Washington Post/ABC News Poll: Racist Feeling in America June 22, 2008

Roughly 3 in 10 Americans admit to harboring “some feelings of racial prejudice”, a new Washington Post/ABC News poll released this week has found. Some 30% of white respondents and 34% of black respondents answered yes to the question: “If you honestly assessed yourself, would you say that you have at least some feelings of racial prejudice?”

The numbers in the June 15th poll represent a 12% decline from 1999, when 34% of Americans answered yes to the same question.

When asked, “Generally speaking, do you think race relations in the United States are excellent, good, not so good or poor?”, however, a full 51% of Americans — 36% of Black Americans — responded that race relations were positive in America (47% saying “good”), more than double the dismal 21% — 10% of Blacks — who answered positively to the same question in 1992, and nearly double 1996’s 28% (11% of Blacks). (The Post notes that the gap between White and Black positive responses — 17% — is the largest since polling on the topic began in 1992.)

These numbers should strike hope in all of us. While showing that we have far to go, these numbers also show some measure of how far we have come. While, yes, over 6 in 10 Black Americans considered race relations to be negative in America, this is a far cry from the 9 in 10 who considered them to be so in 1992 — and the number of Black Americans who consider themselves to have a close, personal White friend is up to over 9 in 10 in 2008, a 10% increase from even 2003. (I have a personal issue with the phrasing of the question, “Do you think blacks experience discrimination…?” in the Washington Post poll — this clearly ignores the anti-White discrimination that 1 in 4 White Americans said they experienced in a 2006 CNN poll. In that CNN poll, however, barely 1 in 8 Americans considered themselves “racially biased,” but this poll shows that an “honest” assessment of “racist feelings” perhaps brings out more closet racists.)

We really are coexisting more.

While a country where two-thirds of Black Americans have been subjected to hearing offensive racist remarks (as a March 2008 CBS News poll showed), the far-reaching majority (nearly 9 in 10) White Americans said that they think America is ready for a Black president, and that alone shows that we Americans have the perception that our country is ready to move forward to a new chapter in its history.

We Americans believe our country has “grown up” from its racist past to at least some degree.

And now all we need to do is take it that many steps further, towards what we all know we are capable of achieving.

Obama and The Jews II May 22, 2008

These past few weeks I’ve been touring, promoting my album, This is Babylon and haven’t been able to write as much as I had been in the past. From Berlin to LA and everywhere in between, these past few weeks have been a non-stop marathon of promotion and performance.

And I believe today’s travesty which graces the front page of the New York Times is a quite apt segue to make my return to the blogosphere.

Jodi Kantor’s “As Obama Heads to Florida, Many of Its Jews Have Doubts” highlights, in black and white, perhaps one of the most lamentable upshots of collective Jewish consciousness: the anti-Semitism still latently looming over America (and the world)’s present and ominously towering over the world’s recent past, combined with the advent of Web 2.0, has opened the door to a whole new era of misinformation and paranoia. Ms. Kantor’s article chronicled her visit to the “Aberdeen Golf and Country Club” (so right off the bat — mince no words — we know precisely which class of people we’re dealing with) where she met Jews who voiced their insecurities with voting for Obama.

Predominantly representing the aging South Florida demographic whose largely 70+ populace have become anecdotal (and the butts of painful puns like “Botoxodox Jews”), Ms. Kantor’s interviewees showed a downright depressing susceptability to the Obama-noia that’s been plaguing the inboxes of many likely Democratic voters:

“The people here will not vote for Obama…because of his attitude towards Israel,” Ms. [Shirley] Weitz, 83, said…”They’re going to vote for McCain.”

Does anyone realize — or care — that the Jerusalem Post said that Obama’s voting record was “impeccable” regarding Israel? Is it that Sen. Obama supports a two-state solution regarding Israel and Palestine — the same thing that is advocated by both Hillary and McCain? Is it that Sen. Obama expressed willingness to speak to Iran? Would it be better to just consider Iran the world’s first “suicide state” prima facie, and react accordingly?

Perhaps the most disturbing thing is the rundown in the continuation of the article. Ms. Kantor’s article continues with an interview with Rabbi Ruvi New — who mused about the entire election coming down to a “few old Jews in Century Village” — and then moves on to Jews who have become a “conduit” for Obama misinformation.

