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Karen Lean's avatar

For ten years — this is an understatement, Franklin. While I have known you for eight, I know your commitment and consistency to truth, justice, and freedom extends further, and comes from a long history within your family. And you’ve suffered for years the phenomenon of people shying away from their association with you, or only maintaining private connection because of the perceived blowback. You’ve been called a white supremacist, a fascist, and a far right trump supporter, by people who, whether naively or dishonestly, failed to understand your politics.

And while I’ve sometimes gently guided you away from using certain turns of phrase, I no longer wish for you to hold anything back. The time has passed for delicacy of any kind. As Konstantin Kisin spoke at ARC recently: we are in a fight for our lives. I rue the thought that too many people will realize, too late, that they have sacrificed their freedom for the illusion of safety, and that the fold of people seeking shelter (politically, emotionally, or physically) will bulge, with crowds who only partially understand what’s at stake. May our love not be wasted. May more eyes open to reality. I fear this is only preparation for what lies ahead.

-Your wife

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Timmcc's avatar

The 8,000 signatories have much in common with college students burping up bigoted manure they're being fed in classrooms across the globe. College campuses and the art world are alike in their tendancy to be insulated, convoluted, incestuous little worlds having little touch with actual life. Art world denizens, not unlike college students drunk with their first taste of real personal leeway, tend to be susceptible to whatever pop notions float into their midsts, and tend, in order to gain the approbation of their peers, to hop cheerily onto bandwagons.

In my everyday world (North Central Texas) there has been nothing but speechlessness in reaction to the present grotesquery of antisemitic fervor which seems to have caught everyone here by surprise. As for those who reveal that they embrace antisemitic sentiment or any other bigotry, like those 8,000 signatories via their First Amendment rights, their names and activities should be kept before the public in every way possible. That First Amendment cuts both ways.

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