Roughly my understanding. Though it would probably be mildly off-putting (by today’s standards) if someone referred to Obama as “the black.” When the surrounding context is also condescending or inappropriate (Mason’s use of “fancy,” which is pretty much the same as “uppity,” or the case of some judge I remember long ago getting censured for referring to “that schvartze who got hit by a car because he was walking at night and wasn’t smiling”) it indicates at a minimum a certain amount of “othering” to use the jargon.
[borscht belt]So a Jewish grandmother is walking with her grandson on the beach when a huge wave crashes down and drags him out to sea. Wailing and moaning, she begs God to bring her beautfiful grandson back. Suddenly another huge wave crashes, delivering her grandson, soaked but otherwise perfectly okay. She looks at him, looks to heaven – “You know, when he left, he was wearing a hat . . . .”[/bb]
Contemptible is way too strong. Actually, my suggestion would have been that hiring help at all is a bit . . . I don’t know, elitist. YMMV. All I was trying to point out is that there is always social tension between upstairs/downstairs, capital/labor, and that if Jews (or other upper middle class/well off whites) and blacks found each other on opposite sides of this divide, it might have inculcated some feelings of resentment from blacks. And, AEBE, to the extent that class resentment does exist, I would guess that members of the lower class would indeed have slightly more resentment toward those of the upper who espoused progressivism but still participated in/benefited from the divided society. (I sound like some wackjob Marxist professor throughout this post, don’t I?).
We’ve had endless debates here (haven’t we? I think we have) over who is more “hypocritical” – self-described liberals, or self-described conservatives. The pejorative “limousine liberal” is part of that debate, and I guess there is no definitive answer (i.e., YMMV) over whether and when the charge of hypocrisy is merited or whether a particular behavior is hypocritical. But yes, I was suggesting that some blacks may have had a mild to moderate incremental resentment that Jews (or other liberal whites), who had made their fondness for propinquity or personal acquaintance with large numbers of blacks very plain by getting the Hell out of the inner City, would espouse progressivism but limit their contacts with the underclasses to busing them in to do housework. Not such a crazy suggestion, is it?
This is not necessarily false, but it is inconsistent with perhaps the worst breakdown of black/Jewish relations in the past thirty years: the Crown Heights Riot . In this case, the blacks and Jews shared the same ghetto. And the shoe was somewhat on the other foot, as “the schvartze with the mustache” was our mayor, whose response to the disorder was completely inadequate.
Considering that there are few people in the world who, if given a choice between living in the middle of a hot, noisy, crime-ridden city and a cooler, quiet, peaceful suburb or rural area wouldn’t choose the latter, I’d say, yes, it’s pretty crazy to label it as racism. And there’s nothing inherently either racist or elitist about hiring someone to do your housework if you can afford it; again, there are few of us who wouldn’t if we could afford to. I certainly did when I could, and loved every minute of it. My friend who cleaned for me did too; it was money she needed and that I could spare. (She became my friend after she started cleaning for me - I hadn’t known her before)
The dynamic with the Orthodox would naturally be very different though than with secularized suburbanites, wouldn’t it? Not only physical proximity, but also a somewhat different economic calculus (and an even broader cultural gap). I think I read that blacks and Orthodox continue to have run-ins in various parts of Brooklyn or the like, no?
And so I didn’t do that! Read my post instead of rewriting it for me, please.
I believe in the free-market to an almost Social Darwinist degree, so I have no problem with there being economic winners and losers. I’m just mildly amused as a not-very-progressive person who’s never, in fact, hired help or gone to private school to avoid the proletariat when I jab at my would-be progressive friends who do distance themselves from the lower rungs of society in these and other ways.
This is a topic for another thread, but for the record this statement is absolutely wrong, or at best, only true if you posit great suburbs and a really crappy city with no livable neighborhoods.
THen why don’t you translate it for the less intelligent? Because it certainly came across to me as what I said, although you used more words and it wasn’t entirely clear to me what you meant.
Well, I live in the middle of an inner city, never went to a private school, and sure don’t have anyone cleaning my house now. But I do have a problem with people being born economic losers, and people being locked into being economic losers because of a single mishap or poor decision once in their lives, and that’s what the good old US of A has right now. Yes, a special few manage to break out of poverty, but should you have to be that exceptional and that lucky just to rise to mediocrity, let alone wealth?
The statement is also not totally race-neutral, because (at least the perception among Jews/any whites was) the “crime-ridden” part was associated with an influx of black residents to particular neighborhoods.
Extremely different histories, yes, but some commonalities, mostly caused by generations of outsider status. Blacks and Jews have long been “thrown together” in this country.
