From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Fri Jun 23 2000 - 14:08:18 MDT
Brian Manning Delaney wrote:
> Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> > Aargh! Just as we're being accused of
> > anti-Semitism, Mike goes and blames the Jews!
>
> Yup. Y'all gotta work on your PR!! (or something more
> fundamental -- if you want to get serious -- but why ask why?)
>
> (Though I'm not sure I would count Mike's comments as
> anti-Semitic.)
Thank you Brian. People need to get it through their thick heads that talking
about jewish people or judaism is not, per se, anti-semitism. My talking about
my experiences with jewish members of my family and other members of the jewish
community is not anti-semitic, it is being informative, making observations
based on real events.
People who don't know about or have experience with jewish people may say things
that are not accurate, may be stereotypical, but is not neccessarily
anti-semitic, it is merely innocent ignorance. People who talk about jewish
people or jewish culture may have opinions about it that may find disagreement
from jewish people, but that does not mecessarily make them anti-semitic,
especially if they themselves are jews. Anti-semitism is the active and knowing
act of disliking or hating jewish people, and making statements that are
purposely false about jewish people in an attempt to slander the popular opinion
of jewish people. If you think otherwise, lets use the logic in reverse: for a
jewish person to go around and accuse every gentile who disagrees with him or
her of being an anti-semite is itself anti-semitic, because it negatively
impacts upon the popular opinion of jews.
Last year when I spent a weekend visiting my jewish cousin Andrew in Maine, he
had a party, where several of his more 'redneck' freinds learned for the first
time that he was jewish. They did not think this was a bad thing, or think
negatively of him as a result, though they did begin using derogatory jewish
descriptives when they were kidding him after that. Andrew's girlfriend at the
time was a rather liberal gentile girl, who took great offense to his freinds
using such derogatory terms, and she was shocked that Andrew didn't get pissed
off about it. He said,"These guys are too ignorant to know any better, cause I'm
likely the first jewish person they've ever known personally in their lives, so
its useless to be pissed off about it. They'll eventually figure it out, and my
getting pissy before they reach understanding won't help things at all but to
help confirm any prejudices they may have already."
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