Well, the figures show that about 65% of black and abouy 70% of whites agree to these stereotypes of Jews, depends on which ones. Whites tend to go with "pushy," "aggressive," "control things," blacks with "greedy," "clannish," and the like, though there is a lot of overlap. Blacks think that Jews control the media and the banks, for example. The worst are fundamentalist white Christians, religious Catholics, and old-line rich WASPs.
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CB: Your poll analysis fails to take into account what I said to you at first: Black people "pervasively" categorize Jews as white people. So, the question to Black people in the survey would have to be something like, " Are Jews more pushy, aggressive, controlling things, greedy than other white people. "
The relationship between Black people and Jewish people is the not the same as the relationship between other white people and Jewish people. In general, Black people experience Jews as in the category of oppressor, like other white people. So, relative to Black people, they are likely to be pushy, aggressive , controlling things, like all white people are.
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>
>And as to anecdotal evidence, which I probably have more of and of better
>quality candor than you do, I can say for sure that it is not at all
>pervasive. It is a non-topic compared to criticism of racism. This is a
>case where I am not sanguine about the polling you refer to.
Oh, I am sure that blacks have more important things to talk about than Jews most of the time. As for poll data, it's very tricky, but for the most part it is what we have in the way of empirical evidence. This i the difference, maybe, between Michigan political science and Michigan anthropology . . . . ;>
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CB: Yes, polling can, as you know, be distorted by question form and a lot of things. We'd have to see the actual questions. What the biases of the surveyors might be.
Anthropology is very empirical. Lots of data. I took my statistics classes when I was a junior major, right there in Angell Hall in the basement. I've been thinking that anthro is actually empirical philosophy in many ways.
>
>Also, "Clannish" is not a necessarily a negative attribution. It is a
>compliment.
>
Only if it is taken as such. People say the same sort of thing about the use of Indian mascots, it's supposed to be a "tribute," but the Indians don't take it that way.
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CB:
Try "sticking together" as a substitute. Today, the same thing is said by Black people about the Iraqis who are using sticking together to succeed in business in Detroit, say.
I'd say the exact opposite. It is how it is meant that counts. As I said, it is said, by those who say it
No, I don't think clannishness is comparable to a sports team mascot at all. The white people don't say that to Indians in emulation, like "we want to be a mascot of a team too." The Black people who say Jews stick together, are saying "we Black people should stick together too", and they are very serious about it. ^^^^^
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>CB: Farrakhanism is not very pervasive among Black people. Here you have an
>inaccurate representative of the group. It is extremely rare that I find
>myself talking about Farrakhan with other Black people.
>
I agree. But F expresses in a naked and virulent form attitudes that are widespread in a lesser degree.
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CB: Your analysis fails to take account of the fact that Jewish people are white people in our society. That means anything Black people in general say about them is an oppressed group talking about an oppressor group. This totally demolishes an "anti-Semitic" analysis of the significance of what Black people say about Jews. Anti-Semitism has to be something related to the many centuries oppression of Jews by Europeans. Black people's comments about Jews are not in this category , because Black people are not oppressors of Jews either in the long European history at all, nor in whatever degree that occurs in the U.S. In fact, as white people, Jews are part of the oppressor group of Black people. This totally changes the significance of Black people's attitudes toward Jews from an analysis or survey that lumps Black people with white people. Whites and Blacks have opposite relationships to Jews. Whites come from a group that has oppressed Jews. Blacks come from a group that ! ha! s been at best equal, but with Jews being whites, there is an element of Jews as part of the group that oppresses Blacks. I am pretty sure that whoever does those polls does not have this sort of analysis, and that they are not likely to form their survey questions to take all of what I say here into account.
To that extent Farrakhan is a more hostile form of a Black people's complaints about Jews as a section of white people, not Jews as victims of European oppression.
Relative to Europeans, Jews have a history as an oppressed minority. Relative to Black people, Jews have a history as a section, somewhat lesser maybe, but nonetheless superior to Black people , and participants in anti-Black racism to some degree. This gives a completely different signicance to Black people's attitudes towards Jews that I doubt a Univ of Mich surveyor or any other would build into their model. They don't get this theory in general in Univ. of Mich Poli Sci.
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>CB: Who didn't say Jews are racist ?
