# why do jews get a pass when it comes to racism? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 6, 2011, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370 "2011-04-06T06:35:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 30
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/581 "2011-04-24T15:12:10Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I’m not seeing that as a problem with the definition. It sounds like an accurate description to me. Most of us are snobs, or closed-minded, or pick your own synonym, about some things. So having a spouse preference/idea/hope for your child is [ul] [li]bigoted[/li][li]narrow minded[/li][li]prejudiced[/li][li]snobbish[/li][li]stifling[/li][/ul] I’m not sure…? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/582 "2011-04-24T15:12:14Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I’m not seeing that as a problem with the definition. It sounds like an accurate description to me. Most of us are snobs, or closed-minded, or pick your own synonym, about some things. The problem arises whe one is using loaded words which imply disapproval. I save words like “snob” and “close-minded” for thoughts and actions that are bad or of which reasonable folks ought to diaspprove. I totally disagree that educating one’s kids to have standards when it comes to their choice of partner is bad or wrong, whatever word one chooses to label it (“bigot”, “snob”, “close-minded”, etc.). It is inevitable that good, loving parents will do this, and IMO not a bad or wrong thing for them to do. As I said earlier, there is a continuum. At one end, parents attempt to force their kids to abide by the parent’s standards. This is wrong (as well as doomed to failure in most cases), not because it is “bigoted” to have standards necesarily, but because it is not sufficiently respectful of the kid’s own autonomy. At the other end of the continuum is the stance you appear to be favouring: total indifference. I think the reasonable position is somewhere in the middle. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/583 "2011-04-24T15:14:32Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > I’m not sure…? What are you not sure about? > [@Malthus](#): > > As I said earlier, there is a continuum. At one end, parents attempt to force their kids to abide by the parent’s standards. This is wrong (as well as doomed to failure in most cases), not because it is “bigoted” to have standards necesarily, but because it is not sufficiently respectful of the kid’s own autonomy. At the other end of the continuum is the stance you appear to be favouring: total indifference. I’m not advocating total indifference by parents. I’m attempting to accurately describe the behavior we’re discussing. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/584 "2011-04-24T15:19:29Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > What are you not sure about? > I’m not advocating total indifference by parents. I’m attempting to accurately describe the behavior we’re discussing. Hence the problem. Using terms such as “snob” and “close-minded” most certainly imply disapproval of the actions in question, do they not? They are not neutral descriptions - they are value judgments. The natural corollary of that is approval of the opposite - “unprejudiced” and “open-minded”. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/585 "2011-04-24T15:25:57Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Hence the problem. Using terms such as “snob” and “close-minded” most certainly imply disapproval of the actions in question, do they not? They are not neutral descriptions - they are value judgments. > > The natural corollary of that is approval of the opposite - “unprejudiced” and “open-minded”. And preferring your child marry someone of the correct educational or cultural background is not open minded or unprejudiced. I’m still not seeing the problem here. Nobody is open minded and unprejudiced about everything and it would be unreasonable to expect people to make no judgments. I think maybe you’re attaching more disapproval or negativity to “snob” than I am. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/586 "2011-04-24T15:28:55Z")
To say that a parent’s having thoughts and preferences for his/her child’s future is “prejudiced” does not at all seem accurate to me. It seems silly. To say that that same individual has thoughts and concerns over the future of grandchildren who may someday be is “snobbery” is absurd. To pass judgement on the concerns that members of a minority culture may have that their culture may disappear from the earth as it is, over the course of a few generations, assimilated into a a much larger one, to characterize such concerns as “bigoted” … priceless. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/587 "2011-04-24T15:36:28Z")
I don’t think any of your summaries are accurate, **DSeid**. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/588 "2011-04-24T15:44:48Z")
