Palestinian journalist Rula Jebreal went on leftist podcaster Wajahat Ali's show Tuesday and called House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — a Black man — a "bought-and-paid-for AIPAC monkey." Then she added, with what must have been a perfectly straight face, "I don't mean it in a racist way."
That's quite a disclaimer to attach to calling a Black man a monkey on a public podcast.
Here's the full quote, "His name is Hakeem... He is a bought-and-paid-for AIPAC monkey. With all due respect — and I don't mean it in a racist way." The "with all due respect" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. Roughly the same amount of heavy lifting as "I don't mean it in a racist way" is doing after calling a Black man a monkey on air.
The Congressional Black Caucus responded with a statement that left no room for interpretation: "To be clear, there isn't a non-racist way to call Leader Jeffries — a Black man — a 'monkey' or 'errand boy.'" They added: "We have to stop platforming and trafficking in anti-Black racism."
Rep. Ritchie Torres was even more direct. "Calling a Black man a 'monkey' is racist. Full stop."
Jebreal eventually issued what passes for an apology in these situations. "I am disgusted and horrified that Hakeem Jeffries is taking money from AIPAC amidst Israel's genocide in Palestine," she wrote. "That said, a term that I used to describe him was inappropriate and offensive." Notice the structure — two sentences of political grievance, then one sentence of semi-acknowledgment that she probably shouldn't have said it. The apology came packaged inside the justification.
Now imagine reversing the political polarity on this for about ten seconds. A conservative commentator goes on a podcast and calls any Black Democrat a "monkey" — for any reason, in any context, with any qualifier attached. The internet doesn't just melt down. Careers end. Platforms vanish. Advertisers flee. The clip runs on every cable news network for a week, and there are think pieces about systemic racism in conservative media before the sun sets.
But Jebreal is a progressive darling and a pro-Palestine activist, so the equation works differently. The same media apparatus that would carpet-bomb a conservative for identical language is suddenly interested in context and nuance and what she really meant.
Wajahat Ali, the podcaster who hosted the segment, had his own contribution to the discourse. Rather than address what happened on his own show, he pivoted to posting about Jeffries: "PLEASE stop supporting Israel's genocide and stop doing events with Destiny." The racial slur that aired on his podcast apparently ranked below his policy grievances.
The double standard here isn't subtle, and it isn't new. But it's rarely this clean. A public figure used the single most recognized anti-Black slur in the American vocabulary, applied it to a specific Black man by name, did it on a recorded podcast, and then explained that it wasn't what it obviously was.
The Congressional Black Caucus and Rep. Torres pushed back. Credit where it's due — they didn't hedge. But the broader progressive infrastructure that normally treats any racial insensitivity as a five-alarm fire has been conspicuously quiet. No wall-to-wall cable coverage. No advertiser pressure campaigns. No demands for deplatforming.
Turns out "anti-racism" has a pretty flexible definition when the person doing the name-calling is on the right side of the progressive coalition.