Sorry if this is in the wrong forum. I flipped a coin.
Let me start by saying that I’m a mutt. That is, my mother is black and my father jewish, and tho people who meet me typically think that I’m caucasian, I was raised by momma and ethnically speaking she’s the one I identify with. Also there’s the one-drop rule. IOW I look like one thing but feel like another.
Anyway…I know any number of black people who are very hostile towards jews, and vice versa. We just had a good example of this in Memphis. Our congressmen, Steve Cohen, caught a lot of shit in the democratic primary from people who felt a jew should not reprepsent a majority black city. There was one commercial in particular that tried to link Cohen to the ku klux klan. Now anybody who knows anything can see this is bullshit; the kkk is as much against jews as blacks. Plus there’s the fact, as soon in this wikipedia article, that jewish people were on the right side during the civil rights movement.
So I guess what I’m wondering is why, historically, two groups of people who had many of the same enemies became antagonistic to one another?
When I was young and marched in the black rights marches there were a large amount of Jews involved. I really don’t think there is that much antipathy. In the Detroit area it was the Jews who first sold their suburban houses to the blacks. Like Oak Park slowly changing from Jewish area to black. In between it was mixed and not a source of much problems.
“My minority is more oppressed than your minority”
“Yeh, you had slavery, but we had the HOLOCAUST!”
etc.
Looking from another country at America, both groups wield historical injustices against them, in order to improve their lot in the modern world. Especially in politics.
The existance of another minority that could claim to be as/more oppressed and badly served by society, lowers their ability to use their previous oppression to claim political favours.
I’ve never inquired of the black or jewish people I know as to their feeling about one another, but I’ve also gotten a general impression more in line with what gonzomax said (I’m also in Michigan). Didn’t Woody Allen have a scene in one of his movies that was making light of the stereotype that Jews had extremely lenient attitudes towards anything black people did? Not that Woody speaks for all Jews or anything, but he’s not known for inventing things from whole cloth.
Is there hostility towards Blacks among Jews? If so, I’m totally unaware of it. In my experience, Jews tend to be politically liberal, and liberals tend to take political stances that benefit minorities (pro-affirmative action, etc.)
Maybe that’s just my liberal Jewish family, though.
My guess is if there is hostility, it’s more in the other direction. But I could be totally wrong. In any case, I don’t have a clue what the reason is for it. My ignorant speculation is that there’s some hostility towards Whites in general in predominantly Black neighborhoods, and Jews get the double whammy of being White and non-Christian.
I’m not equipped to comment on the historic issues, but will allow as when I taught in an all black high school in NC in the 1967-70 period, I heard more than one student refer to Jews with as much disdain as I had heard similar(usually poor) whites do.
I have little doubt that it was that the Jews might have been in a profession which caused the black students to see them as the stereotypical monetary oppressors.
I would suggest that Blacks of the last 20 years might view Middle Easterners (who have convenience stores in Black neighborhoods) in much the same way.
Would this be a reference to Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson? You really can’t judge anything sane by what Jackson says, does, believes or dreams. The man’s certifiable. And a bigot.
Off the top of my head, only two things come to mind- that many Jewish civil rights supporters broke with Black civil rights leaders over the issue of quotas in Affirmative Action, and perhaps the issue of AA itself. Also, the increasing sympathy of some Black leaders with Islam &/or the Palestinian cause.
Minority groups do tend to clash. There is certainly tension between Blacks and Hispanics, for example. In many instances, you’re fighting over the same turf. We don’t want to admit it, but most minority groups vote their race in the voting booth.
It’d be ridiculous to say all black people hate all Jews or vice versa, but there is most certainly some antipathy, at least in some quarters. There’s no reason I should be the first poster in this thread to mention the Crown Heights Riot, and there was more going on there than a car accident. There was very obviously tension between the two groups that exploded into (a couple, I think) Orthodox Jews being beaten to death, and Al Sharpton’s grotesque remarks about diamond merchants. He was directly or indirectly blaming rich Jews for poverty in the black community, and people didn’t call him nuts, so he obviously did not invent this notion.
I’ve never seen any active hostility from Jews toward blacks, but I’ve seen extreme condescension, which doesn’t exactly make for smooth relations.
Perhaps, but this issue is far larger than Jesse Jackson. Jews were certainly involved in the Freedom Rides and the early stages of the Civil Rights movement, but some antipathy clearly existed, developed, or something. You can still hear people talking about issues like this today when they wonder if Jews (particularly older Jews in Florida) will vote for Barack Obama.
It dates from the bad old days when Jews were discouraged from owning property in the “nicer” neighborhoods. They owned pawnshops, small groceries, retail establishments and apartment buildings in the black sections of town. Because they lacked economy of scale and because shrinkage and insurance costs were higher the retail stores charged more for merchandise than outside and they got a reputation for gouging. Same way with apartment rentals. Who really likes an absentee landlord, especially in a crappy neighborhood? Rents were low and paid irregularly, and repairs were neglected for lack of money and interest.
I got the impression that the Black Power movement caused a belief that “we must do it ourselves” and disappointed Jews who were in the Civil Rights Movement.
We have a Haggada that mentions Black slavery, and I’ve always felt that comparison caused Jews to be interested in the Civil Rights movement.
Broad brush strokes are dangerous things to swing around. But what the Hell.
Poor undereducated people are always ripe ground for someone to come around and blame an other for their plight. And despite the fact that many Jews were significant forces in the battle for civil rights, various demagogues took advantage of that.
Some of the Black ghettos had been Jewish ghettos before that. Jews had owned many of the businesses and even as they moved out to the suburbs to live, they often kept running the businesses and renting out the apartments. Sometimes they were stolen from and stiffed, sometimes they price-gouged. Some tried to keep nice buildings and had renters destroy their property. Some were slum lords. Both sides began to make generalizations from their limited experiences.
And both sides I believe perceive more antipathy that there really is. Farakahn does not speak for all Blacks; nor does Jesse.
There seems to be a lot of interplay between blacks and Islam, with large numbers of blacks converting away from Protestant Christianity and adopting Islamic names and “Black Muslim” identities. This always baffled me because the Arab Muslims played a pretty big role in the slave trade (and I’ve heard that they still do, in Africa, even today.) But whatever the case, it would certainly follow from this that some blacks might adopt the Farrakhan-type position of being against the Jews.
But don’t you also hear people wondering if older whites in general will vote for Obama? I’m not sure if it’s specific to Jews.
In fact, I expect the percentage of Jews who vote for Obama will be higher than the overall percentage of whites who vote for Obama, if for no other reason the average Jewish American is more liberal than the average white American. (At least, I certainly have the impression that this is the case.)
The word “older” disappeared from your sentence here. It probably would not be hard to find stats showing Jews are, on average, left-leaning. But I’m not sure this is true for older Jews, which is part of the reason you hear people on this site talking so much about what might happen for Obama in Florida. You can make the argument that many white people are uneasy with Obama because he’s black. I think his Muslim ancestry and middle name are going to stick out with Jews a bit more than with other groups, and Obama seems aware of this. Remember his speech to AIPAC?