Ms. Kantor’s article notes that some “older Jews…as well as many younger ones” believed any number of fanciful inaccuracies, One man believed his friends’ word that Obama was “an Arab”. One woman suspected affiliation with Palestinian organizations, and one woman suspected al-Qa’eda had endorsed Obama. As Jack Cafferty alluded today on CNN, how is it possible that such affluent people, such educated people, such worldly people could be susceptible to such misinformation?

And perhaps the worst part of all comes out when racism — the elephant in the room thus far — gets brought up. Ms. Kantor alleges that some of the voters’ apprehension was as rooted in race as it was in Israel relations:

At brunch in Boynton Beach, Bob W…in his 80s, said…bluntly, “Am I semi-racist? Yes.”

Is this really just “par for the course”, the “nature of the beast”? Does it have to be this way? Is Obama campaigning in Florida in vain? Is there really nothing that David Axelrod and Robert Wexler, Obama’s Jewish Florida strategist, can do to change these opinions? And perhaps worse — will these Jews vote for a right-wing candidate who Bush said will “continue…his policy”, in spite of their own and the country’s best interests, just because at the most cursory of face values, a white face is more trustworthy than a brown one? Mr. Obama shares very little psychographically with most of the anti-Semites in the black community, as Ms. Kantor notes — he lives in a community alongside Jews and has “close ties” to Jews his entire career.

Obama has denounced Farrakhan, Rev. Wright, and virtually every other enemy of the Jews in the African-American community. The Jews in Florida are demographically less poised to flip-flop to the GOP — as opposed to their New York counterparts — and if it’s really racism that would cause such a flip it is time for anyone who has come to pooh-pooh such conduct to engage in self-examination.

All the information on Obama’s voting record is available and can easily disprove the online rumormonger set. But nothing in the world can make him un-black. We have to remember what is at stake — and if American troops are put on track to “stay in Iraq for 50 years”, it will be small consolation that an old white man sent them there.

Geert Wilders and Islamophobic Incitement March 24, 2008

Geert Wilders, the Islamophobic (not, he says, to be confused with anti-Muslim, which would be wrong) right-wing Dutch MP who everyone loves to hate has decided to go full-speed ahead with releasing his anti-Islam film, Fitna — which has already begun to spark outrage throughout the European Union and the Muslim world:

Already, 15,000 people have protested in Afghanistan against the film, burning Dutch flags.

Nato commanders say that the Taliban could use it to whip up more anger and the Dutch ambassador in Malaysia said protests could lead to “dozens of deaths”. Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation, said the film would threaten peace.

In a speech to the European parliament in Strasbourg this year, the Grand Mufti of Syria warned of global consequences. “If there is unrest, bloodshed and violence after the broadcast of the Koran film, Wilders will be responsible,” he said.

The website for the film - fitnathemovie.com - was taken offline by its Internet Service Provider, Network Solutions, for the flagrant violation of its acceptable use policy which bans such inciting speech.

Of course, like minds flock together — the Czech far-right National Party has offered to step up and broadcast the movie, offering Wilders asylum and protection in the Czech Republic in an “undisclosed location” should any attempts be made on his life.

And all this for what? To continue to give a voice to this man’s racist diatribe? This is someone who has called Islamic society “retarded” and inferior, and who has called the Qur’an a “fascist text”? Where is the heter, who gave this man permission, to just patently diss 1/6 of humanity like this?

Would he honestly be able to stomach an equivalent diss against his own faith, his own background, his own culture? And the National Party will be equally responsible if they take the disastrous step of broadcasting Fitna in lieu of Network Solutions.

Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard told the Dutch De Volksrant in an exclusive interview that:

Dutch politician Geert Wilders should definitely air his anti-Quranfilm, Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard says Monday in an exclusive interview in the Dutch newspaper ‘de Volkskrant’.

Westergaard says he does not understand Dutch politicians who say that Wilders should not air his film. ‘There is not a single politician in Denmark that would state a similar thing. That would mean political suicide for him. Every Danish politician knows you should never limit the freedom of speech.’

Westergaard does not regret his caricatures of the prophet Muhammad ‘at all’. ‘It started out as and still is a matter of freedom of speech.’ Westergaard considers starting this debate as a ‘duty’ of newspapers and cartoonists. ‘Muslims are to accept that.’

