Several people said on page one that that attitude was bigoted. Putting the survival of your particular favorite group of people ahead of your child’s happiness sounds pretty selfish, too.
Unfortunately, yeah. Your dating preferences are yours, no big deal. However, the minute you assert some claim over your childrens’ dating preferences, that crosses a big, bright line.
Many people have said many very silly things in this thread. Note, Zombie claims that Citizen’s statement proves the OP’s point, which was that “a LOT” or “many” Jews are “elitist” “racists”. He also claimed that he’d “never met such bigotry” in his life. Rather obviously a jab at Citizen personally as you meet people, you do not meet ideas. But ah well.
Now on the subject of “meeting such bigotry”, if you recall, Zombie is the guy who defended the idea that questioning Jews’ loyalty and suspecting them of treachery simply due to their ethnicity. And in fact argued that that wasn’t racism/bigotry. He actually went on to claim that he was being persecuted by people objecting to that sort of nonsense who were “self appointed commissars” and “inquisitors”. He went on to suggest that discriminating against Germans would have been okay circa WWII, ignoring the fact that Dwight D. Eisenhower would have fallen squarely under his metric.
But all this is somewhat aside from the claim that having a preference for your children’s relationships is somehow “bigoted”. It’s not. We may argue over whether or not a parent has a right, or if they’re overstepping their bounds, but bigotry has an actual definition and we’re not playing free association here. It doesn’t work “Hrmmm… bigotry is something I don’t like, and parents trying to dictate who their children marry is something I don’t like, so parents trying to dictate who their children marry is bigotry. Also, I don’t like chocolate cake, so chocolate cake is trying to get your children to marry someone, or bigotry, I’m not sure.”
There’s not even any component where gentiles are being looked down upon outside the context of marriage. Despite twisting and turning of a positively Gordian degree, none of the people who argued that selection for in-group membership in matters of marriage is “bigotry”, were actually able to show why that would be the case.
Seriously, would you be arguing the same position if, instead of “Jewish” the selection criteria was that an educated parent wanted to make sure her son/daughter married someone with at least a college degree? Would we really be having a serious discussion about “educational bigotry”?
I think we’ve gone through the looking glass and come back to the original topic after a digression of maybe seven or eight pages. This is very rare and we should probably drink a toast or toss some ticker tape.
I would say the parents are snobs.
Well, we could debate that… personally I’m of the opinion that parents should generally want their children to be happy, with someone who can help provide for them and will treat them right and respect them, but not exercise much influence other than that. I’m not sure that the concept of “snobbishness” really applies, though. To my mind that signifies a wider range of behavior than preference in marriage.
But I do maintain that, at the very least, accusing someone of bigotry for wanting their children to maintain in-group marriage patterns is jabberwockian.
I think it’s perfectly acceptable to use “snob” to describe an individual behavior.
I don’t think their attitude gets special preference for the “maintaining” part of the “in-group” part. Marry who you like yourself; your children don’t have any kind of obligation to maintain your group and it’s prejudiced to try get them to do so.
I could’ve been clearer. I’d draw a line between “I’d prefer you marry X” (not bigotry, maybe elitist), and “You must marry X or I’ll take away Y” (bigoted, IMHO).
Specifically, CitizenPained’s
came across perhaps more strongly than she intended it.
Incidentally,
is just wrong. My children are going to be raised Jews, and will not be given a choice in the matter until they are old enough to make adult commitments on their own. This is one of the things I agreed to that my lovely wife stipulated when we decided to get married, herself being Jewish (and me being Buddhist).
See, I don’t think either is really accurate.
“I’d prefer that you marry X” isn’t bigotry since it doesn’t fit the definition of bigotry, and it’s not really elitism unless it’s “I’d prefer that you marry X since X are superior to all other people in most respects.” If it’s “I’d prefer that you marry X since I think X will be a better match for you / preserve our cultural traditions / whatever”, that’s really not elitism.
“You must marry X or I’ll take away Y” isn’t necessarily bigotry either, although it could be (“you must marry a white christian person because blacks are niggers and hispanics are all spics and Jews are kykes and…”)
Or, to slightly alter my previous example, let’s say that a pair of parents decide that their son/daughter should marry someone who at least has a graduate degree. Bobby Ascot and Buffy Ascot tell Suzie Ascot that if she doesn’t marry someone with at least a master’s degree, they’ll cut of access to their trust fund (or whatever). While that might be obnoxious, that really doesn’t seem to fit the definition of “bigotry”.
Hence, “maybe elitist” in the absence of reasoning.
I think it really depends on the specifics of how you define bigotry. Going from wikipedia on “Bigot”, we have “A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one exhibiting intolerance, and animosity toward those of differing beliefs. The predominant usage in modern English refers to persons hostile to those of differing race, ethnicity, nationality, inter-regional prejudice, gender and sexual orientation, homelessness, various medical disorders particularly behavioral disorders and addictive disorders and religion or spirituality.” Is “I’ll take away your trust fund if you don’t marry a person of class X” an example of hostility or not? I think it is.