Lost me there. Many Jews _are_ racist, ot at least express racist attitudes (my wife's late aunt used to snarl about the "schwarzes," I'd say, we Schwartzes are just fine, thank you, and my wife would swat me, tell me to leave the old lady alone), but Jews are the least racist group of whites, statistically speaking, even now.
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CB: I don't recall what the above responded to.
I have that sense about Jews being the least racist group of whites. Nonetheless , the vast majority of experiences Black people have with Jews would be as social superiors in some sense. So, you have to take Black people talking about "Jews" as someone talking about their boss, their supervisor, their social superior in some sense.
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>I didn't say Black people say "Jews are racist". I said most criticize
>racism from Jewish people. But they don't summararily characterize them as
>racist.
OK, I'll accept that.
>Judaism is MOST of the Bible. MOST Black people are Christians. Ergo,
>calling Judaism a gutter religion would be throwing out 6/7's of the Bible,
>which the vast majority of Black people are not about to do.
We have to stand corrected ion the gutter religion comment. He said "dirty religion," not "gutter religion." Doug says that June Wannaski has established this.
But the reference to the Bible is irrelevant. Antisemitic fundamentalist Christians who think that Jews killed Christ purport to read and late literally the same Bible. Yes, I know black Christains sing about, "When Israel was in Egypt land," but you know they're not expressing solidarity with Jewish tribulations, it's a metaohor for their own situation.
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CB: The reference to the Bible is not irrelevant. Black Christianity is very different than white fundamentalist Christianity on precisely this type of issue. Black Christianity is socially conscious on the issue of discrimination and prejudice, not surprisingly. My point is exactly that, as to religion, Black people identify with the slavery, suffering and discrimination suffered by Jews as a conscious analogy to the situation of Black people. In other words, I "know" the opposite of what you say. So, especially when we are focussing on RELIGION, Black people are not pervasively anti-Judaic, but pro-Judaic. Black people are pervasively "Judeo-Christian" in their religious attitude.
>
Most people have no notions of any "Zionist entities" etc.
>
I didn't mean to imply otherwise.
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CB: I must add though, with all the news on Israel and Palestine, I think a lot of people see the Palestinians as oppressed victims. Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is , of course, seen as racist and prejudice, and an overdog oppressing an underdog.
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>However, the sticking together part is emulation. That Black people should
>do the same thing. So, you may not feel better, but it is not evidence of
>ANTI-Semitism, but PRO-Semitism. In other words, it is seeing Jews AS an
>oppressed and reviled minority in the U.S. LIKE Black people, and instead
>of being envious of success, self-critically saying, "we should do more
>like you".
Like I said about the Indians, uncritically repeating stereotypes, even if well-intended, is unconsciously antisemitic. Or to take another analogy, how would you feel if I said, meaning well, you black people sure got rhythm and can sing and dance! And I really admire all the great ball players you produce! I don't get paranoid about this, but some Jews are hypersensitive. Best to avoid the stereotypes altogether.
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CB: The reason it is not comparable is that "clannishness" or sticking together is not , in fact, an "unimportant" virtue. It is an actual substantive vice to not stick together. The comparison would be more like if a Black person said to a Jewish person " Jews sure do have a higher than average success in higher education". It is the complete opposite of saying "you'd make a good mascot". Good stereotypes come out of the calculus we are discussing the opposite way that bad stereotypes do.
>From my standpoint its even more complicated , because I kind of think being good at sports is good "stereotype" for Black people NOW, but that is my idiosyncracy which I don't particularly push, and I respond here as if being good at sports is a bad stereotype. Frankly, I think having good rhythm is a virtue too. I guess the negative comes if the formulation is that "Blacks are good at sports and dancing AND THAT'S ALL THEY CAN DO " or "Blacks have natural rhythm or athletism, but they aren't smart about sports or art" . Then there is a problem.
Recall that in Hitler's racist conception , it was a defeat for white supremacism that Jesse Owens was a better athlete than the German he defeated. The exclusion of Black people from baseball and sports in the U.S. was based on a notion that Blacks were inferior in sports inherently, so the history of this issue is somewhat complicated.
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>CB: I contradict anti-Semitism when it occurs.
Good, and I do the same with Jewish racism. Had a big blow up with my mother in law about this a while back, she still hasn't forgiven me. She's probably pretty typical, expresses racist attitudes, votes yellow-dog Democrat, worked all her life in the NYC school system to do good things for black constituents. A bundle of contradictions.
jks