This isn't new sweetheart with benefits. Gross generalizations are dangerous. Your intellectual and emotional IQ, Becky? Lol!
Racism is a form of prejudice that assumes that the members of racial categories have distinctive characteristics and that these differences result in some racial groups being inferior to others. Racism generally includes negative emotional reactions to members of the group, acceptance of negative stereotypes, and racial discrimination against individuals; in some cases, it leads to violence.
Discrimination refers to the differential treatment of members of different ethnic, religious, national, or other groups. Discrimination is usually the behavioral manifestation of prejudice and, therefore, involves the negative, hostile, and injurious treatment of members of rejected groups.
Thanks for helping me better to explain this bizarre seemingly lockstep defence of the Palestinians we see now with the Black Lives Matter set. The rejection of Western education and values goes back further than I'd realized.
European Jews were well assimilated into whiteness before the black civil rights struggle in the 50s and 60s. Around the world, blacks are at the bottom of the color caste system. I've witnessed this personally during my extensive world travel.
i think about the decision not to long ago by key black leaders to airbrush out the jewish supported in the movie selma. why did ava du verney do that?
I have the deepest respect and admiration for you, Glenn Loury, along with John McWhorter, Coleman Hughes, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Kmele Foster, and the many other brave and brilliant black conservative and heterodox intellectuals in this great country. I'm afraid, on this matter, you soft pedal to the point of genuinely missing the mark. There was never an alliance between American Jews and American blacks. There has been completely one-sided Jewish solidarity with black Americans, a one-sided history of profound commitment and courage by Jews in the black civil rights struggle, and far too many Jews have even supported the more radical "black liberation" movements and "anti-racism." There has never been any appreciable understanding, support, or solidarity with Jews from the American black community writ large. Obviously there are individual exceptions but, by and large, black Americans represent the most antisemitic major demographic group in this country and it's not particularly close.
Jews suffer, by far, the highest rate of hate crimes, year after year, decade after decade, overwhelmingly at the hands of blacks. The most dangerous, hateful libels of Israel come disproportionately from American blacks. Yes, affirmative action is an issue, too, since it is both a racial quota against Jews and Asians and also a fundamental assault on the meritocratic system in which Jews have thrived, in spite of profound antisemitism. Jews have thrived in America and everywhere by accepting the rules and the standards of the culture at large and achieving against all odds. Demanding handouts, special treatment, corrosion of standards, corruption of rigor, pathologization of conscientiousness and discipline, denial of genius and aesthetic beauty in favor of endless virtue signaling, yes, this is all a profound affront to the Jewish people and all we've rightly earned. Frankly, the victim mentality that defines so much of the American black community is disgusting, and it ensures the perpetuation of blacks as an underachieving, socially destructive underclass.
There was never an alliance to break. There are two cultures with foundationally different values, diametrically opposed values, and these values are not qualitatively equal by a long shot. There is a profound cultural sickness in the American black community which manifests in remarkably high crime rates, remarkably low achievement in almost everything except sports and music, remarkably high rates of broken families, remarkably high rates of substance abuse, a high rates of criminality, remarkably high rates of conspiratorial thinking and embrace of misinformation, and remarkably high rates of antisemitism. There is much that goes right within Jewish communities, and Jews are, by and large, one of the least violent, most high achieving, most philanthropic, most pro-social communities in America, as we have been everywhere. Black Americans could learn a great deal from Jewish Americans and Jewish Americans would be happy to lend a hand, as we have always shown, but black Americans treat us with resentment and hatred, and often murderous violence. Too many black Americans rage over "microaggressions" or the phantasm of "structural racism" while simultaneously calling for a second Holocaust in Israel and slandering American Jews as some kind of domestic enemy. The irony couldn't be more stark.
You can be sure that American Jews read Baldwin, Ellison, Wright, Hurston, Hughes, and yes, the people with three names. American Jews really do revere MLK, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Rosa Parks. We really know and honor the history and tragedy of slavery and Jim Crow. American Jews readily do love and appreciate jazz. How many black Americans know much of anything about the Holocaust, let alone the Russian pogroms, let alone the blood libel, let alone the Inquisition, let alone the endless series of slaughters at the hands of Christian and Muslim mobs over the centuries, let alone the extermination of the Jews of Arabia by Muhammad, let alone the Roman occupation and ethnic cleansing of our homeland, the one place where, for better or worse, we are indigenous? How many black Americans read Singer, Aleichem, Roth, and Bellow, or listen to Gershwin, Bernstein, Copland, or Goodman, or have the faintest idea of our holidays, traditions, culture, or values? It has been a one way love affair, an abusive relationship.
