I don't get it. The history of Jews doesn't matter (Irish, whatever), what matters is
that white people who wouldn't have regarded my ancestors as white kept slaves. The
history doesn't matter that immediate descendents hated my ancestors almost as much as
they hated blacks, passed effective immigration laws to keep Jews and other Eastern
Europeans out--what matters is that those same bigots who hated Jews and other
immigrants also instituted lynch law (applied, now and then, against Jews--see Leo
Frank) and Jim Crow oppressed blacks. Or maybe, since Jews are pretty much accepted
now, and are not oppressed, it doesn't matter what happened to them, but since Blacks
are nota ccepted and are oppressed, it does matter to them.
Look, I don't dispute that Blacks were subject to horrible injustice and that we have
to be clear on our history as part of doing justice. For what it's worth, I spend a
lot of time with my kids making sure they know about slavery, Jim Crow, etc. I am not
religious or heavily in things Judaic, I don't think the world or even the Germans or
the Poles owe the Jews an apology or a special break because of the Holocaust. I don't
disagree that people now regarded as white have a great advantage because of it. I
would be more than delighted if they didn't.
But I don't think it will get us in that direction to talk in the way you propose.
Yes, we need to be divisive. yes, we need to polaruze society. yes, we need to
anathematize racism and bigotry. But no, we do not need to divide Blacks from whites
by adopting a strategy that is guaranteed to create the wrong sort of divisions. Do
you _want_ the Jews to feel "white"? Then, by God, they'll act like it, And no better
way to make them feel "white" than to try to demand that they apologize for things
done by Jew-haters.
--jks
In a message dated Fri, 11 Feb 2000 1:56:48 PM Eastern Standard Time, Michael Yates
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> It does not matter that your ancestors suffered in Europe. They, and especially
>their children, still gained here from being white. And I haven't noticed that
>concern for whites has ever benefited black people much. For me it's not a matter of
>white guilt but of elemental justice. Why is it a problem that asking whites to
>confront their history is divisive. Maybe divisiveness is a prerequsitie to
>ultimately getting justice.
>
> Michael Yates
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > >But you are living in the USA not in Central Asia. You have benefited from
> > slavery and exploitation of black persons as have I and every other white
> > person. This is our history and it is we who have to confront it.
> >
> > * * *
> >
> > True enough. But I, at least, am living in AMerica because my Jewish ancestors
>were oppressed in Russia, Poland, and Hungary, and not so long ago--my father's
>mother was born in Russian Poland. That is also part of my history. In fact, most
>white Americans can say something similar. Ask anyone of Irish descent, etc. That
>doesn't mean we don't have to come to accounts with the central question for America
>of the last two centuries, the color line. But it does suggest we might find a more
>productive approach than reparations or even suggesting that anyone with light skin
>in America is specially indebted to Black Americans because of slavery. As someone
>suggested, you want a diviusive strategy, a political loser, guaranteed to promote
>resentment and divisions, even if the underlying premise has truth to it, then white
>guilt is that approach.
> >
> > --jks
