Creativity Quote by Harry Belafonte

Belafonte is doing two things at once: staking out moral consistency and preempting a familiar bad-faith move. As a Black artist and activist who spent decades criticizing U.S. power, he knew that any sharp critique of Israeli policy could be flattened into an accusation of anti-Semitism. So he leads with a declaration of first principles: Israel's legitimacy as a state is not up for debate, and anti-Semitism is a fight he recognizes as intimate, not abstract.

The phrase "even in my own community" carries the real charge. It's not a throwaway aside; it's a refusal of tribal comfort. Belafonte is signaling that solidarity isn't selective, and that prejudice doesn't only live "over there" with political enemies. Coming from someone closely associated with civil rights movements, that admission also complicates a simplistic story of oppressed groups as automatically enlightened. He is reminding listeners that liberation politics can curdle into scapegoating if it isn't disciplined.

Context matters: Belafonte lived through eras when Black-Jewish alliances were both powerful and fragile, from civil rights coalitions to later fractures over urban politics and Middle East debates. His wording tries to keep two truths in the same frame: the right to critique a state's actions and the obligation to confront hatred wherever it appears. It's a musician's line, but it lands like an organizer's message - don't mistake your cause for your innocence.