Muslims are to “accept that”? Freedom of speech, as the Egyptian ambassador to Indonesia already said, is circumscribed by a sense of responsibility which must likewise never be compromised — the International Human Rights Law makes provisions for hate speech and related things.

How is Westergaard living, by the way?

Death threats have forced Westergaard to live in safe houses. He will soon be moving to a new shelter for the sixth time.

He was first criticized after he had drawn a picture of the prophet Muhammed wearing a bomb-shaped turban for the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. His caricatures were recently republished by several newspapers in Denmark. Three men plotting an attack on his life were arrested mid February….More than 200 thousand people demonstrated against the Danish cartoons and the Dutch film of Wilders in the Afghan city of Jalalabad on Sunday. ‘Death to Denmark, death to the Nederlands’, the crowd shouted.

So Wilders is willing to go through this, put Dutch troops on the frontlines in danger, cause millions of euros in losses for Dutch businesses, potentially cause hundreds of murders, and cause a worldwide furor by insulting the faith of 1/6 of humanity — for what? What could possibly be worth it?

Just Deal With It, Gerri March 12, 2008

Geraldine Ferraro messed up. Bad. And refuses to admit it.

After making the now famous faux pas in Torrance, California’s Daily Breeze where she implied that the only reason Obama was in such a prominent position was because he happened to be black:

When the subject turned to Obama, Clinton’s rival for the Democratic Party nomination, Ferraro’s comments took on a decidedly bitter edge.

“I think what America feels about a woman becoming president takes a very secondary place to Obama’s campaign - to a kind of campaign that it would be hard for anyone to run against,” she said. “For one thing, you have the press, which has been uniquely hard on her. It’s been a very sexist media. Some just don’t like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign.

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” she continued. “And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

Obviously anyone with a shred of dignity would feel patronized by such an implication — “the only reason you’re even in here is because you’re black” — and Obama was no exception, telling the Today show:

“Part of what I think Geraldine Ferraro is doing, and I respect the fact that she was a trailblazer, is to participate in the kind of slice and dice politics that’s about race and about gender and about this and that, and that’s what Americans are tired of because they recognize that when we divide ourselves in that way we can’t solve problems.”

Obama’s campaign manager David Axelrod said that Ms. Ferraro should “be removed” from her responsibilities on the Clinton campaign, to which Clinton responded that she did “not agree” with Ms. Ferraro’s ever-so-enlightened assessment of the situation.

Marc Ambinder from The Atlantic rightfully notes, not only did Hillary not fire Ms. Ferraro, she did not denounce her statements or even “feel as if she has to apologize for Ferraro’s comments; after all, they are Ferraro’s, not her own”, according to her aides. Far worse than the “monster” comment from the Obama camp, Obama’s campaign manager David Axelrod said that for Hillary at this point, other than firing Ferraro, “there’s no other way to send a serious signal that you want to police the tone of this campaign.”

At this point, perhaps Ms. Ferraro should perhaps shut up for a while. Go below the media radar and work behind the scenes for a bit. Maybe take a strategically-timed “vacation”.

Or, she could try to make a huge stink, and try to turn the tables on Obama’s camp, claiming racism and discrimination herself and “vigorously” defending her statements:

‘Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let’s address reality and the problems we’re facing in this world, you’re accused of being racist, so you have to shut up,’ Ferraro said. ‘Racism works in two different directions. I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white. How’s that?’…

Ferraro said she was simply stating an obvious truth, as seen in exit polls that show Obama taking as much as 80 percent of the black vote in the Democratic primaries.

” ‘In all honesty, do you think that if he were a white male, there would be a reason for the black community to get excited for a historic first?’ Ferraro said. ‘Am I pointing out something that doesn’t exist?’ …”

She says her comments were not racist, but a fact, and as far as Hillary is concerned, the New York Times says there is “no indication” that Ms. Ferraro will step down from her duties. And her attempts to throw gender into the mix and cry “sexist media” and portray herself as the dual victim of patriarchy and anti-white racism caused Feministing.com to respond simply, “F you, Geraldine Ferraro.”
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“The Redneck Shop”: The KKK Superstore March 11, 2008

Introducing “The Redneck Shop”.

