Interesting thread. Then again, I knew it would be from the moment I saw it.
Since I’m a member of both the black and Jewish communities, I’ve thought about this very thing, to one degree or another, over the years, so I thought that I’d just toss in my own $.02. My apologies if I repeat points–and I’m sure I will–that previous posters have made. [Warning: This is long.]
In my experience, from the Black side, there seem to be a few things going on, in no particular degree of importance/influence.
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Misplaced anger/possibly jealousy. Though blacks and Jews* have traditionally had the same enemies in this country, the Jewish community, as a whole, has enjoyed a vastly greater degree of “mainstreaming” and success (it should go without saying that this is most definitely NOT true of all American Jews, but I’ll say it anyway) that the black community, as a whole, has not. IOW, there are some blacks who feel as if they’ve been left behind by the Jewish community. Are they right to feel this way? Well, yes, and no, but at any rate, there it is.
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Justified anger.** While it is true that Jews were, overall, on the right side of civil rights for blacks, that’s not true for all Jews (and I’m talking about more than Miss Daisy). There are Jews who are simply racist against blacks. There’s a guy from my shul–an older guy, and he and his wife are beloved friends of mine–who told me that, back in the late 60’s/early 70’s, when he and his wife sold their home in a middle-class section of Philadelphia to a black family, he caught hell from the other Jews on the block (and from at work, too). I mean, really, the neighbors were not amused. (Incidentally, his parents also lived on that same block, and as more of the Jewish neighbors left and more blacks moved in, they stayed there through his father’s death and until his mother had to be put into assisted living in, IIRC, the 90’s.) So, as much as there were Jews who made it possible for blacks to move into middle-class neighborhoods by selling their homes to them when no one else would, and while there were some who stayed on, there were also many who participated in white flight. This could be for any number of legitimate reasons (my friends left because they needed more room for their family), but I don’t think it does anyone any good to pretend that out-and-out racism couldn’t have played a part. (And yeah, there were Jews who had businesses in those neighborhoods and who continued to run them even after they left, but there’s a big difference between running a business in a certain “undesirable” neighborhood and having your family live there. And, by the way, that neighborhood is now mostly black, but still solidly middle-class.)
I could tell you what sometimes happens in my own shul. I belong to a liberal, mostly-white-yet-multiethnic synagogue where the folks are, obviously used to seeing Jews of color and not racist. What happens, though, is that my shulmates’ guests/visitingfamilies are not always as open-minded. There’ve been occasions when family members will visit our shul for b’nai mitzvot and not be happy to see my black face in the audience, especially since I’m obviously well-known in my shul and therefore can’t be confused as a mere visitor. I mean, really, you should see the looks of discomfort and, in some cases, barely concealed contempt that I’ve gotten from some of these people. (Of course, if I’m in one of my let’s-fuck-with-the-racist moods, I’ll go right up to them after services and cheerfully introduce myself and welcome them to our shul. Yes, I know—perhaps not very nice of me, but at least I’m not the one hatin’ on someone ‘cause he’s a different color than I, right?) I could also tell you stories that I’ve heard from my Jewish friends and other Jewish sources about how their liberal parents totally wigged out when they (or some other relative) became romantically involved with blacks. (Some of that, I think, goes to that big “R” and little “r” racism that I’ve previously posted about on these boards.)
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Potentially improper alliances/attribution. The whole Palestine/Israel mishegoss is a prime example of this. For some blacks (and some progressive whites), this conflict epitomizes white oppression of people of color, and whether this characterization is accurate or not…well, it’s not difficult to see how this could contribute to any conflict between American blacks and American Jews. (And while I’m on this subject, I’m looking at you, ANSWER. Why does *every * anti-war protest you guys organize have to include an “Israel Out of Gaza” contingent? What they hell does THAT have to do with the war? On second thought, I think I get the (some say tenuous) connection that you’re trying to make, but still, to everything there is a season, and all that jazz.)
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Christianity. Yeah, some people take that “the Jews gave Christ to Pilate” stuff waaaaay too seriously, but I don’t know that this has a great deal of influence WRT the subject at hand. I would not, however, automatically discount it.
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Farrakhan, Sharpton, et al. Basically, just please shut the hell up about them, okay? I mean, really, most blacks have gotten tired of being vetted by having to denounce Farrakhan, Sharpton, and other in-the-spotlight blacks who make anti-Semitic*** remarks just because they happen to share a skin color/heritage/whatever with them, and to vet them in this way is really insulting. Not, mind you, that such people shouldn’t be denounced—they very well ought to be—it’s just that blacks sometimes get a we-helped-you-during-the-Civil-Rights-Movement-and-we-always-vote-against-our-own-economic-interests-so-that-you-people-can-benefit-so-you-should-help-us-NOW vibe from some Jews whenever something goes down. Or even when it doesn’t. (Story: I had the pleasure of a conversation several years ago with a black man, of some renown, who was quite active with SNCC, and he told me that, whenever he speaks to white Jewish groups, he is often asked what he thinks about Farrakhan. This does not amuse him. And sorry, but I can’t identify him here.)
