well said.
]]>
Made me think of that Chris Rock line: "Black people don't hate Jewish people, black people hate white people." Not saying you do, just reminded me. Anyway, yeah I agree that a shared sense of oppression tends not to do much to temper racist attitudes. If anything, I think it makes it worse sometimes. It's a pissing contest.
The headline, in context with the post, is supposed to be ironic.
]]>Yeah, I can attest to this. When I was a kid, I was always reminded of how my great-grandparents others from Ireland came over here with nothing, were hated, etc., and look what they managed to do as a people. Why couldn't "the coloreds" do this? Huh? HUH? Ugh.
]]>As for a "shared experience of oppression" it usually just means bigots in one group can take their resentment out on another group that they feel has either not suffered as they have, or was somehow responsible for their suffering, or whatnot. When someone vents their own frustrations and problems in the form of bigotry, it'll come out in any of several ways, whatever is convenient at the time. Didn't get the job? Must be the black guy's fault. Car got spray painted? Must be those Mexicans in the neighborhood. Bet the Italian mechanic will rip me off when it comes to getting that fixed...whatever the case, it's easier for the bigot to assign blame than to address their problems honestly.
]]>There are a few really good This American Life stories that I think Alex Bloomberg (I think it’s him anyway) did about growing up trying to find his identity as an American kid with an intensely felt connection to Israel. One is him reading his diary at fifteen, and it’s all about him trying to plan his life so that he can one day grow up and be elected Prime Minister. For one thing, it’s important that he learn the Israeli national anthem. It’s pretty funny.
]]>Just imagine if this video featured whites from Alabama or arabs from Oman and replace "nigger" with "jews".
How long would it be before a nationwide shitstorm percolated and exploded?
I'm only half joking. I understand your concern, but unfortunately I don't think this is anything that new.
Dude, if Jews had the massive influence people keep claiming we had, I'd be using mine to get a real job, and get off unemployment after getting laid off.
]]>You said, “For what it's worth, on a very visceral level, what I see is a bunch of drunk racist white kids, doing what I'd expect a bunch of drunk racist white kids to do. I don't really have "higher expectations" because of the particulars of the Jewish experience…”
I couldn’t agreed with you more. And at the risk of a minor thread-jack (which makes me wonder about the etymology of the “-jack”) I would say that I hope that no one has “lower expectations” for non-Jewish white people. I don’t know how typical or atypical my experience is, but growing up in a Minneapolis suburb (I’m 33) one of the best ways to earn the dislike and disrespect of ones white peers (I’m white) was for someone to make racial slurs when surrounded by only other whites (which was most of the time in Minnesota). I’m sure my dad would have smacked me in the face if I had ever referred to someone as a n*****. Again I don’t know if this is typical, I only know my own experience. But the notion that people would feel comfortable saying overtly racist things when in a “safe” place made up of only their own race/ethnicity is always jarring to me coming from a place and time when that was most emphatically not OK. Along the same lines I have not noticed any change in how people talk or act around me (still in Minneapolis) when they learn that I am married to a black woman. So… I guess the point of my biographical aside is just to highlight how shocking I find the video you posted. Not because of how it conflicts with my sense of right/wrong/decency/knowing-when-not-to-say-stupid-shit, but because of how it clashes with my experience growing up white in a pretty much all white environment. Shameful.
On the other hand I thought the comment about going to the whitehouse to teabag the president and put it on youtube was really funny. If someone said that about Bush I would have laughed my ass off, so I'm not gonna get all sanctimonious just because Obama's my guy.
]]>More accuratley racism is another form of bigotry and bigotry can take root in any group if given the chance.
As for a "shared experience of oppression" it usually just means bigots in one group can take their resentment out on another group that they feel has either not suffered as they have, or was somehow responsible for their suffering, or whatnot.Well that's certainly what it usually means for the bigots.
I think for open-minded people a true shared experience of oppression like that of blacks and Jews in the US can be ennobling, but TNC makes a good point that some people don't really wnat to be ennobled.
]]>After 1 a.m. in a bar this Polish-American (like me) friend will admit that somewhere down there in his primitive brain, there's this question. Why does the first non-Western European POTUS, the first POTUS with a vowel at the end of his name, have a heritage from Africa? Africa? Why, instead the unfamiliar syllable -ama, not the syllable -ski or -ici or even an -ette, at the end of a president's name?
He laughs. Saying for once the eastern and southern Europeans are historically screwed by the pooch even worse than the Africans. Not that's a pissing contest.
Tribalism, and its attendant racism, is there. Most of us successfully mature, as my friend has. Others have more growing up to do. But it's not news that we are all alike, that the primitive is there in all of us. The most interesting part of the story that TNC cites is that the reporter and editor thought it interesting. They say something about themselves.
