Painting a gold star on my shoulder
A couple of days ago, phaballa posted about the stage gay in bandom. This post isn't about that. What this post is about is something that happened in the comments to phaballa's post:
anti-Semitism.
chopchica spells it out here and if you've been following my thoughts on racism (which aren't, no matter how tl;dr I get, the same as "my thoughts on yaoi"), please read her post. Then come back here.
Because this post is a response to chopchica's thoughtful and insightful post.
phaballa raises her Jewish identity in the context of explaining why she understands oppression and why she fights it. She acknowledges that being Jewish is not the same as being of color. That being a visible minority is different (though she rightly points out that at least in some places, and for some Jews, being Jewish is visibly distinctive).
Because she does so in the context of defending her opinion that stage gay = black face, someone else thinks she's "playing the Jewish card"/"raising the Jewish shield" as it were. [eta1:] whether phaballa was or wasn't, which is not my point here, the poster's response to what she said was anti-Semitic. [/eta]
chopchica says about the anti-Semitism of that commenter: The originator of the post and the majority of her commenters are well-known for speaking up against racism and in this case, have responded with dead silence.
Since I read her post, I've been thinking about why I didn't say anything, and why I probably wouldn't have even if it had caught my attention when I read the original post.
The first thing is: we've had the "co-opting the narrative" speech delivered so many times that we scream "don't co-opt" at the mere mention of Jewishness in the context of race. Because of it, I'm very careful of bringing up Jewishness and anti-Semitism in the midst of racewank. Reason being, it can be a really fantastic way to deflect attention from the main argument.
Viz, "Stage gay = black face, I know because I'm Jewish." "Being Jewish isn't the same thing as being black. You Jews are always trying to make it seem like you know oppression because your grandparents lived in the shtetl." "Why do you have be so anti-Semitic?" "I'm not anti-Semitic." "Yes, you are." And, lo, we're not talking about stage gay and black face anymore, and the digression generates more anti-Semitism within the community of those who ought to be our allies.
.
Yet...when someone clearly is being anti-Semitic, and since I'm Jewish and vitriolic on the subject of anti-Semitism, I ought to call them on it. Learn some tools for saying "this conversation isn't about anti-Semitism, and this isn't the place to have this conversation, but what you've said is incredibly offensive to me. I'd like to engage you about it somewhere else."
I mean, I could just say that, right? But... I don't. And it's not for fear of co-opting the narrative. It's because...
It's because it's a fuckton harder to rock the boat on my own behalf than on that of someone else. It's much harder to hear "wtf are you whining about, you people have all the money and all the education?" than it is to hear "will you stop talking about color already? dude, you're harshing my squee."
Lack of courage, some, yes, definitely. Lack of practice, that too. But also, for all the reasons chopchica noted, plus the paradigm of invisibility that goes along with successful assimilation, there's a potent stew of internal anti-Semitism, self-loathing for not being Jewish enough, and at the same time for being deeply sensitive about Jewish issues, authenticity concerns, awareness of white privilege gained by pretending not to be Other, liberal guilt, activist rage, and the kitchen sink that make it so very hard to talk about anti-Semitism at all. Let alone in a place where tempers are already high.
There's sort of self-protectiveness inherent to the assimilation/adaptation that I inherited from my grandparents and it looks like this: fight racist oppressors because never the fuck again but it's not about us, remember, it's them. Don't paint any more gold stars on our shoulders.
I'm perfectly willing to take the smack, the bullet, the wank for saying "don't be a racist pig", but when it comes to saying "don't be an anti-Semite pig", I pretty much want to crawl under a rock. Because I don't want to find out that someone I think is a beautiful, wonderful person thinks Israel's a great idea because if you've got all the Jews in one place they're easier to kill.
No, I am not kidding. There are lots of people who think that.
And I don't want to hear "I'm not anti-Semitic. I have lots of Jewish friends!" or "I'm not anti-Semitic! I support Israel!"