Serving racists in Laurens, South Carolina since 1996.
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Nazi Style: Fascist Fashions in Berlin February 13, 2008

Welcome to the new world of highbrow fascist fashion, the pret-a-porter for the Third Reich.

Tønsberg, a fashion boutique on the tony strip of Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße in Berlin, recently became home to Thor Steinar, a brand of clothing identified with neo-Nazis and far-right fascists in Germany.

Describing its store’s inventory as “urban street wear”, Tønsberg has now become embroiled in a huge controversy which has already seen its landlord searching for ways to evict his unwanted tenant, says Gridskipper.com:

Tönsberg, which defines its inventory as “urban street wear,” moved into Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse 18, an emblematic number for Adolf Hitler’s initials (1=A, 8=H). The store also carries clothing by the brand Thor Steinar, a well-known label worn by followers of the rechtsextremismus (extreme right)….

Nearby stores have publicized their opposition to Tönsberg’s uninvited presence by hanging information about Tor Steinar in English or painting “Kauft nichts bei Nazis” (buy nothing from Nazis) on their windows, in an effort to educate the tourists that frequent this part of town and keep unsuspecting consumers away from the store’s cash registers.

On the day of Tönsberg’s opening, according to The Economist, 60 people gathered to protest this apparent invasion of neo-Nazism in Berlin’s Mitte, in what was actually a timid display compared to the reaction in Leipzig, where riots broke out back in October when the same store opened a branch there…

In Berlin, Tönsberg has already seen one of its windows broken, but the widespread publicity surrounding the store has been doing a different type of damage. It is technically illegal in Germany to accuse someone of being a Nazi without actual evidence, and Tor Steinar occupies a veritable gray area…


The scene in Leipzig. (Courtesy: German TV)

The landlord of Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse 18, who refused to have his name printed in the Berliner Zeitung for fear of right-extremist reaction, has decided to evict Tönsberg.

If only it was that simple.

The three-year lease signed by the store, which promoted itself to the landlord as an “urban street wear” chain with 160 employees nationwide, has no clauses that allow for premature termination — the same issue faced by the landlord of the Leipzig branch.

Although the landlord claims he will pursue legal intervention in order to force Tönsberg out of his house, it’s unclear if such attempts will be successful.

Thor Steinar’s thoroughly unimpressive catalog is viewable here.

This, I feel, is something the area business owners need to rally together and seriously address. Perhaps local business owners would serve themselves well by linking up and sharing resources with local anti-Nazi activists. Because the bottom line is, they’re losing money — who wants to shop while on vacation next to Nazis? — and a fascist presence in an area brings down everything in its vicinity.

No business district should provide a forum and meeting place for these racists. Perhaps German law needs to change to incorporate Thor Steinar’s new logo into the category of forbidden designs — together with swastikas and SS insignia. Until there is an outcry, the clothes will still be on the shelves, and the skinheads boneheads will keep coming out to shop there, disturbing everyone in their wake.

Racist Graffiti: The N-Word In “Every Hallway” February 4, 2008

The Anti-Racist Blog, a wonderful blog dedicated to exposing hatred, ran this extremely disturbing report of brazen racist and anti-Semitic graffiti being scrawled at Massachusetts’ Anna Maria college, as Black History Month was just opening:

An investigation is under way to find out who penned anti-Semitic and racist graffiti inside a coed residence, Madonna Hall, at Anna Maria College, according to AMC President Jack P. Calareso.

The graffiti was discovered by AMC security staff during routine rounds Thursday night, according to Paula L. Green, spokeswoman for the college. Calling the graffiti a “heinous act,” Mr. Calareso pledged to pursue the investigation and cooperate with local police until the person or people responsible are held accountable…She said the graffiti, which she believed was done with a marker, was photographed for the investigation and then immediately removed.

Several students, however, said the graffiti included the words white power and swastikas, and a racial epithet was scrawled on the dorm-room doors of two black male students. The students, who did not want to be identified by name, said that despite the increased security, they do not feel safe.

“Today is the first day of Black History Month, so it’s kind of ironic that in every single hallway at Anna Maria is (scrawled) the word n*gger,” one of the students said. She complained that a student was allowed to walk around campus during the early part of last semester wearing a jacket emblazoned with a swastika.