]]>Art Speigelman, in his famous graphic novel, Maus, that explores the experiences of his father in Auschwitz, is constantly confounded by the tunnel vision of his father's racism.
It's there both overtly and unconsciously, which in a way can be more pernicious, but I can understand TN's response--"so what else is new?" One would only wish, as a Jew, that Jews were so forgiving of black anti-semitism. The way, alas, of the world.
]]>The fastest way to mark yourself as an undesirable moron, to be shunned, where I grew up, was to speak, act and think in racist ways.
My town was about 60% Jewish and 40% Italian and Irish. We grew up (for the most part) enjoying, integrating and trading our cultrual heritages in town. In the 70s when the first black, Indian and Asian kids were coming to town they were almost always greeted with open arms and a place in our school, groups etc.
I grew up in a Jewish town, about 75% of my friends today and in the past are Jewish, I married a half Jewish woman and as such, a great part of my cultural backgroud, ethos and pathos are in fact Jewish/American. I speak more Yiddish and have attended more services than many of my Jewish peers do/have.
If ANYONE, back then, or now spoke or behaved the way these kids did they would be punished, shut out and thought to be a failures.
In my household we were taught from an early age that indeed "all men (and women) are created equal. That respect and love given is respect and love gained.
I was licky that my dad had twn brothers and sisters, born in a beautiful but troubled country. Nine of them left and married women and men in England, America, Brasil, Denmark and Canada. Our family gatherings were like a UN General Assembly. T
My parent's teachings, my peers, my socieoeconomic setting, my diverse family - they all made me the man I am today and provided me with a lifelong joy.
The joy that comes from celebrating diversity as an everyday part of my life.
I think about how much freer I am not bound ny prejudice, hatred and suspicion of the other.
Yes, there are lots of videos like this featuring every ethnic, racial and cultural group.
I'm sorry though. That abundance does nothing to soften the sickening feeling I get when I see them. As a rule I don't expect more or less from one group over another. We all have cruel, mean, ignorant members of our groups.
I will admit though, this did make me a little sicker than usual beacause those kids look and sound just like all the kids I grew up with.
In other words it is the very fact that this coming from people in my "in-group" makes it all the more depressing to listen to.
So with this video we see the loose-lipped representatives of Zionist civilization saying what's on their mind. I think they speak in ways most wouldn't, but the gist of their attitude is rampant in Israel and among a significant number of Zionist-supporting Americans: entitlement, disdain, ugliness, and with the help of the United States the might to make Herzl's rampart a chilling reality.
]]>Damn, I was just about to lose my mind at work, but this line made me very happy. That shit is hilarious. But I thought you had moved on to Martinis. Fancy pants.
]]>Call out all you want but do your research first. Check out the statistics for black jews in Israel on employment and income. Check out the treatment they receive. Then get back to me. SSDC. (same shit different country)
]]>Second, I'd bet events in America would have had more influence on American Jews than events in Israel. Maybe seeing their parents and grand parents march for Civil Rights and then get rewarded by seeing many black American activists identify with the Arab side in the Arab-Israeli conflict had something to with it. Or maybe they're just ignorant racists, who knows. But I think it's a stretch to say that they are acting like racist louts because Ethiopians haven't fully assimilated in Israel yet. Blacks have had challenges in every non-black majority country, from the U.S., to France. Israel is no different or worse.
]]>And an article from Haaretz on racial inequities in the country.
]]>No good deed goes unpunished.
]]>Listening to most American Jews talk about Israel reminds me of hearing most Irish-Americans talking about Ireland and the Troubles. They love the shillelaghs and the Erin Go Braghs and the green beer, and they supported Bobby Sands' hunger strike and the IRA, and they had not one damn clue what was actually going on over on the Olde Sod. And American Jews yell and scream and talk smack about what Israel has the right to do, and they tend not have as much sense in the tip of their little finger as the average Sabra has on what the actual issues are facing Israel.
A PoliSci major who doesn't know Netanyahu is a perfect example. I'm pretty sure an Israeli born and bred would have had quite a lot to say about Bibi.
Adding booze to this equation...well, that doesn't help.
But it doesn't stop me from feeling ashamed.
]]>We need to keep in mind the larger picture, however, which is that Obama got 78% of the Jewish vote, well within the range that Democratic nominees usually receive. Kerry got 74%, Gore/Lieberman 79%. If a black guy can get very nearly as much Jewish support as a ticket with an actual Jew did, that says something. I think it's safe to call the Obama-hating Jews a fringe.
]]>Just like claiming God's Son is floating around in outer space waiting to return... oh but you don't need a fifth of Henny for that, a sip of wine will do.