The first's no more helpful in discussions of anti-Semitism than it is in discussions of racism. We look at our friends as our friends and "see past" or "are colorblind" as it comes to them. It's the "you're Jewish, but you're not Jewish" school of friendship.
The second...makes me want to punch things. Support of Israel =/= support of Jews, thank you. Because also, Jewish =/= supports Israel.
Israel is a state, and the fact that it's vaguely a Jewish theocracy does not make it the avatar of Jewishness. That'd be like saying that supporting the Vatican = support of Christianity.
Just because my people originally came from the desert lands of the Middle East does not mean that the state currently situated in that place is my homeland. The land itself, perhaps. I have attachments to the Sinai peninsula, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea that have absolutely nothing to do with "Israel". But that attachment doesn't justify imperialist statism, aggressive settlement in disputed territories, human rights violations, or "there's no defense like a good offense."
Israeli politicians don't speak for me, or to my experience, and I abhor the continuing entrenched anti-Islam and anti-Arabism that lies at the heart of the state's current policies. Never again doesn't mean "never again as long as they're not those other Semites." Sorry, it just doesn't.
And, supporting an Israeli state isn't about supporting Jews for Bush and Cheney, don't tell me it is. Please. It's about two things: a foothold in the Middle East, and the End Times. Either they want oil or they want all the Jews to move back to Israel so that their messiah can come and send everyone who isn't like them straight to hell. Including "God's Chosen" who won't repent and see the Glory. Sorry to screw up your foreign policy, boys, but I'm not moving to Israel and paying taxes to an anti-Arab government so that you can go to heaven.
I'm not a Zionist, but I understand why lots of people are. I don't support the actions of the state of Israel, but I do support the Jewish people. I also don't support the actions of the United States, while loving this country and its freedoms and its gorgeous expanses and the good and decent people who live here. I'm not a Zionist, or a patriot, except in the way that I totally am.
I've strayed a little off my main point, which is somewhat inevitable when I get to talking about Israel and America. I don't do it often enough, so I get emotional and rhetorical when I do. Which is, in its way, brings me back to the beginning, and the real answer to chopchica's implied question.
Why don't I call people on anti-Semitism? Because it hurts, it makes me angry, I have a lot of thoughts, they're jumbled and tangled and twisted up, and...I don't want to paint a gold star on my shoulder.
But chopchica's right, and I've been meaning to do this since ibarw anyway. So let me end by saying this:
Being Jewish =/= being a POC. Jewishness is not > than POCness. The Holocaust does not pwn all other oppression. It's not okay to co-opt a conversation about racism directed against visible minorities because I've been called a kike, a JAP, or lost my best friend because I pointed out to her that saying "he's such a Jew" about a non-Jew who left a bad tip was offensive, stereotypical, and just plain wrong and she told me not to be so damned sensitive.
But you know what else is not all right? It's not okay to dislike Jews because some of us get too emotional or too invested in conversations about racism and say thoughtless or hurtful things. It's not all right to discount oppression against Jews because the camps were a continent away and more than half a century ago. My family lost at least one entire branch to the Nazis, thank you, and if you don't think that shaped who my family became in the United States, you are oh so very wrong.
And to my people: being Jewish is more than going to shul or making aliyah. It's not kashrut or Shabbos laws. It's the disputation and the diaspora, the persistence of memory, and the refusal to just let go. If you want to call me a heretic or a blasphemer for being Reformed, that's cool, it's who we are to dispute Torah and Tanakh and the meaning of our identity. But Jewishness > religion; it's tradition, culture, and identity. And whatever you think of my religious Jewishness or my assimilation, you just don't get to say "you're not Jewish".
One more time. It's not okay for Jews to "play the Jewish card" in race conversations. But you know what else is not okay?
Anti-Semitism is not okay.
[eta2]: I don't have time to answer everything and everyone, but I'm reading and trying to be responsive where I can. Please feel free to discuss with each other though, as that's sort of the point of this - to lift the lid on a conversation we don't have very often or very well. And to say that while, yes, a lot of times "I'm Jewish so..." deserves a place on the racism bingo cards, it doesn't always, and even when it does, there's no excuse for anti-Semitism in response. [/eta]
anti-Semitism.
chopchica spells it out here and if you've been following my thoughts on racism (which aren't, no matter how tl;dr I get, the same as "my thoughts on yaoi"), please read her post. Then come back here.
