Rodney Muhammad, the chief of the NAACP’s mosque, will not be fired for posting this meme on his Facebook page.
Following is based on information from this July 24 PBS article:
The head of the Philadelphia NAACP Rodney Muhammad recently posted an anti-Semitic meme on his Facebook page which made reference to black celebrities who have recently been criticized for making anti-Semitic statements in the media. The meme suggested that the blowback and apologies for the statements they made were a part of a grand scheme orchestrated by “Jews.” Muhammed is also an Islamic minister at the Mosque No. 12 in Philadelphia.
Muhammad removed the post after being contacted by a reporter, initially saying that he didn’t remember sharing it, and he later acknowledged posting the meme but said that he didn’t realize that it was offensive to Jewish people, and finally he expressed his true attitudes which were his motivation for posting it.
The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia Director Laura Frank condemned Muhammad’s post and called for the NAACP to remove him from his leadership position, saying, “This vile behavior from a civic leader is incredibly dangerous for Jewish communities across the world.”
A rabbi Linda Holtzman of a leftist Jewish organization Tikkun Olam Chavurah in Philadelphia said the image makes her nauseated since it is clearly an anti-Semitic trope, and she said it shows the need for “more dialogue” between the Black and Jewish communities whether it was knowingly anti-Semitic or not.
However, shockingly she also said “the Black community is justly angered at the Jewish community” because Jewish people aren’t enough of activists for blacks.
She said, “In the Jewish world, we will often rest on our laurels and say ‘Oh, we marched with MLK and we were there in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, therefore we’re somehow exempt from needing to do anything more and it shows we’re not racist. .. I understand somebody being angry at a group of people who says, ‘Oh no, I’m completely with you,’ and then don’t act that way, or are not clear in their support unequivocally. I think the Black community is justly angry at the Jewish community.”
She then suggested that if Muhammad was not genuinely aware of the image’s connotations, then it would be an opportunity to educate him as to why Jews find it offensive.
Muhammad then did explain that he understood the meme’s context though, where he said black celebrities are being shut down for what what he calls “expressing free-thinking curiosity,” and he claimed that he did not ascribe blame to the “Jewish community,” but rather to “members of it in agencies with other agendas” who he said use anti-Semitism as a label to condemn people.
He said, “They use is as a trick, if you’re in Europe and you criticize any of them like that, or if you’re in America, it’s anti-Semitism.”
A July 30, 2020 Forward.com article gave an update about the matter, explaining that he will not be fired from his position with the NAACP. Following is a summary of selected information from the article:
The Philadelphia president of the NAACP Rodney Muhammad will not be fired for posting an anti-Semitic meme on Facebook, but rather the NAACP has announced it has decided for him to “meet with community leaders and faith leaders to open a dialogue,” and to “[launch] national conversations to further understanding.”
However, Muhammad’s Facebook page for the Mosque where he is minister is still filled with anti-Semitic posts, such as the following: “Those of you who say that you are Jews, I will not give you the honor of calling you a Jew; you are not a Jew! You’re So-Called [a Jew], you are Satan and it is my job now to pull the cover off of Satan so that every Muslim, when he sees Satan, [will/should] pick up a stone.”