]]>Can you people possible feel any more entitled?
Blacks owe you nothing. Arabs owe you nothing.
Stop breaking International Law and stand on your own. No more American tax dollars going to Israel in 'aid' for the purchasing of nuclear weapons and missiles used to kill Palestinian women and children and no more protection in the United Nations from sanctions and resolutions. Enough is enough.
]]>"Based on our interviews these people were from high socio economic backgrounds and had developed thoughts about current Israeli politics. The question is why more journalists are not covering this story. All you have to do is walk the streets of Jerusalem and you will find dozens of people that harbor the same beliefs. These people and their families are the core of the opposition to meaningful peace between Israel and her neighbors. This is what Obama is up against."
Wha? They had "developed thoughts" about current Israeli politics? You mean the pol. sci. major who didn't know Benjamin Netanyahu from Benny Yahoo? Or the bandana'd teenager who doesn't want anyone "to take his guns away"?
These are particularly idiot drunken kids, fresh out of high school. I was an American (well, Canadian) Jewish post-high school grad in Israel and went to an uber-Zionist yeshiva (the one that invented the "hesder" arrangement where Israeli teenagers could split up their conscription time with years in yeshiva). If you put the worst of us on camera, stoned out of our minds, we wouldn't say that stuff. And the worst of those guys practically worshiped Meir Kahane.
Dana and Blumenthal (I'm going to assume that Blumenthal was duped) basically went to the place where the American teenage bums of Israel congregate to get drunk. What are these kids doing in Jerusalem getting drunk - on a weeknight, no less? No one from any of the reputable yeshivot in Israel would be there. Most of these kids are problem cases sent off by their religious parents to be "rehabilitated". They are not typical American Jews or Israelis. I doubt very much that they are, as Dana and Blumenthal suggest, dual citizens - note how he's trying to slander American and Israeli Jews by saying these reprehensible morons represent the Jewish opposition to Obama's mid-east policies. How Dana thinks these kids are representative of anything in either Israeli or American Jewish life is beyond me.
]]>The other part of the occassion is that jews are present enough in the media that the jewish self-identification plays a big role in the media presentation of jews. It is not exactly surprising that this video comes via a filmmaker named Blumenthal. Since such a high percentage of the public discussion of jews is done by jews, jewish self-perception is more public than most. While whites (jewish or not) seem to spend a lot of time talking about what blacks are like, most non-jewish whites are not particularly worried about what jews are like. That leaves the field pretty open for jewish self-perception to rule the roost.
One of the most surprising things I ever heard from my mother was shock when Rabin was assassinated that a jew would kill another jew. I don't know why she would have this idea that we were immune from such things that everyone else does. And in the years since she has been disabused of much of her sense of jewish exceptionalism by events in the middle east. But when a group gets to play such a role in defining itself in public with little competition from other groups, that will affect how the group is perceived.
]]>Obviously I wouldn't see this video as tarring all American Jews, I'm sure most are embarassed by this nonsense.
]]>ha ha - thanks, we appreciate that! My kinfolk definitely need some lowered expectations. And when alcohol is involved, we cannot be held responsible in any way.
I am fully on board with you here that bigotry is human. Part of what kind of human you turn out to be rests on whether or not you accept that and what you decide to do about it.
]]>Much the same can be said about any Jews who made aliyah to the land of Zionist nationalism where displacing the native population, and making them acquiese to the goals of such nationalism, are primary ingredients.
"I am optimistic that they will indeed be granted satisfactory assurances and that both peoples, like good neighbors, can then live in peace. But the only path to such an agreement is the iron wall, that is to say the strengthening in Palestine of a government without any kind of Arab influence, that is to say one against which the Arabs will fight. In other words, for us the only path to an agreement in the future is an absolute refusal of any attempts at an agreement now.'- Ze'ev Jabotinksy "The Iron Wall", 1923
Not then and not since. Not until the cry uncle and give up. And until they do, Zionists will keep beating them into the ground. It is in their DNA. It makes them feel rough and tough and oh so biblical.
Of course it is racist. You work with those who you feel equal to and you abuse those you think are of some lesser material. Racism all the way.
]]>Okay. Can you people (whatever group you represent) have a more myopic view of both the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and the relationship between Jews, in America and Israel, and the Israeli government? Because those things are pretty complicated, and neither is particularly well-served by statements like the one you just made.
]]>How does one even entertain a more myopic view of the Arab/Israeli conflict given the hawkish nature of the Israeli government and their blatant refusal to observe International Law?