Are they, to your read, not accurate summaries of what you are saying (in which case please clarify), or, to your thinking, is it not accurate to call your calling a parent having concerns about his/her child’s future as “prejudiced” silly (and so on)? If the former, then I await the clarification; if the latter, we’ll just have to disagree and I’ll move along, happily a snob/bigot/prejudiced individual, by your absurd definitions of the terms. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/589 "2011-04-24T15:53:22Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Are they, to your read, not accurate summaries of what you are saying (in which case please clarify) No, they are not. You reworded everything I said in such a way that it sounds like I was calling any parental concerns bigoted or prejudiced when I was making more specific comments. What I called “snobbish” was not ‘thoughts and concerns over the future of grandchildren who may someday be,’ it was about a parent who wanted to make sure his or her child had at least a college degree. I didn’t say a parent was prejudiced if he or she had ‘thoughts and preferences for his/her child’s future’ or concerns about the survival of their minority group into the future. I said they were bigoted if they tried to stop their child from marrying someone of the wrong background. I didn’t make a comment about some kind of nebulous “concerns.” I talked about specific actions by individuals. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/590 "2011-04-24T16:20:53Z")
And yet no one has at all expressed any intent to try to stop anything. Even **CP** ’s strongly expressed position was at most about “having a coronary”, not about trying to take action to stop it from happening. Your previous posts seem to me to be clearly stating that _any_ parental preference is being close-minded and prejudiced. If your position actually is actually restricted to those who would take actions to control what their adult children did, who they married, etc., then that is a completely different one than the one I have understood you to express, and, I am guessing form the others posts, that which other posters here have understood you to be taking. I would still argue against that as being necessarily “bigoted” - lots of other perjorative things, oh yes, not “open-minded”, yes, and not necessarily not bigoted, but not necessarily bigoted. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/591 "2011-04-24T16:34:19Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > And yet no one has at all expressed any intent to try to stop anything. When this thread started we were talking about a girl who said her father wouldn’t let her marry outside the faith. How that would’ve played out was never specified. Nobody since then has said they would try to prevent anything. **CitizenPained** expressed what sounded like very strong disapproval to me but she says it’s just a preference. I’m not quite sure how to take that. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/592 "2011-04-24T16:36:11Z")
Seeing the most recent posts here has reminded me of my maternal grandmother, a sweet old lady who was noted in our family to never have an unkind word to say about anybody (and who to my knowledge never expressed a controversial opinion about anything). At the end of one of my visits (no big occasion, my grandparents lived just up the block), my grandmother confided to me (a teenager at the time), completely out of the blue, “Don’t marry a shiksa like your brother.” :eek: Now my grandparents were not especially religious (the secular rot 😃 which affected the family probably got its start with them), but this apparently had been bothering her enough to impart her advice to me. Not that it especially bugged me, demonstrated any unique ethnic perspective or had any impact on future mate choice, but I’ve always thought that was a bigoted thing for her to say. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/593 "2011-04-24T16:46:10Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > When this thread started we were talking about a girl who said her father wouldn’t let her marry outside the faith. Actually, the OP did not specify that the father would prohibit anything. The rather incomplete sentence simply indicated that “her father” was an impediment, but did not claim that he would prohibit such a relationship. Left unexpressed was whether the father would take specific actions or would simply express disapproval, (whether as anger or distress or shame was also not mentioned), or whether the daughter simply took her father’s feelings, (either of anger or pain), into account when choosing her own dates. A whole lot has been built on individual interpretations of that vague and not very clear statement: > [@Stink Fish Pot](#): > > I met a woman who was jewish (did not know it at the time, and if I did, I honestly would not have cared.) After the standard flirting period, a few lunches and clear signals given off by both parties, I asked her out. Her response? She would love to go out, but she must be honest with me and let me know it will never lead anywhere, because her father (she mentioned him specifically, I don’t know if this is the standard procedure in jewish families). > > I looked at her totally bewildered. I think my answer was along the lines of “seriously? Who cares about that”? > > Apparently a LOT of jews do, not just my friends parent(s). So, we got into quite a long discussion about this, since religion has never mattered to me one way or the other. If you are a good person, and have a good heart, that’s all I really care about. What it boiled down to is this. In her family, she claimed that it’s traditional for a jew to marry another jew. This boiled down to “cultural differences”, but that’s just code for non-jew. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/594 "2011-04-24T21:07:26Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Actually, the OP did not specify that the father would prohibit anything. The rather incomplete sentence simply indicated that “her father” was an impediment, but did not claim that he would prohibit such a relationship. Left unexpressed was whether the father would take specific actions or would simply express disapproval, (whether as anger or distress or shame was also not mentioned), or whether the daughter simply took her father’s feelings, (either of anger or pain), into account when choosing her own dates. The OP was unclear on several points, which is one reason why this turned into a more general discussion of what is appropriate or inappropriate for a parent. But he did go into some more detail on page 3: > [@Stink Fish Pot](#): > > And for those keeping score, the girl in the OP was NOT permitted to \*knowingly \*date non-jews. She could go to the movies with a gentile friend, but if she had any feelings toward the guy, she said she couldn’t go down that path. Apparently, before I came along, she made the mistake of dating a non-jewish person, and was broken hearted when her father made her break up with the guy (or choose between him and the family, or something. I can’t remember.) The point is, she didn’t want to go through that again. So there aren’t a lot of specifics here, but there are a few more than are provided in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/595 "2011-04-24T22:07:28Z")
I can’t even imagine anyone I knew back in my single days, or any of my kids, or any of their friends, listening to a parent’s command about who they should and should not date or otherwise have a relationship with. Heck, even Tevye’s kids wouldn’t listen to him! Okay, I can see an ultra-Orthodox family disowning a child who marries outside of the faith. But I could see fairly few raised of that tradition who would, or were not already effectively out of the family already to have gotten to the point that they were thinking of it. That whole “You are dead to me!” bit is a Hollywood trope, not something out of reality. Honestly, my guess is that it was her decision not to date **Stink Fish** , either her own value to not get seriously involved with someone not Jewish, or just her excuse to let down **Stink Fish** a little more gently than telling him that he smelled of stinking fish … and pot. Really I would go out with you … it’s just my Dad, see? ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/596 "2011-04-24T22:12:31Z")
And thus we’ve come full circle. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Turtledove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc8723/32.png) [@Turtledove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turtledove)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/597 "2011-04-24T23:47:11Z")
Hey Odesio…My husband is an atheist. I was an atheist when we married. Now married for almost 55 years, I became not only a Christian, but a Presbyterian minister…which church I have left for my own reasons. I deeply respect husband’s decency, honesty and high ethics and he respects my decision and it works. I agree with FinnAgain (and others) that wanting cultural mutuality is not racism. Agreement in religion has nothing to do with racism. The word racist has become too easy to stick on someone (unfairly). ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/598 "2011-04-25T04:16:28Z")
None of us wants to think of ourselves as bigots: “I’m a good person, and ‘bigot’ describes bad people, so therefore whatever I’m doing cannot be called ‘bigoted’.” I’m sure some nice old ladies in the Deep South in the past didn’t see themselves as bad or bigoted "See, it’s not that I hate Blacks, it’s just that I want my culture to continue undiluted, so since it’s not coming from a place of hate, but just a matter of preference to see my culture survive, I can’t be a bigot. Of course, if I saw a Black person come into the whites-only store I’d have a coronary. But it’s not because I hate them. It’s just my preference. So I’m not a bigot" ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/599 "2011-04-25T04:22:15Z")
Tis true. None of us want to think of ourselves as rapists either. So does that mean you must be one? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370/600 "2011-04-25T04:27:28Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > None of us wants to think of ourselves as bigots: On the other hand, lots of us appear to delight in making sure that we label others as bigots. This was not a very fruitful tangent earlier in the thread and I don’t see it getting any better results now that you seem bent on reviving it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370.md?page=29) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-jews-get-a-pass-when-it-comes-to-racism/577370.md?page=31)