Yet Mallory would not disavow Farrakhan. Instead, she made some self-exculpatory Twitter posts, affirming her abhorrence of anti-Semitism and anti-gay hate — which Farrakhan has preached — without ever mentioning Farrakhan or her reaction to the hateful speech she attended in person.

Many progressives (especially progressive Jews) expressed their dismay at Mallory’s stance. Yet no less dismaying was the rush of other progressives to express their support for her — among them Sarsour, fellow Women’s March co-chair Bob Bland, Black Lives Matter activist and writer Shaun King, and New York Civil Liberties Union executive director Donna Lieberman, who tweeted that she was “proud to stand with” Mallory and called her “a fearless fighter against racism.”

This cavalier attitude underscores something critics of the modern left-wing social justice movement have said for a while: Progressives who pay lip service to intersectionality — the interconnected dynamics of different kinds of oppression and bias — often turn a blind eye to anti-Semitism. In their worldview, Jews tend to be perceived as privileged, so bigotry against Jews is seen as punching up more than punching down.