Addenda to Racefail II: Electric BoogaJew
Feb. 11th, 2009 10:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasHere's a bunch of other disconnected thoughts about Judaism and minority. These are mostly random things thrown out there. These do not form any sort of coherent narrative or argument; they're just . . . things floating around my head. These are somewhat more likely to be accidentally offensive, because they're not well-thought through, and VASTLY more likely to be useless.
I tend to try to pay careful attention to what things will have effects on the global and local perception of Jews as a group. Because of that, I'm deeply worried about the effect that the Bernie Madoff scandal had, and will have long-term, as well as the whole military mess attacking Hamas in Gaza.
That said, "Bernie Madoff and the Gaza Incursion" sounds like an early-seventies experimental electronica concept album.
Other people have been talking about "visible Jewishness". For me, that's a weird concept. I mean, my name is Ian Osmond. My mother is Matia Angelou. I'm in a Jewish community where last names like "O'Sullivan" and "Murphy" aren't uncommon. My shul attracts a lot of intermarried families, converts, and families with adopted kids, so, year to year, my classroom tends to be about 50% white, with the rest being a mix of Asian, mainly Chinese, Latino/a, and Black. Or mixed-race of any of the above.
Now, obviously, those students can't pass as "not Asian/Hispanic/Black", but they COULD pass as "not-Jewish." They're on TWO axes of minority. And "Jewish" is the less blatant one.
As BenG Jackson, may her memory be a blessing, pointed out -- she rarely got shit for being Jewish. Mostly, she was too busy getting shit for being, poor, black, and female. People would have to get through all of those to start oppressing her for her religion, and who has time? They just settled for the easier three.
Being Jewish and NOT any of the other things allows one to pass as white whenever one wishes, at least, until society decides to crack down on being Jewish.
Is "being able to pass for the majority whenever one wishes" the same thing as "being in the majority?"
In general, would being "a minority who can pretend not to be" get one shit from other minorities folks without that superpower?
What ABOUT the disconnect between internal and external minority identification? "Oreo", "banana/Twinkie", "high yellow". The first two are people who have the EXTERNAL markers without the INTERNAL identification. The last? Someone who lacks the EXTERNAL markers.
And NONE of the three are nice things to say about someone.
Are Jews inherently "high yellow"?
I tend to try to pay careful attention to what things will have effects on the global and local perception of Jews as a group. Because of that, I'm deeply worried about the effect that the Bernie Madoff scandal had, and will have long-term, as well as the whole military mess attacking Hamas in Gaza.
That said, "Bernie Madoff and the Gaza Incursion" sounds like an early-seventies experimental electronica concept album.
Other people have been talking about "visible Jewishness". For me, that's a weird concept. I mean, my name is Ian Osmond. My mother is Matia Angelou. I'm in a Jewish community where last names like "O'Sullivan" and "Murphy" aren't uncommon. My shul attracts a lot of intermarried families, converts, and families with adopted kids, so, year to year, my classroom tends to be about 50% white, with the rest being a mix of Asian, mainly Chinese, Latino/a, and Black. Or mixed-race of any of the above.
Now, obviously, those students can't pass as "not Asian/Hispanic/Black", but they COULD pass as "not-Jewish." They're on TWO axes of minority. And "Jewish" is the less blatant one.
As BenG Jackson, may her memory be a blessing, pointed out -- she rarely got shit for being Jewish. Mostly, she was too busy getting shit for being, poor, black, and female. People would have to get through all of those to start oppressing her for her religion, and who has time? They just settled for the easier three.
Being Jewish and NOT any of the other things allows one to pass as white whenever one wishes, at least, until society decides to crack down on being Jewish.
Is "being able to pass for the majority whenever one wishes" the same thing as "being in the majority?"
In general, would being "a minority who can pretend not to be" get one shit from other minorities folks without that superpower?
What ABOUT the disconnect between internal and external minority identification? "Oreo", "banana/Twinkie", "high yellow". The first two are people who have the EXTERNAL markers without the INTERNAL identification. The last? Someone who lacks the EXTERNAL markers.
And NONE of the three are nice things to say about someone.
Are Jews inherently "high yellow"?
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-12 03:58 am (UTC)In my mind it would be like hearing a report that "24% of all Americans oppose Pres. Obama's stimulus package" and then recalling that approximately the same number of people thought George W. Bush was peachy-keen right up to the very end.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-12 04:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-12 06:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-12 01:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-12 01:55 pm (UTC)The way the story is written, it has a tone of "Newsflash! Jews are being blamed for the world financial crisis [after many years of people not holding stereotypical anger against them]!" as if there is a sudden surge in anti-Semitism while the real story is (in my mind) "Nothing has changed; a third of Europeans still think the Jews are to blame for their ills, we just have a new set of ills to blame the Jews for."
Now, I'm glad that this is news to you because it highlights a problem that had been previously unseen. But I worry that it is news because it implies (infers?) in general that 30-33% of the people reflexively blaming Jews is acceptable background noise.