In the thread Jews take over East Rampano school district and defund it (Jews take over East Ramapo School District and Defund It - The BBQ Pit - Straight Dope Message Board) it has been suggested that the title is perhaps a bit too inflammatory, and that it could have been written in a less offensive manner. Others say that the title is perfectly fine and serves to get the point across. The gist of that thread is that Orthdox Jews have been elected to the school board in a community consisting mainly of Orthodox Jews and poor hispanic and black families. The school board has since closed down some schools attended by the poorer students, cut funding for extracurricular activities, and fired the attorney for the school district. I don’t mean for this thread to be about that, however. I want to instead focus on the effect of painting with too broad a brush.
The problem is that you will seldom find an instance wherein ALL people of a certain group have participated in a particular action or hold the same views. When one says something such as this, however, no distinction is made between Jews who were involved in this and Jews living half a world away who’ve never even heard of East Rampano. For comparison, one could say “Christians thank God for dead soldiers,” or “Christians seek the death penalty for homosexuals.” Both of these are true of some members of the Westboro Baptist Church, who count themselves as Christian, but these beliefs in no way represent the feelings of the majority of Christians.
We’ve already seen the damage done when all Muslims are classified as terrorists, even though only a small percentage of them are. And we’ve seen what became of Jews following Hitler’s rise. We’ve seen rampant racism where people are reviled because one white man did this, or a black woman did that. The gist of all of this is that people come to be suspicious and ultimately fearful and resentful of all members of a group based upon the words and actions of a small subset of a particular population. We can alleviate some of this by carefully choosing our words. Instead of saying, “Muslims are terrorists,” say “Some Muslims are terrorists.” Instead of saying, “Jews take over school board,” say, “Some Orthodox Jews, elected to the school board, manipulated the system to their advantage.” Don’t paint everyone with the same brush.
Yes, as I said over there we Jews are always taking over, we are like that we always have been and always will be. We took over Jericho and when the New Jerusalem comes to land we’l take over that too.
I agree painting with as broad brush is not wise. But your given example:
Seems like nitpicking to me. You’d have to be an idiot of epic proportions to read that and think: 'Wow, all Jews everywhere are taking over one particular school board?"
While it is obviously isn’t all Jews everywhere, as many Jews are condemning the Hasidim of East Ramapo, this is not just “some” Jews in East Ramapo, but essentially the entire Orthodox community there. They are managing to pull off this shit because they have a voting bloc of the entire community. It’s not just happening because of the ones being elected, but the ones doing the electing who vote as a single bloc.
So I didn’t miss a memo? I was worried I was too busy gathering up Christian babies for the upcoming Yom Kippur break-the-fast. That’s a relief. Because I always try to get in on the school district take-overs whenever I can.
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Seems like nitpicking to me. You’d have to be an idiot of epic proportions to read that and think: 'Wow, all Jews everywhere are taking over one particular school board?"
[/QUOTE]
I’m on the fence. I read it as newspaper headline grammar. If it said “Schools taken over by Jews”, I would assume, without even considering alternative interpretations, that it meant a very small minority of schools.
On the other hand, the exact phrasing “Jews take over…” is something I would think it prudent to avoid, but not going to tell anyone they shouldn’t use it; the only inferences you can draw from it are about the writer.
Or, we could learn (if we haven’t already, as I’d expect from this crew at least), that a headline has a limited amount of space and we have to read it as descriptive and none-inclusive.
And that FFS, it’s not even possible for all the Jews in the world to agree that they should do something. Nor all Muslims, nor all Christians, nor all men nor women.
Whatever complaints I may have about such a story, I can assure it would not be because they didn’t adequately specify the number and ideological flavor of the black people involved.
The title as posted does read to me like it’s saying “Ohmergod, teh Jewz iz taking over!”. IMO, if it had said “Orthodox Jews take over East Rampano school district and defund it” it would have been slightly more descriptive, more accurate, and wouldn’t have sounded like a typical Facebook rant.