We obtained the candidate’s cover letter, complete with land acknowledgments and other apologies
Former New York City comptroller Brad Lander is running for Congress in New York’s 10th district, and he still needs a communications director, per an active job posting that calls for cover letters from comrades committed to “progressive politics.” The Washington Free Beacon obtained a cover letter from one of the applicants who, according to multiple sources familiar with the campaign’s thinking, most closely aligns with its “values-oriented, empathy-driven storytelling objectives.”
In the interest of journalistic transparency, we are publishing the letter in full.
Yonah “Yoyo” Feinberg-Margolis (he/him, spiritually unsettled, pronouns subject to community review, Hebrew name pending decolonization)
Permanent address: 1900 Bushwick Place, Unit 2F, Parentally Subsidized Creative Housing Collective, Brooklyn, NY 11206 (April — November)
Seasonal wellness address: The Zephyr Spa at Canyon Grove, Bungalow 4, 71 Arroyo Court, Sedona, AZ 86336 (December —March)
Dear Comptroller Lander and Esteemed Members of the Lander for Congress Campaign’s Stakeholder Alliance for the Promotion of Interfaith, Inter-Identitarian, Equity-Forward Social Justice Through Anti-Racist Policy Interventions and Ethnically Grounded Resistance to Zionist Imperial Structures,
Before I begin, I respectfully acknowledge that this document was drafted on the occupied ancestral lands of the Lenape people, whose enduring stewardship I humbly honor despite my regrettable participation in the ongoing settler-colonial extraction. I recognize that Lenape sovereignty was never ceded following their unjust removal at the hands of genocidal terrorists and human traffickers sanctioned by the perverse logic of white supremacy. I offer this acknowledgment in affirmation and support of Tribal sovereignty and with unfailing respect for the history of the Lenape people and the wisdom of their elders. My hands are soaked in their blood. My shoes are caked with the dust of their bones. My lips tremble with each breath of stolen air.
As a rigorously self-questioning Jewish man committed to dismantling the toxic legacies of my Zionist-adjacent upbringing—including but not limited to Hebrew school, David Ben-Gurion’s memoirs, and exposure to Islamophobic propaganda concerning the right of Occupied Palestine to exist under the name “Israel”—I am humbled to submit my application for the role of Communications Director. I believe that my quasi-non-white (Jewish) identity, my commitment to progressive penitence, and my eagerness to debase myself in public for the greater good make me an ideal candidate based on the values your campaign has championed.
Your visionary work forging alliances between anti-Zionists of all political stripes—moderate and radical, capitalist and socialist, casual and virulently anti-Semitic—has long inspired my activism in the form of witty homophobic retorts to Lindsey Graham’s posts on social media. I have long enjoyed the way you say the word “diaspora,” as if reciting a poem from memory. Likewise, I admire your principled commitment to defending staffers who collaborate with nonprofits that funnel money to violent-adjacent Zionist skeptics. It demonstrates a nuanced approach to coalition-building that I have tried to emulate. That is why, on occasion, I have personally donated thousands of dollars to online charities that strive to eradicate Islamophobia and promote Palestinian reunification through a holistic, globalized approach to armed resistance.
Much like your previous spokesperson, I specialize in crafting communications strategies that achieve the following goals: 1) Reassuring non-self-questioning Jewish voters that you oppose BDS, 2) Reassuring BDS activists that you support their efforts to abolish Israel, 3) Blaming the resulting contradictions on “trauma-informed complexity,” and 4) Having fun.
Before closing, I must apologize—first for my existence, and second for the unavoidable centering of myself inherent in this application. I regret as well that by apologizing, I have imposed on you an unacceptable degree of emotional labor that you may not currently possess the mental bandwidth to endure without triggering a traumatic response.
As mentioned above, I believe I am more than qualified for the position of communications director and I hope you will hire me to join the campaign. That being said, I must acknowledge that by giving me the job you would be sanctioning actual violence against vulnerable communities, particularly trans women of color.
With humility, solidarity, and anguish,
Yoyo
Read the full article here