The story was also covered in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

I think the security here, if this students’ words are true, is too little too late. A student walked around in public with a swastika on his jacket? I am almost positive that this kid had friends (either on- or off-line). This means the area — if not the school itself — has a neo-Nazi presence and that, in my opinion, is enough cause to enlist some sort of extra protection for minority students. It is truly lamentable that it often takes something like this to cause change.

It is my hope that the new security “cleans house” of these racists, enabling their minority students to feel safe once again.

One Priest’s Prayer for Unity January 30, 2008

The Catholic Explorer today ran this beautiful piece by Bishop J. Peter Sartain on “The Insidious Power of Racism”. It gives an insight into precisely how racism affects its victims:

From an early age I had been aware that our southern city was divided by race and economics, though at first I did not fully understand how that division unjustly determined so many details of daily life. My parents had taught us to treat all people with respect, and they practiced what they preached.

The grocery and upscale department store in our neighborhood were like many others in the South of my youth. Among the characteristics they shared was a striking symbol: two drinking fountains side by side, identical in every way except that one bore a sign that read “White” and the other a sign that read “Colored.” Even as a child I was struck by the strangeness of that arrangement….

As I prepared for confirmation in the sacristy of an Arkansas parish three years ago, I overheard a young boy ask the pastor if he needed servers. “Sure,” said Father. “You can carry the cross.”

The blond-haired boy quickly reappeared, vested in an alb and carrying the processional cross. A few moments later, he startled me with a question.

“Do you know what the KKK is?”

I was truly taken aback. “Yes,” I said. “That’s the Ku Klux Klan. We don’t agree at all with what they stand for. Why are you asking about them?”

“I heard they’re coming to town, and I’m afraid because my father and my sister are from Mexico.” I tried to reassure him that his father and sister were in no danger, that the police would be aware of anything unusual that might be planned…It broke my heart that evening to confront the painful effects of racism again in such a powerful way. Anxiety was written on his face and in his question. With shame I admit that my brief exchange with the server exposed to me once again my own lack of sensitivity to the insidious power of racism.

A little child. Anxious and scared from racism. Bishop Sartain explains where he believes the root of his lack of sensitivity to said insidious power comes from:

As I mentioned, I was reared in a home where racist attitudes were neither taught nor tolerated, and I grew to understand more clearly why racism is sinful and antithetical to Christian faith. As a priest I have preached about it.

But I have never had to face racist attitudes directed at me.

Hearing his question, I was awakened in a new way to what racism does to little kids, to struggling parents, to aging grandparents, to the courageous pioneers and modern-day workers in the civil rights movement—and to people like me, who aren’t nearly as alert as we should be to its dangerous influence.

Those of us who have been victimized by racism are so much more primed, if you will, for its horrible effects. Those of us who have (and we know that anti-white racism is as damaging to its respective victims) been victimized by racism are the ones second guessing negative social interactions with members of other groups asking, “Is it because I’m…” Pervasive racism can only be denied by those not suffering from it, and Bishop Sartain became acutely aware of this with a simple statement from a child.

Did the other kids in his class know the KKK were coming? Did they even know who the KKK were? While his (probably older) sister and mother knew that the KKK were a fringe group of crazies not to be worried about, this kid said straight out, “I’m afraid.” He heard they were coming and he was afraid.

Bishop Sartain’s piece concludes with his prayer for the end of hatred and division:

[G-d], teach us to build a world where little boys and girls, and their parents and grandparents, don’t have to ask fearful questions. Help us rise above racism in all its forms that we may recognize and disarm its influence. May we never reject or frighten any of Your little ones, for we are all Your sons and daughters, made in Your image. Amen.

Ken y’hi ratzon. So may it be His Will.

Judaism On Prejudice

A beautiful article on Chabad.org caught my eye today at random. Normally I don’t read Chabad’s The Jewish Woman, but doing a Google News search for “Torah” led me to this beautiful article by Ms. Stacey Goldman, teaching about this week’s Torah portion. The piece is called “The Spirit of the Laws”, a phrase I am usually used to hearing in a different, more judgment-centered context — “don’t do X, it would violate the spirit of the law”, if not the letter — to justify the prohibition of any number of things.