Here too. My husband is a non-practicing former Catholic and knew from the start that I intended not only to raise the kids Jewish, but that we were w Jewish family, meaning that we were all involved. He was more than cool with that- comes to services, is actually the non-Jewish rep to our Synagogue’s board, and our kids know that we are a Jewish family.
At our son’s bris, my MIL asked if we were going to get him christened and he said- “no, he’s Jewish”. That set the tone.
Fair enough.
Eh… I don’t think it’s necessarily an example of hostility (although it certainly could be), but I think that Wiki’s definition is somewhat awful. By that metric, wanting your children not to marry someone who’s unemployed is bigoted, and telling them that you won’t support them if they marry someone who’s homeless is a clear case of bigotry. Telling your kids not to marry a junkie? Also bigotry. Seems… overblown.
I see no logical refutation of this point in particular anywhere in this thread. Nor do I think it can be found elsewhere, regardless of group, religion, ethnicity, culture or any other “filter” anyone may wish to use.
Prejudice is as prejudice does.
I agree with you that Wiki’s definition is over broad and extremist. That said, should they stop at “gender and sexual orientation” I’d agree with the definition…and also add your caveat on “hostility.”
Largely because there’s no logical support for it.
Wanting your children to marry with in-group preference is not “prejudice” as it is neither pre-judging people nor having an adverse opinion of a group that is formed without justificaiton, nor is it an irrational hostility directed against a group.
Calling it “prejudice” is no more accurate than calling it “bigotry” or “racism”.
Yeah, like someone naming everybody in the US government who they remember off the top of their head whose names sound Jewish to them, and accusing them all of being fake-patriots and potential traitors based on nothing but their ethnicity. And then retracting one of their accusations despite the fact that his behavior, beliefs and politics have remained 100% unchanged, but they learned that the guy they accused wasn’t really a Jew.
Sounds much more like prejudice than wanting your children to marry someone of their ethnic/religious/cultural background.
Great. You admit there’s nothing logical about it yet you on to defend the prejudice by way of semantic quibbling.
I’m impressed. Not.
I made a mistake. I retracted it. If you wish to hold my feet to the fire in an endless vicious cycle no matter what the topic, I can’t stop you.
But whatever guilt you’re selling I am not buying.
Enjoy.
My mom started talking about “when the kid gets baptized” about four months into pregnancy. Even my Knight-of-Columbus little brother chewed her out for that one. 
Probably a lot of it boils down the the specifics of any instance, too, in terms of what’s “hostility” or not.
Well, let’s say we have a Senegalese couple who immigrated to and live in America. They have American friends, they routinely have Americans over to their home for dinner. They go out to the movies with their American friends, they go bowling with them, they invite them to their children’s lifecycle events, whatever.
When it comes time for their child to choose a husband/wife, they say “We expect you to marry a nice Senegalese boy/girl or we won’t pay for your wedding.” Well, that may be objectionable in terms of parents interference with their child’s life, but it doesn’t seem to fit any reasonable definition of bigotry.
If that bore even a passing resemblance to what I actually wrote instead of something you’ve just dreamed up in order to try to change the subject, then yes. As it doesn’t, then no.
I pointed out that the claim you and Marley have made is inaccurate and false to facts. I understand that you’d like to claim that it’s prejudice, even though it’s not. And then you’d like to defend your error by claiming that the actual definition of the word “prejudice” is somehow improper. “Semantic”, by the way, means “meaning”. It’s telling that you’re objecting to the meaning of the word, since it gets in the way of your point.
Nope, never happened either. It’s telling that you’re trying to maintain that your “mistake” was the inclusion of one non-Jew in a bigoted accusation that people in the US government should be accused of potential treachery and faux-patriotism simply because of their ethnicity, and not that accusation itself, in the first place.
It’s quite interesting that if someone alleged that if you’re a Jew in politics, and your politics don’t agree with theirs, that you may be an ethnic-based traitor… then that’s perhaps somewhat mistaken if they include non-Jews in their accusation. But if someone says that they want their children to marry within their ethnic/cultural/religious group well then, why, that’s just beyond the pale.
Yes, thank you, I know. I posted my post without realizing how far back in the thread I was. It got ahead of me, and I didn’t see the cite until after I posted my post. Sorry. My bad. Thanks for the cite, however Citizen, it’s exactly what I wanted.
To me, meanwhile, that crosses the line. How are you defining bigotry that it doesn’t?
Well, to be intolerant of a group of people. And on that level, preference for a group does not evince (but my be symptomatic of, situations depending) intolerance for non-group members. If, for instance, parents told their children that they wanted them to marry someone with a graduate level education, that wouldn’t mean they were bigoted against people who only had a B.A.
Now, whether or not parents would be jerks for saying something like that is another matter, but it doesn’t seem to rise to the level of bigotry. “Gays are bad and immoral and they’re totally faggots.” That’s bigotry. “We’re proud Senegalese parents and we want you to continue on the traditions and culture of our native land.” isn’t.
Of course "We’re proud Senegalese and Americans are awful, fat, lazy, bastards from hell. Don’t go near them. " would be though.