Philly Fraud: What Woke Wrought - National Logistics Post

The Left is outraged that one of Philadelphia’s “leading antisemites” is not Palestinian but Jewish. The reason for the outcry — and what the Left does not deem to be an outrage — is equally telling about America’s Left.

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Recently, The Philadelphia Inquirer revealed that Hannah Gann, a 10th-grade schoolteacher in the city, had been posing for years as Black and a Palestinian with relatives in Gaza. In fact, Gann admitted that she is Jewish, confessing that she is “a White woman of significant privilege and wealth” in a recent Instagram post. (RELATED: Michigan AG Dana Nessel to Jewish Democrats: Sacrifice Yourself for the Cause)

Gann did not simply play the part of a Palestinian; she threw herself into the role. She wore a keffiyeh, assumed an accent, used makeup to darken her complexion, and contrived a Palestinian genealogy. She appeared at an anti-Israel rally outside a Jewish bakery and spoke at what was described as a “pro-Hamas” gathering. For her concerted and sustained efforts, a pro-Israel group named her “Philadelphia’s Leading Antisemite.”

The Left is outraged: “stunned, saddened and angered by this betrayal.” Gann now joins Rachel Dolezal, the White woman who claimed to be Black and headed Spokane’s NAACP until her exposure in 2015, in their Hall of Shame.

Note that the Left is not — and was not — outraged at Gann’s antisemitism. This was not simply acceptable but, to them, laudable. So long as Gann was leading the charge against Israel, against Israel defending itself from terrorists devoted to Jewish genocide, and protesting outside of Jewish establishments in America: these were, to the Left, to be applauded. (RELATED: The High Priests of Performative Goodness)

If Gann had said she was a man, rather than Black and Palestinian, the Left would have accepted this without question…

No, instead the Left claims outrage at Gann’s “cultural appropriation” of Black and Palestinian heritages. Mystifyingly, this is where it wants to lay its public outrage.

Why? After all, role-playing is what the Left does — in truth, they do little else. And in one segment of their belief system, if you identify as a certain gender, regardless of what biology determines, you are that gender. Yet somehow, the same does not apply to the even more mutable categories of race and gender.

Consider: If Gann had said she was a man, rather than Black and Palestinian, the Left would have accepted this without question; instead of vilifying her, they would have vilified anyone who dared to say that Gann was not what she identified as being. The Left does not simply have a double standard; they have no standard at all — except ones they conjure up and then demand that the rest of society accept.

The Left continuously role-plays. The wealthy pose as working class, pretending to be what they are not. Scions of the well-off mouth platitudes of socialism, despite having been placed in their pampered positions by the fruits of the system that they claim they want to dismantle.

The privileged foist their policy preferences (climate change, defunding the police, opposing school choice, open borders, transgender agenda) onto others (the rest of society and especially the poor for whom the Left feigns concern) while insulating themselves from the consequences — “cultural insulation,” as it were.

While the Left are ostensibly outraged over “cultural appropriation,” in truth they are outraged that they were duped by Gann — duped for years, and that duping them was (and is) so easy. When the Left themselves are not trying to snooker us with their symbols — James Talarico, Abigail Spanberger, and Abdul El-Sayed as being moderates — they are being snookered themselves — from Claudia Gay to Graham Platner — by the symbols they seek to elevate.

Gann, as was Dolezal before her, is the apotheosis of an ideology built on benefits for some identity groups and penalties for others. Of course, the logical consequence is what just occurred in Philadelphia, in Spokane over a decade earlier, and undoubtedly in other instances, either undiscovered or at levels not reaching the level of the press’s interest.

Whether it is the result of Stockholm syndrome or a conscious attempt to game the system, either is simply the logical outcome of an illogical ideology. And this outcome is far less outrageous than the ideology itself and the real outrages that this ideology consciously and deliberately promotes.

What’s more, the Left will certainly be duped again. They will because they are ripe for it. When entry into privilege is bequeathed to certain identity groups, individuals have every incentive to seek entry. And when the bar for qualification to entry into privilege is so facile, literally, then the obstacle to entry is as low as the reward is high.

Gann’s real crime, as far as the Left is concerned, is that she got caught. And that the Left has once again been made to look as foolish as it is.

READ MORE from J.T. Young:

The Left’s Victimhood Is About Strategy not Sympathy

Republicans Can’t Win Telling Only Half the Story

Democrats’ Failure Runs Far Deeper Than Graham Platner

J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left, from RealClear Publishing. Follow him on Substack.