Ms. Goldman’s Torah teaching, however, sheds light on a beautiful concept expressed by Exodus 21: G-d’s eschewing of prejudice between humans. Her story begins autobiographical, lamenting her ironic “loss of Jewish identity” as her Jewish observance grew:

It sounds bizarre, but I have found that the more I live my life as an observant Jew, the more I seem to lose my Jewish identity. When I was growing up in Minnesota, Jews made up less than two percent of the mostly Scandinavian, German population. My dark, curly hair was a constant reminder of my minority status. I never saw this as a negative aspect to my identity. On the contrary, I relished my membership in a global club of Jewish people all over the world…I didn’t discriminate; I would beam at every person regardless of age, gender, length of skirt, head covering or lack thereof. Invariably, I would receive a nod and a smile in return. Yes, we are one of the same; we shared a history and a destiny.

When I was accepted to an East Coast university, I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm at the prospect of constantly being surrounded by my People…I increased in my Jewish observance, got married and started to have children. I still smiled at other Jews, but I noticed that I was only smiling at Jews who looked suspiciously like me - the new religious me. In fact, I had lost my ability to identify other Jews who weren’t wearing the telltale uniform of Orthodox Judaism. I had found the Torah of Israel, but I seemed to have lost my sense of the Nation of Israel that had come so easily before I even knew about the commandments.

I hear this complaint far too often from non-Orthodox Jews — that Orthodox Jews don’t want to interact with them, that Orthodox Jews “think they are better” intrinsically, that Orthodox Jews are standoffish and clannish. This is especially painful when someone’s path to observance is dashed because - how were she supposed to know she wasn’t supposed to wear that..? - someone cut them off or embarrassed or admonished them when they were taking their first steps to Torah.

Ms. Goldman finds her way out of her mindset through learning Exodus 21, and what she learns is far bigger than just relations between Jews — she learns lessons for all of humanity:
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Black-on-Black Hate Crime January 29, 2008

A Maryland family awoke recently to a horrifying discovery: “KKK” and racial slurs, spray-painted on the side of their home, together with a crude spray-painted drawing of genitalia. What would make the crime at the Trotter’s home, however, so shocking was that the perpetrators were not white KKK sympathizers as police had originally believed, but black teenagers.

Cries for hate crime convictions quickly switched off, and black leaders were calling for hate crime investigations “until they learned that [the perpetrator] was black.” The entire case has sparked a debate about hate crime laws which, officials say, are not specific enough or equipped to deal with same-race hate crime.

The Baltimore Sun reports:

On Jan. 20, neighbors found the graffiti on the home of Lorenza and Virginia Trotter, in the 2000 block of Brigadier Blvd. Trotter said the racial slur and “KKK” were accompanied by a drawing of male genitals.

Police said witnesses reported having seen a group of black males flee the scene. A police spokeswoman said last week that the suspects were thought to be a group of teenagers “trying to outdo another group of kids with vandalism. … It was not a racially motivated incident.”

…In some ways, Trotter said, the fact that the suspects are members of her own race is even more troubling.

“I guess you can kind of, well, almost understand when someone of a different race does something like that. You say, ‘They’re sick,’ or something. But when your own race does it, it makes me really angry. The young kids today, they don’t understand that that kind of thing isn’t taken lightly.”

A black restaurant owner in Georgia was blasted for putting up a “racist sign” in his store: “Closed Due to African American Continuous Employee Theft.” Black students at Ole Miss in Mississippi were allowed to continue their studies there, even after writing “obscene and racist slurs” including drawing a noose on some black students’ doors.

While the number of black-on-black hate crimes is small compared to the total, the number did jump slightly from 87 such incidents (out of 3,200 total anti-black hate crimes) in 2005 to 93 (out of 3,136) in 2006 — a change from 2.7% of the total to 3%, a rise of 11% — the Black community especially, and indeed, all of humanity, ultimately, must ask itself why this is going on. (And these numbers are far higher than convicted black non-Jewish-on-Jewish crime.)

Is it really, like Ms. Trotter said, just gross insensitivity? Perhaps the case could be made that stronger black history curricula would be a solution, but simply knowing facts does not necessarily engender the emotional connection that would make a noose taboo for a black man. Perhaps we could say that there is a lack of self-identification with the “larger black struggle” or “global black community” but how would one create this where none exists, or bolster identity floundering to the point of drawing nooses?

