I have been called the “N-word” more times over the course of my life than I care to remember, but I started being called “Zio” in only the past few months. Both words have a similarly chilling effect. More than two years after Hamas’s October 7 attack and Israel’s military response in Gaza and elsewhere, “Zio” has become a standard slur for those, like me, who publicly affirm Israel’s right to exist as both a sovereign state and Jewish nation.
So powerful is the term right now that Odessa A’Zion, who plays prominent roles in the movie Marty Supreme and the Netflix show LA Stories, preemptively declared that she was “not a zio” in an Instagram post in December as a way to personally “debunk” concerns by pro-Palestinian followers over her alleged support for the IDF and Israel.
As the case of A’Zion confirms, the accusation of being a “Zio” has come to possess a tremendous and sinister potency. It’s the kind of label that might derail a buzzy and promising Hollywood career. But the accusation is also much more than a possible career-killer. Given the rise in anti-Semitic attacks across the globe, “Zio” is increasingly wielded as a charge that could result in the accused being sentenced to death. At the very least, it summons the specter of violence that has accompanied the “N-word” throughout most of American history.
To be clear, for the moment at least, “Zio” is still too niche and too culturally specific to evoke the institutional hatred and historic terror that finally rendered the “n-word” literally unutterable. Beyond the debates around Gaza and “Palestine,” most folks have yet to encounter the term, let alone understand its complex origins, nuances, and power dynamics.
But even if its reach is more modest than that of the “N-word,” the intent behind its use is certainly the same. After all, no one has done more to popularize “Zio” than David Duke, the former Louisiana politician and grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. He has used the term hundreds of times across various media platforms—and is as fluent in racism as he is in Jew-hatred. “Guns did not create the horror in that little school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.…The Zio masters of the media did,” declared Duke following the infamous 2012 school shooting that claimed 26 lives. “The Zio control of Hollywood…poisons the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions of people in the West,” he announced just a year later. And among the titles of Duke’s videos on his since-banned YouTube channel are “How we can defeat zio globalism” and “CNN Goldman Sachs and the Zio Matrix.”
Despite the term’s frequent use by overt bigots, however, some maintain that “Zio” is not and could never be comparable to the “N-word.” The latter, so this thinking goes, targets an entire race, while “Zio” merely calls out adherents of an ideology. On the surface, this explanation has a false plausibility to it. The “N-word,” of course, directly references African Americans, and its etymological roots go back to myriad forms of the word “black.” There’s no mistaking its deep and clear historical significance. “Zio,” obviously, refers to those who embrace Zionism and believe in Israel as the rightful and historic Jewish homeland. When someone calls me a “Zio,” therefore, he can claim that he’s attacking a choice I’ve made—rather than a permanent condition, such as being black. A Zionist, after all, doesn’t even have to be a Jew.
But one need not retell the long history of the demonization of Zionism to discredit this defense. Zionism is understood by most as a central component of Jewish identity. And we can see, in the present day, violent attacks on Jews and synagogues worldwide in the name of anti-Zionism. It matters not at all to the perpetrators if those Jews or synagogues are in any way connected to or supporters of Zionism. Suffice it to say, the very attempt to cast Jewish nationalism—alone among nationalisms—as an evil ideology is naked anti-Semitism. There’s little doubt about who is being targeted by the word “Zio” and why they’re so squarely in its crosshairs.
Then there’s the diminutive formulation of the word. This too reveals the intent behind its use. “Zio” almost seems cutesy, doesn’t it? But there’s nothing innocent about it. The shortening of objective terms that describe groups of people is precisely how many slurs have been formed throughout history. Before “Zio,” there was, to cite a few examples, “Paki,” “Spic,” “homo,” and, yes, “heeb.” It is the shortening, the distilling, of the word that gives it its sting.
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Unlike blacks, of course, Zionists don’t necessarily wear their targeted identity on the outside. But as someone who’s both African-American and a Zionist Jew, I can confirm that both identities are equally indelible. No matter how I might dress or comport myself, I can no more easily disavow Zionism and Israel than I can my own blackness.