I just had a baby and my husband and I have decided that due to the 'Natural Growth' of our family, we're going to add an extension to our house that runs into our neighbor's backyard. First, we're going to ask them to provide us with proof dating back as far as the Civil War (I live in the South) that they own the land, when they're unable to provide that proof, we're going to call in the bulldozers to demolish their house. When my neighbors protest and call the cops, I'll be sure to tell them that our actions are down to the 'natural growth' of our family and suggest that they take a more myopic view of the situation.
This is the rationale behind most of Israel's apologists, quite often, it's irrational, unreasonable and based upon the notion that Israel is a theocracy and Jews have a preordained right to live there. Really? Because I thought it was a democracy where all are equal under the law. How can Israel be a Jewish nation with such a large population of Muslims? How is Israel a democracy? Do they have a constitution that enables muslims/arabs to sue for their rights? To pursue a legal and just resolution to their grievances? Or are they often left to such despair with no recourse but to strap a bomb to their bodies?
I'm often bemused when people evoke the struggles of Blacks, Jews and other minorities when speaking of the plight of Arabs in Palestine and Occupied Jerusalem. The one glaring difference being that in these cases, there were laws and precedent to help bolster the case for equal protection and equal rights under the law. Not so the Palestinians. These people have had their throats under the boots of the Israeli Jews for too long. They need justice and until they have justice then there should be no peace. What other recourse do they have, but to roll over and die without dignity?
]]>Demonstrated: there are many Western European surnames indeed that do end in vowels that are not i.
]]>"We've had enough here with the 'leftist democracy' - and I put that term in quotes, don't get me wrong. People have put the dictator label on Lieberman because of the things he says. But the truth is that in Israel there can't be a full democracy when there are Arabs here who oppose it.
"All Lieberman's really saying is that anyone who isn't prepared to sign an oath of loyalty to the state, because of his personal views, cannot receive equal rights; he can't vote for the executive authority. People here are gradually coming to understand what needs to be done concerning a person who is not loyal."
]]>However, to be clear. I said Israelis treat black jews like shit. That has nothing to do with whether or not the black jews have assimilated and everything to do with what appears to be a substantial number of racist white jews. I also said that these white kids clearly feel fully comfortable spouting racism in public and I have no doubt they would not have felt comfortable doing the same here in the US at some bar in Manhattan or Chicago.
You have failed to address any of my points and simply stated that yes, Israelis are racist, like everyone else. Oh yeah, you also blamed black Jews for how they are treated by white Jews. Nice. Pretty textbook.
]]>Nothing like rich white Americans who have never seen actual suffering wailing about their "oppressed peoples" on their free Birthright Israel club med vacay. As an American Jew I am disappointed with this younger generation of Jews on so many levels...
]]>Damn straight. As someone whose parents are both from Norn Iron, and most of whose family still lives there, it pisses me off to no end to have to hear so many so-called Irish Americans mouth off about that stuff. "Plastic Paddies", they're known as.
]]>
Wow. Please flesh this sentiment out for me. Or can I pull out of my ass that those " black activists " ( talk about a loaded term ) identified with Arabs because Arabs didn't try to assassinate the first black man to win the Noble Prize ( Ralph Bunche ). Or maybe they identified with Arabs because Arabs didn't produce movies in which black people are only pimps, whores, welfare cheats, moral degenerates, and brutes out to rape white women. Should we continue along this path Dave?
Very surprised at your comments, and your defensive posture on this is puzzling. You're rationalising their racism, on the most bullshit of charges concerning black anti-semitism. A very poor effort on your part, and damn near cartoonish in the manner that you treat the tension between the black and jewish community. And it really betrays an ignorance you possess about the black community, a community that is heavily evangelical and fundemental in it's christianity and all the attendant support of Israel you would expect in that kind of theology.
Maybe Coates should stick to white folks in the south, seems to fit the narrative you are most comfortable with when he discusses racsim against against blacks. Better yet, Coates should just stop whinning about race, isn't that what you really think Dave?
]]>Bright kids tend to be more sympathetic to
]]>Gee, it's a good thing you brought up your kids to be open-minded.
"ignorance is bred from the fears their parents all too eagerly fed into."
That I believe.
]]>Not that I've noticed. But kids who are taught that their family is full of virtue (eg are not only "bright" but "sympathetic to the plight of their fellow man") and that they can tell all the un-bright, morally inferior people by the neighborhood they live in . . . tend to have some blinkers on of their own.
]]>I find your emphasis on the Judaism, your misuse of a Yiddish word, your inability to recognize that white kids "talking shit in bar" can indeed be racism, and your use of ad hominem slurs (the woman is racist, so it's okay to call her fat, drunk, and stupid?) all problematic. It would be really nice if a post calling out Jewish racism as typical white racism didn't get so much covert and overt anti-Semitism and/or Jewish defensiveness in the comments.
]]>