To those who don’t know (or are reading this in the future), american ICE agents have killed a man who was, at the time, already disarmed and did not pose a threat to them. It’s not the first nor only time they’ve done so recently, (any black americans could testify to this,) but this particular instance has blown up on the news and social media. I open reddit, open a meme site I browse, and I see someone posted a quote-retweet of the killing with the statement: “UNITED STATES OF ICE-RAEL.”

And under this post, the most upvoted comment is:

ICE is spiritually israeli

Guys what the fuck are we doing

This is far from being the first time I’ve seen this kinda thing - “something is vaguely bad? it’s israeli clearly.” There’s been the meme on Instagram of inserting a caption such as “when bro says he can’t play games until 2 am bc he has work in the morning” and putting it over a video saying “he is the greatest israeli soldier”, for example, but like… seriously, what does “spiritually israeli” fucking mean.

I’ve seen it applied to labubus, matcha tea, Love Island (the reality show), Sydney Sweeny, Taylor Swift, crumbl cookies, bisexuals?, linkedin, overwatch characters, anime characters, fantastic four fanart,, whatever the fuck else you can think of, it’s just a way to say “thing bad”.

And like. I know I’m obviously biased here, but you guys do see the danger here right? Labelling anything remotely malicious as “reminding me of those jews”?

It’d be one thing if we were talking about the IDF’s actions, sure, but that’s not what people use this fuckin term for. Know Your Meme says it’s used to “describe trends in consumerism that were co-opted by people as culture and taste due to internet and influencer influence”. Like, fuckin’, “capitalism and greed oddly reminds me of the jews! I am sure there’s no further reading I should do about this.” Am I crazy here??

And even if there wasn’t the antisemitism thing, this is just basic bigotry, right? The russians got the brunt of this when putin started invading ukraine, getting shit on relentlessly for the crime of nationality. Like the thing being mocked isn’t the actions or political beliefs, it’s being from the country at all. It’s low hanging fruit. And it’s basic xenophobia.

I feel like I’m going nuts.