From the Jewish side, this is what I’ve been able to figure out so far:
A. Sometimes unreasonable expectations. Yes, Jews, despite their history throughout the ages and the world as personae non gratae, have, as a group, become successful, something in which they quite understandably take great pride. It might be easy, then, to imagine why American Jews might, looking at the disparity in the rate and degree of success between themselves and blacks, feel disappointment and, perhaps, revulsion. I mean, if they can succeed here despite the obstacles that’d been placed before them, why can’t blacks? (This, as I’m sure most of you know, is a common refrain among other white ethnic groups who had less-than-auspicious beginnings in this country.) While I (along with other blacks) understand this—and actually agree with it up to a point—what people like this ignore (either willingly or not) is that it’s always been easier in this country for white ethnics to assimilate than it has been for blacks. It’s as if there’s an extra-special kind of hatred reserved for blacks than there has been for Jews, and the possibility that that kind of racism has affected overall black progress in this country shouldn’t be ignored. This is not to say, of course, that black progress is affected by only white racism, because it most certainly is not, and it makes me *meshug * when people blame their own bad decisions and personal failures on “the man”.
B. Assimilation/wanting to fit in. Not to oversimplify things, but what’s that old Richard Pryor observation about immigrants being accepted if they can say the word “nigger”? Well, it’s kind of like that, I think, something along the lines of junior high 101: if you want to be considered cool, it behooves you to behave as the cool kids do, and if that means locking the underdog inside his school locker, or not eating at the geeky students’ table, well? And really, if the people who accuse you of being a “nigger lover” are slackjawed troglodytes, at least at least the media in this country isn’t rife with stories of them murdering, raping, robbing, and, in general, causing all manner of mayhem, right?
C. The aforementioned Palestine/Israel conflict. If you’re a Jew who’s one on side of the conflict, and you witness or perceive that blacks are on the other side of the conflict, you might conclude that they hate Jews or, at the very least, are hostile to Jewish interests, even if they haven’t said as much. (Actually, that’s a common meme among some in the Jewish community that drives me nuts, and it’s an accusation that’s hurled not only at black people, but at anyone who doesn’t agree with Israel’s policies in this regard. Of course, though, we’re not talking about anyone else—we’re talking about Jews and blacks.)
D. Just plain old sick-in-the-head/poison-in-the-heart American racism.
So, there you go. Those are my WAGs.
Re Jolly Roger: I believe that Jolly Roger is a black man who serves (or recently served?) in the U.S. Army, but he can confirm/correct if he comes back into this thread. And since I don’t know of any branch/sect of Judaism that forbids the shaking of hands with non-Jews (though some do forbid touching between unmarried people of opposite sexes), and barring any other explanation, I’m inclined to believe that something tref (not kosher, uncool) was going on. Something similar happened to me when a woman who visiting our shul brought her husband along (they were both from…Russia, I think. She shook my hand, but when I extended it to him, he refused. He didn’t say or do anything except to shake his head “no”. I was stunned, to say the least, but I decided that I would be the bigger man and went about my business. And no, I never saw them there after that. Baruch Hashem (thank god)!
Oh, one more thing, about the word “shwartze”: I understand, DSeid, the point that you were trying to make, but I’m not sure that I can buy it. Story: About 18 years ago, I had a Jewish friend, David, who relayed to me his disgust for his father’s use of that word. When David confronted him, his father’s explanation was that it was fine, as it meant “black”, at which point David had to point out to his father that he never said “shwartze coat” or “shwartze table”–he used that term *only * when he was referring to black people. So I’m not convinced that it’s used purely as innocuous linguistic shorthand in the way that, say, “Goyim” might be used. Actually, I’m not all *that * convinced about “Goyim” (or, better yet, “Goyishe kup”), either, but I can certainly see that being used more innocently that I can “shwartze”.
*Jews: As a Jew of color—and one who knows other Jews of color (black, Asian, and Hispanic, to name a few, many of whom are definitely NOT converts or adoptees of white Jewish families)—I am dismayed that, in this country especially, Jew = white for so many people. (I tend to use “white Jew” myself if the subject is specifically Jews of European ancestry, but for purposes of this thread, I’ll use what everyone else is using.) I’m happy, however, that, at least in the more liberal branches of Reconstructionist and Reform Judaism, this has been changing over the last few years. Anyway, I just wanted to add that, ‘cause I wonder if the occasional “Who’s a Jewish Doper?” threads that I see apply to me, too.
**Justified anger. By this, I mean that, to the extent that said anger is justified, it doesn’t provide a license to hate or otherwise be antagonistic towards the entire Jewish community.
***anti-Semitic: I understand that “Semitic” doesn’t refer only to Jews (I usually use “anti-Jewish bias”/”Jew-hatred”), but again, since it’s understood in this thread what it’s supposed to mean, I’ll stay with it here.