This is why, for me at least, the increasing overlap between “N-gger” and “Zio” makes perfect ideological sense. Decades ago, kids—yes, even Jewish kids—called me “n-gger” to instill fear and render me impotent as a consequence of my darker skin. I was often the only African American in my classroom or camp cabin or synagogue group; branding me “n-gger” was a way of affirming that I would remain very separate and very unequal in these mostly white environments. And those who said it knew that I knew there was nothing I could do about it.
“N-gger” was a threat and provocation, deployed by people who understood—even as children—that using it would not merely hurt me, but leave me fearful, silent, imperiled. The terror wasn’t simply in the word itself, but in the racialized rage and the legacy of impunity enjoyed by so many generations who had used the word before.
It is the hope of anti-Semites that a similar legacy is now being forged for “Zio,” which is tossed around cavalierly and receives—especially online—a remarkable degree of social and cultural acceptability. And if anything, that acceptability is growing. “Zio” appears freely and often goes unchallenged in social justice debates on multiple platforms and at assorted activist gatherings.
Late last year, for instance, Lynn Boylan, an Irish representative in the European Parliament, blithely posted on X that her “twitter is crawling with zios today, nice to know I get under their skin.” And “KILL YOUR LOCAL ZIO NAZI” was just one of the many incendiary anti-Semitic slurs that defaced the University of Pennsylvania campus last year.
Today, even the most ardently bigoted right-winger, such as self-described white nationalist Nick Fuentes, would think hard about publicly uttering the “n-word.” He would be loath to invite the inevitable political backlash, even though his belief system aligns perfectly with the use of the term. Yet there is little such gatekeeping for “Zio” right now, despite its use as a similar tool for terror and its indisputable targeting of Jews. Indeed, there is scarcely a taboo against the word on the right, left, or anywhere in between.
As a kid, I intuitively understood that being called “n-gger” was to be on the receiving end of the ultimate act of disempowerment and debasement. And this is nearly identical to how I feel every time I am branded a “Zio.” So long as they are hidden behind their various social media profiles, my accusers, of course, cannot literally do me harm for being a “Zio.” But I have little doubt that this is their goal. Much as “N-gger” conveys white sheets and crosses ablaze, “Zio” conjures up swastikas and keffiyehs. All are images of fear, violence, and loathing. Yet the “N-word” has been cast into linguistic exile, and “Zio” is nearing a kind of cultural legitimacy.
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What’s most telling—and disheartening—about the entire Odessa A’Zion saga is her use of the word “Zio” to distance herself from Zionism. Fear is clearly the dominant motivation here even if A’Zion cannot fully recognize it. Fear of career damage and professional decline. Of social media attacks or eventual ostracism. Fear of being maligned and misunderstood—but ultimately fear for her safety.
This is where “Zio” and the “N-word” most odiously converge—both are agents of unbridled hate speech doing double duty as a call to arms. Except one is anathema, and the other flows freely without consequence.
Which is why I was so certain, upon receiving my first accusations of being a “Zio,” it was unlikely to be my last. In both the centrist precincts I currently inhabit and the progressive communities that shaped my past, “N-gger” is a word that is simply never spoken. But in both worlds, “Zio” is screamed louder than ever.
To be sure, some who use the term “Zio” think that they can deploy it to disavow the Israeli government without defaming Israel or its people. Seemingly, that’s what Odessa A’Zion had in mind. This is, of course, an impossibility, as it is Zionism that created the State of Israel and all that it contains. But ultimately, most who chant “Zio” want Israel destroyed, and many want its Jews lynched en masse, just like so many African Americans before them.
The fact is that most Jews, across the political spectrum, are probably too fearful to openly compare “Zio” to the “N-word,” lest they be canceled or condemned. But having been the target of both slurs, I can attest that their ideological contiguity could not be any clearer.
“Gaza, Gaza make us proud, put the Zio in the ground,” shouted Oxford student Samuel Williams in London earlier this year at a demonstration by the aggressively anti-Israel Palestine Coalition.
Kind of reminds me of a Klan rally.
Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
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