Take a minority with a tradition of education and money-wit, and another minority with little tradition of either, and confine both groups to the wrong side of the tracks. Who’s going to end up looking like the exploiter?
Of course, that status — along with their education and religious tradition of justice — also made Jews much more sympathetic to Blacks’ plight than most White Americans. So the confused Black person might easily see them on both sides and not know which is for real.
There are some great neighborhoods in some great cities, but a high crime neighborhood, loud, hot, and run-down? I don’t think so. I live in an inner city, and I live there by choice, but even I find myself longing for the quiet of the more rural 'urbs in the hot summers, and I don’t have children going to the lousy schools or playing throwing rocks in the street.
True, but I think the root causes are the same. Resentment of the bourgeois suburban Jews by inner-city blacks have much less impact on daily life than hatred of the Hasidim in Boro Hall and Crown Heights. Both the black and Jewish communities are very tightly knit and not exactly friendly to obvious intruders.
I haven’t heard of any issues in Brooklyn lately, so I googled around. This article is kind of interesting.
Hypocrisy is not racism. I used the word hypocrisy.
Does Bill Clinton, for instance, hate black people because they are black? I really don’t think so, and under controlled circumstances (an office in gentrified Harlem, golfing with Vernon Jordan), I’m sure he could have a grand old time with them. But, he sent Chelsea to Sidwell Friends and not to MLK Memorial. Not necessarily racism, definitely hypocrisy (IMHO).
Now, hypocrisy may in some instances mask or coexist with a belief in racial inferiority. I am convinced that at least some of the white supporters of AA support it because in their heart of hearts they don’t believe that blacks are as intelligent as whites. Is that racism (and does the answer depend on whether the thought is true)? Different thread.
Different thread.
But – while we’re at it – this may be what drives some Jewish black tension. Jewish ghettos on the Lower East Side of New York, or wherever, were pretty awful in terms of poverty. Just about all of those Jews rose beyond mediocrity to positive affluence in one or several generations. The Jews could look at that and say, geez, just put your mind to it – get the heck out of the ghetto, we did. The blacks could look at it and say – you cheated somehow; your poverty was less abject than ours; the social isolation you faced was less than ours – it’s just not fair!
I need to give your previous point some thought. My father grew up in a lower east side Jewish ghetto. Incidentally, it is now dominated by middle and upper-middle class families and NYU. It is a huge housing project divided among Jews, Italians, and Polish Catholics. Play at the wrong basketball court and you would get ejected sans balls. I’m going to see what he thinks.
Just thinking out loud here - I wonder if one of the causes may not be the very fact that Jews and Blacks did have something in common up through the '60s in America - a history of ethnic discrimination against them.
For Jews in America, “ethnic persecution” is now generally a thing of the past, Jew-hatred by the majority is pretty well extinct, at least in middle-class urban settings … whereas anti-Black racism isn’t.
The perception that Jews have gone and become one of “them”, the oppressive majority, rather than being one of “us”, the oppressed minority, may be a factor.
That doesn’t sound very nice. Might there be some branch of Jewish belief and practice that just doesn’t shake hands with anyone outside the family, or something like that? Genuine ignorance and wonderment here, so if I sound clumsy, please nobody shout at me.
I do not know what gender jolly roger is, but there are Jews who do not touch women. This makes things very difficult for them on a crowded subway, trust me.
Hahah, I’ll bet it does! Good luck trying to anyone trying to avoid any contact on a crowded commuter subway or tube. I mean, we ALL try that, but it not worky.
Seriously, though, thanks, Maeglin, I did not actually know that, so that could be a factor. Still, one might think a quick polite explanation to Jolly Roger at the time would have made things better. (Not that, as a woman, that idea would please me much in general, but it would, in that impersonal work-related setting, suffice for a kind of explanation.) Oh well. I live and learn.
There’s no really easy way to bring it up, given that the underlying reason is, hey, sorry, can’t shake your hand, you might be on the rag. Most very-orthodox guys I’ve seen have handled it in the same sort of awkward hands at side, I-don’t-see-your-hand, way. The suaver ones will refrain from shaking hands with anyone in a group, less suave ones will single out only the men to shake hands with . . . .
I hate to hijack the subject any further, but this story comes to mind. My wife was riding the subway when a somewhat heavyset Hassid (or Lubavitch, whatever) boarded the train. On the subway, the seats are staggered by twos and threes, catty-corner to each other. There was no one sitting next to my wife, but the rest of the train was full.
So he told her to stand up so he could sit down. He could not sit next to her, because he was too heavy to do so without brushing up next to her. He was neither old nor obviously physically disabled. It was a miracle he did not end up physically disabled after this confrontation.
