unfortunate familiarity with the frequent
intersections between anti-Blackness and antisem-
itism. Such experience would lead me to believe
that Black Jews might have something unique to
say in this moment. And yet, predictably, what has
happened since Kanye’s recent spate of antisemitic
tweets is that Black Jews have been functionally
overlooked in the public discourse — our voices
relegated to small or parochial news outlets, niche
podcasts, newsletters or Twitter feeds.

To me, this phenomenon places Du Bois’s
observations in greater relief. Namely, being
Black and Jewish in America is more than an
act of “double-consciousness,” it is an act of “tri-
ple-consciousness.” In this configuration, I know
by virtue of my Black, Jewish and American iden-
tities that I am an integrated being who embodies
a way forward for our society, but I am often made
to contend with the fact that my communities, and
society in general, can only grasp my identity in its
discrete parts, not as a whole.

In case you think this “triple consciousness” is
theoretical, let me give a few concrete examples.

To live with “triple consciousness” is to notice
that there were relatively few calls beyond those
of Black individuals to condemn and boycott
Kanye when he trafficked in white supremacist,
anti-Black ideology.

To live with “triple consciousness” is to argue
with non-Jewish acquaintances that pointing out
the number of Jews in finance and media does
not a keen observation make, nor does it provide
evidence of a powerful cabal.

To live with “triple consciousness” is to carry
the distinct, lived histories of two peoples in your
heart and mind at all times. To live with “triple
consciousness” is to know in the most intimate
way that anti-Black rhetoric hurts Jews, and
antisemitic rhetoric hurts Black people, because
there are many of us who carry both identities and
cannot disentangle them one from the other.

Finally, and most personally, to live with “triple con-
sciousness” is to wonder whether my mixed Jewish
child will grow up in an America where she feels
compelled to closet aspects of her identity because
society cannot hold the wonder of her complexity.

I cannot solve the issue of “triple consciousness”
— after all, I did not create the strange reality under-
pinning it. Such a feat calls for a tremendous amount
of work, honesty and humility. It also requires a crit-
ical willingness to interrogate how multiple oppres-
sions are interlinked, rather than to dismiss such
language as performative and overly “woke.”
I am not interested in virtue-signaling, much less
ideological purity. Rather, I want what everyone
wants, what Du Bois wanted: the simple dignity to
be myself — Black, Jewish and American, “without
being cursed and spit upon.” JE
Kendall Pinkney is a New York-based theater art-
ist, producer and rabbi. He is the rabbinical edu-
cator at Reboot and the founding artistic director
of The Workshop, an arts and culture fellowship
for BIPOC-Jewish artists.

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