(And is this related to Jewish neo-Nazis who try to use anti-Semitism-based defenses in court?)

Should it not be culturally instinctive for black young people to eschew symbols of racism and KKK insignias? Where is the disconnect?

Israeli Religious Schools - Not For Ethiopian Students? December 6, 2007

Today on Missing the Point: Israeli Knesset Member Ophir Pines-Paz (Labor).

Pines-Paz misses the gigantic pink elephant of religious school reform in the room, and instead advocates that, to remedy the poor treatment of Ethiopian students in religious schools, simply moving the students to secular schools.

Like I said, file this Ha’aretz piece by Ruth Sinai under “Missing the Point”:

Placing Ethiopian immigrant children in religious schools “has greatly harmed the group’s integration into the wider society, and has left them a coerced religious sector,” Labor MK Ophir Pines-Paz said yesterday.

Due to the Chief Rabbinate’s strict conversion requirements, the majority of Ethiopian children attend state religious schools.

“No ethnic group or immigrant group is required to study in one system. We need to stop discriminating against the Ethiopian sector and to endlessly find faults with their Jewishness,” Pines-Paz said in initiating a bill to facilitate secular education for Ethiopian children.

This week, a state religious school in Petah Tikva was found to have isolated four second-grade Ethiopian pupils from the other children, teaching them in a separate classroom and scheduling their recess at a different hour. The school reportedly said the Ethiopian children were not religious enough to mix with the other children.

“Although it is very late, the time has come to redeem the [Ethiopian] sector from the isolation that was forced upon it,” Pines-Paz said.

Not religious enough?? Where anyone gets off making such an assessment in a religious school where all students are bound to the same code of dress and conduct is beyond me. They’re not shomer Shabbat? Shomer kashrut? Who are these Torah giants that are these other kids’ parents?

I would think that this would show, with stark clarity, how bad that 2nd-grade teacher needed to be fired. I would think that this would show how badly that school needed a new principal. I would think that this would show how far the State Religious School system has strayed from achieving its goal of providing a Torah education for all G-d-fearing families who so desire it for their children. I would think that this would show how badly reform is needed in the dati school system.

Perhaps this could be fixed with legislation. Perhaps some sort of oversight commission is the key, or maybe increased parent involvement could fix the schools. The key word is “fix the schools”.

Instead, Ophir Pines-Paz has chosen to advocate taking these children out of the school, and the Torah out of their curricula, and putting them in secular schools. This assumes that - a) the racism that was the root cause of their inferior treatment in the religious school somehow won’t be there in secular schools, and b) that this is just the status quo for religious schools, who should be left to arbitrarily choose when to segregate students like this.

Getting rid of Torah education as an alternative for Ethiopian students is not an option. Nor is advocating a Torah-free alternative as an option for religious Ethiopian students. The Chief Rabbinate and religious education system must be made to provide equal Torah education for all its students, and to treat all its students with dignity. If a child truly isn’t religious, then this should be examined — without respect to color or ancestry.

The Jews will come back from all four corners of the Earth — looking quite differently from each other — and they will all need to learn Torah in the Holy Land. G-d willing the Holy Land will have teachers willing to teach them.

Just Wondering: Why is the NY Nazi Party… November 28, 2007

Could someone tell me why, of all places, the headquarters of the New York Nazi Party is in Brooklyn?

Brooklyn, of all places? One of the most diverse places in the nation? One of the largest, most vibrant Jewish communities where the borough president and mayor are both Jewish? While statistically, more people means more chances of finding a Nazi, wouldn’t we expect this ilk to be relegated to some backwoods cesspool or “white bread…mountain town” (a la South Park)?

Take a good look at these NY Nazi Party delegates. While, yes, we see bomber jackets and shaved heads and all those things we have been trained to look for — would one be able to easily peg that white-haired older man for a fascist? What about the well-dressed businessman-type in the button-down shirt and blazer?

The Brooklyn office of the Nazi party can be reached via phone at 1-718-252-2247, an “unlisted land line” with Verizon.

So apparently Brooklyn does have a Nazi presence.

Who are these people? And how do we stop children from next to — or inside — our own communities from joining up with filthy ideologies like this?