Because this post is a response to chopchica's thoughtful and insightful post.
phaballa raises her Jewish identity in the context of explaining why she understands oppression and why she fights it. She acknowledges that being Jewish is not the same as being of color. That being a visible minority is different (though she rightly points out that at least in some places, and for some Jews, being Jewish is visibly distinctive).
Because she does so in the context of defending her opinion that stage gay = black face, someone else thinks she's "playing the Jewish card"/"raising the Jewish shield" as it were. [eta1:] whether phaballa was or wasn't, which is not my point here, the poster's response to what she said was anti-Semitic. [/eta]
chopchica says about the anti-Semitism of that commenter: The originator of the post and the majority of her commenters are well-known for speaking up against racism and in this case, have responded with dead silence.
Since I read her post, I've been thinking about why I didn't say anything, and why I probably wouldn't have even if it had caught my attention when I read the original post.
The first thing is: we've had the "co-opting the narrative" speech delivered so many times that we scream "don't co-opt" at the mere mention of Jewishness in the context of race. Because of it, I'm very careful of bringing up Jewishness and anti-Semitism in the midst of racewank. Reason being, it can be a really fantastic way to deflect attention from the main argument.
Viz, "Stage gay = black face, I know because I'm Jewish." "Being Jewish isn't the same thing as being black. You Jews are always trying to make it seem like you know oppression because your grandparents lived in the shtetl." "Why do you have be so anti-Semitic?" "I'm not anti-Semitic." "Yes, you are." And, lo, we're not talking about stage gay and black face anymore, and the digression generates more anti-Semitism within the community of those who ought to be our allies.
.
Yet...when someone clearly is being anti-Semitic, and since I'm Jewish and vitriolic on the subject of anti-Semitism, I ought to call them on it. Learn some tools for saying "this conversation isn't about anti-Semitism, and this isn't the place to have this conversation, but what you've said is incredibly offensive to me. I'd like to engage you about it somewhere else."
I mean, I could just say that, right? But... I don't. And it's not for fear of co-opting the narrative. It's because...
It's because it's a fuckton harder to rock the boat on my own behalf than on that of someone else. It's much harder to hear "wtf are you whining about, you people have all the money and all the education?" than it is to hear "will you stop talking about color already? dude, you're harshing my squee."
Lack of courage, some, yes, definitely. Lack of practice, that too. But also, for all the reasons chopchica noted, plus the paradigm of invisibility that goes along with successful assimilation, there's a potent stew of internal anti-Semitism, self-loathing for not being Jewish enough, and at the same time for being deeply sensitive about Jewish issues, authenticity concerns, awareness of white privilege gained by pretending not to be Other, liberal guilt, activist rage, and the kitchen sink that make it so very hard to talk about anti-Semitism at all. Let alone in a place where tempers are already high.
There's sort of self-protectiveness inherent to the assimilation/adaptation that I inherited from my grandparents and it looks like this: fight racist oppressors because never the fuck again but it's not about us, remember, it's them. Don't paint any more gold stars on our shoulders.
I'm perfectly willing to take the smack, the bullet, the wank for saying "don't be a racist pig", but when it comes to saying "don't be an anti-Semite pig", I pretty much want to crawl under a rock. Because I don't want to find out that someone I think is a beautiful, wonderful person thinks Israel's a great idea because if you've got all the Jews in one place they're easier to kill.
No, I am not kidding. There are lots of people who think that.
And I don't want to hear "I'm not anti-Semitic. I have lots of Jewish friends!" or "I'm not anti-Semitic! I support Israel!"
The first's no more helpful in discussions of anti-Semitism than it is in discussions of racism. We look at our friends as our friends and "see past" or "are colorblind" as it comes to them. It's the "you're Jewish, but you're not Jewish" school of friendship.
