(He’s the one on the right, next to the Native American…)

Bishop Talbert W. Swan II, the president of the Springfield, Mass., chapter of the NAACP, wrote on social media regarding Israel’s military response to the Hamas terror attack, “Who would’ve thought that in 2023 Jewish soldiers would be the nazis carrying out ethnic cleansing?” Later, he said, “This isn’t a WAR, it’s a HOLOCAUST.” In a sermon this month, Swan excused the Hamas murder of civilians, children and infants, saying “Violence is the language of the unheard.”

Oh…I forgot to mention that Swan is a member of….wait for it!…. the Massachusetts Task Force on Hate Crimes. I’d say that a Hamas terrorist attack on Jewish citizens qualifies as a hate crime if anything does, wouldn’t you? But I’m not enough of an authority to serve on a blue-ribbon task force. Maybe we shouldn’t assume that members of that task force are necessarily against hate crimes. No, no, I now see that the task force exists to advises the Massachusetts governor on “issues relating to the prevalence, deterrence, and prevention of hate crimes.” That would seem to rule out implying that a terrorist massacre is a good thing, or am I missing something?

No, I’m not. Swan accused President Joe Biden of “spreading the lie” that Hamas beheaded babies during its invasion of Israel, and pushed the false claim that Israeli forces bombed a hospital in Gaza. In a sermon a day after what he described as the “alleged” attack on Israel, Swan claimed those “who are condemning the Palestinians” also “ignore the apartheid government of Israel.” Swan blamed Israel for the Hamas attack, writing that “the root of the VIOLENCE is the OCCUPATION” and defended the terrorists by claiming, “Resistance to oppression is not ‘ugly retaliation.’”

Former GOP Governor Charlie Baker appointed Swan to the the task force after current Democratic Governor Maura Healey had appointed Swan to a similar state commission in 2018 when she served as attorney general.

Swan’s hostility to the Jewish people has surfaced before, as when he wrote in 2019 that, “without question, [Louis] Farrakhan is simultaneously one of the most revered and respected and one of most controversial and oft-maligned figures in American social and cultural politics.” Farrakhan has compared Jews to “termites.” On Swan’s podcast last year he discussed “Jewish involvement in the transatlantic slave trade,” a thoroughly discredited theme promoted by Farrakhan. “If you talk about any of that, they automatically label you as anti-Semitic,” Swan said. “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize,” he added, deliberately quoting neo-Nazi leader Kevin Alfred Strom and noting, “They say that the person who originated that statement … was a Nazi. But, you know, a broke clock is right twice a day.”

Defending rapper Kanye West and NBA superstar Kyrie Irving after they made anti-Semitic remarks last year, Swan attributed criticism of the two players to the “inordinate level of influence in American sports and entertainment” wielded by Jews.

Now, to be fair, it’s not just Jews Swan detests. He has said in more than a dozen social media posts that “Whiteness is an unrelenting, demonic, force of evil.”

So far, only one member of the 25 member task force, an apparent weenie, has spoken out about these strange positions for an alleged “hate crime” opponent to take. He told a reporter, “I think it’s unfortunate that a person who himself spews hate has a position on this task force, which is supposed to fight hate.” But Swan’s colleague didn’t have the guts to agree to have his own name published.

I wonder what the other 23 members of that task force are like?