By
Charles C. W. Cooke
Monday,
October 23, 2023
Dear
Wordsworth College Community,
I want to
address the controversy on campus that has been caused by some of our students’
reactions to the comments I have made this week. While much of what I said has
been stripped out of context, I nevertheless wish to apologize for any hurt
that has been experienced as a result of the manner in which some have chosen
to interpret my words. It was not my intention for this to happen.
When I
wrote on my blog last week that “all Jews” are “ghastly, horn-toting,
goblin-like creatures who drink the blood of the natives in every country they
invade and conquer,” I was merely trying to express how worried I am about the
ongoing geopolitical situation in the Middle East. When, during my Resisting
Archetypes lecture, I described Israel as “the greedy octopus,” I was hoping to
draw further attention to income inequality. My suggestion on MSNBC that we
ought to “launch anyone in a kippah into space” was humorous hyperbole. I am
sorry if my contributions to the discourse were misinterpreted. This is not who
I am.
My
academic background is in Applied Decolonization — a complicated field with its
own argot, slang, and esoteric terms of art. By tweeting “Yes! Yes! Hamas! Go!”
I was engaging in a pedagogical attempt to convey to a lay audience the
frustrations that can arise when land disputes persist over time. It should be
noted that, in Arabic, the word “massacre” has a different connotation than it
does in English, denoting something akin to “an internal struggle to alter the
religious composition of a geographical area.” As I observed last year, when I
had Professor Cohen fired for creating an unsafe work environment in the
economics department, academic freedom and free speech are crucial to the
exchange of ideas on campus, and I would not want to see the open discussion of
sophisticated concepts fall victim to mass hysteria or mass hypnosis. While I
regret my particular choice of words, I will not apologize for my effort to
create a better world. I oppose all violence.
Emotions
are running high. In the spirit of inclusivity, it is time that we all took a
step back and made a renewed effort to understand each other. To this end, I
will be hosting a poetry slam tomorrow night in the Yasser Arafat Memorial
Building, at which I will be previewing my new collection, Feed Zion to
the Lion: A Second Look at the Population Crisis.
With
Peace and Love, from the river to the sea.
Zoe Parner-Orange
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