The second...makes me want to punch things. Support of Israel =/= support of Jews, thank you. Because also, Jewish =/= supports Israel.
Israel is a state, and the fact that it's vaguely a Jewish theocracy does not make it the avatar of Jewishness. That'd be like saying that supporting the Vatican = support of Christianity.
Just because my people originally came from the desert lands of the Middle East does not mean that the state currently situated in that place is my homeland. The land itself, perhaps. I have attachments to the Sinai peninsula, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea that have absolutely nothing to do with "Israel". But that attachment doesn't justify imperialist statism, aggressive settlement in disputed territories, human rights violations, or "there's no defense like a good offense."
Israeli politicians don't speak for me, or to my experience, and I abhor the continuing entrenched anti-Islam and anti-Arabism that lies at the heart of the state's current policies. Never again doesn't mean "never again as long as they're not those other Semites." Sorry, it just doesn't.
And, supporting an Israeli state isn't about supporting Jews for Bush and Cheney, don't tell me it is. Please. It's about two things: a foothold in the Middle East, and the End Times. Either they want oil or they want all the Jews to move back to Israel so that their messiah can come and send everyone who isn't like them straight to hell. Including "God's Chosen" who won't repent and see the Glory. Sorry to screw up your foreign policy, boys, but I'm not moving to Israel and paying taxes to an anti-Arab government so that you can go to heaven.
I'm not a Zionist, but I understand why lots of people are. I don't support the actions of the state of Israel, but I do support the Jewish people. I also don't support the actions of the United States, while loving this country and its freedoms and its gorgeous expanses and the good and decent people who live here. I'm not a Zionist, or a patriot, except in the way that I totally am.
I've strayed a little off my main point, which is somewhat inevitable when I get to talking about Israel and America. I don't do it often enough, so I get emotional and rhetorical when I do. Which is, in its way, brings me back to the beginning, and the real answer to chopchica's implied question.
Why don't I call people on anti-Semitism? Because it hurts, it makes me angry, I have a lot of thoughts, they're jumbled and tangled and twisted up, and...I don't want to paint a gold star on my shoulder.
But chopchica's right, and I've been meaning to do this since ibarw anyway. So let me end by saying this:
Being Jewish =/= being a POC. Jewishness is not > than POCness. The Holocaust does not pwn all other oppression. It's not okay to co-opt a conversation about racism directed against visible minorities because I've been called a kike, a JAP, or lost my best friend because I pointed out to her that saying "he's such a Jew" about a non-Jew who left a bad tip was offensive, stereotypical, and just plain wrong and she told me not to be so damned sensitive.
But you know what else is not all right? It's not okay to dislike Jews because some of us get too emotional or too invested in conversations about racism and say thoughtless or hurtful things. It's not all right to discount oppression against Jews because the camps were a continent away and more than half a century ago. My family lost at least one entire branch to the Nazis, thank you, and if you don't think that shaped who my family became in the United States, you are oh so very wrong.
And to my people: being Jewish is more than going to shul or making aliyah. It's not kashrut or Shabbos laws. It's the disputation and the diaspora, the persistence of memory, and the refusal to just let go. If you want to call me a heretic or a blasphemer for being Reformed, that's cool, it's who we are to dispute Torah and Tanakh and the meaning of our identity. But Jewishness > religion; it's tradition, culture, and identity. And whatever you think of my religious Jewishness or my assimilation, you just don't get to say "you're not Jewish".
One more time. It's not okay for Jews to "play the Jewish card" in race conversations. But you know what else is not okay?
Anti-Semitism is not okay.
[eta2]: I don't have time to answer everything and everyone, but I'm reading and trying to be responsive where I can. Please feel free to discuss with each other though, as that's sort of the point of this - to lift the lid on a conversation we don't have very often or very well. And to say that while, yes, a lot of times "I'm Jewish so..." deserves a place on the racism bingo cards, it doesn't always, and even when it does, there's no excuse for anti-Semitism in response. [/eta]