Now that legions of black Americans are actively celebrating a genocidal assault on thousands of Jewish civilians in Israel and openly call for the destruction of the state of Israel, a second Holocaust, a great many of us Jews feel like the decades of abuse and ingratitude and simmering hatred are no longer matters for our own introspection, our own redoubling of efforts to understand, excuse, justify, forgive, and wave off. For decades, we have done our damnedest to be allies with people who accept our allyship only when it's convenient and then immediately stab us in the back. Now that Jews are actually in an existential struggle (which blacks are manifestly not), many of us are forced into recognition of who our friends and enemies are whether we like it or not, whether it confirms or upends our prior allegiances. Jews have been extraordinarily supportive of black Americans throughout our shared history on this continent and the searing ingratitude and violence we've gotten in return is inexcusable. I don't think many Jews are in any appreciable way racist. This is a question of culture. Realistic Jews, Jews intent on survival, will gladly work alongside black conservatives, black patriots, black allies. Sadly, the obvious truth is that this is a distinct and reviled minority in the American black community, most of which is in thrall to a corrupt and pathological culture that threatens our people, who are under more than enough threat as it is.
I might add that the embrace of Palestinian Nationalism, seems be fueled by an anger and a drive for vengeance. Perhaps it’s a desire for blacks to assert their independence in directing foreign policy, but their has not been a lingering anti French hostility inspite of France’s role in Algerian colonialism, or anti British hostility inspite of the British history of African colonization. Even now, Hamas executed a student hostage from Tanzania, but this has elicited no response from anyone.
I think you buried the lead by stating this so late in your essay, “For at base, this emerging political identity among blacks, unlike its counterpart in Zionism among Jews, is profoundly anti-Western.”
I have never thought about this difference, and it leaves me despondent. Do you think this difference holds true?
Excellent essay! "I do not know whether, all these years later, I should feel proud of the essay's prescience or dispirited by its continuing relevance." Both, I think. As I have said before, I believe that the problem of disparate socioeconomic outcomes between different groups is the key to understanding this conflict, which I fear will persist as long as those disparities continue.
See my May 8, 2023 comment on Dr. Stanley Goldfarb's article in The Free Press:
"How America's Obsession with DEI Is Sabotaging Our Medical Schools":
If there are prospects for a better future, we must abandon any attempt to divine a pallet of different remedies that address the uneven real/imagined victimologies. We must recognize the internal contradiction of assuming there can EVER be consensus about adjusting preferential remediations among/between different aggrieved groups. There is no mathematical formula for dealing with real and perceived historical injustices.
The path forward must be premised on a policy that does NOT attempt to apply deferential remedies for some, but not for others. Affirmative discrimination can never be applied in such a manner that differential levels will satisfy everyone. It's a fool's errand to assume otherwise. Equality of opportunity and equality before the law are the only principles that can unite disparate identities for the common good.
Glenn, this is a brilliant essay. It took me back in time to those events and ideas that surrounded us in that era. “Comparative Victimology” is a phrase I have been looking for to describe those sorts of discussions. This essay could easily constitute an entire semester of analysis and discussion.
This isn't new sweetheart with benefits. Gross generalizations are dangerous. Your intellectual and emotional IQ, Becky? Lol!
Racism is a form of prejudice that assumes that the members of racial categories have distinctive characteristics and that these differences result in some racial groups being inferior to others. Racism generally includes negative emotional reactions to members of the group, acceptance of negative stereotypes, and racial discrimination against individuals; in some cases, it leads to violence.
Discrimination refers to the differential treatment of members of different ethnic, religious, national, or other groups. Discrimination is usually the behavioral manifestation of prejudice and, therefore, involves the negative, hostile, and injurious treatment of members of rejected groups.
Adapted from the APA Dictionary of Psychology
Without U.S. tax dollars, Israel would cease to exist. And I'm not broke. Lol!!!!
Thanks for helping me better to explain this bizarre seemingly lockstep defence of the Palestinians we see now with the Black Lives Matter set. The rejection of Western education and values goes back further than I'd realized.
European Jews were well assimilated into whiteness before the black civil rights struggle in the 50s and 60s. Around the world, blacks are at the bottom of the color caste system. I've witnessed this personally during my extensive world travel.
i think about the decision not to long ago by key black leaders to airbrush out the jewish supported in the movie selma. why did ava du verney do that?
I have the deepest respect and admiration for you, Glenn Loury, along with John McWhorter, Coleman Hughes, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Kmele Foster, and the many other brave and brilliant black conservative and heterodox intellectuals in this great country. I'm afraid, on this matter, you soft pedal to the point of genuinely missing the mark. There was never an alliance between American Jews and American blacks. There has been completely one-sided Jewish solidarity with black Americans, a one-sided history of profound commitment and courage by Jews in the black civil rights struggle, and far too many Jews have even supported the more radical "black liberation" movements and "anti-racism." There has never been any appreciable understanding, support, or solidarity with Jews from the American black community writ large. Obviously there are individual exceptions but, by and large, black Americans represent the most antisemitic major demographic group in this country and it's not particularly close.
Jews suffer, by far, the highest rate of hate crimes, year after year, decade after decade, overwhelmingly at the hands of blacks. The most dangerous, hateful libels of Israel come disproportionately from American blacks. Yes, affirmative action is an issue, too, since it is both a racial quota against Jews and Asians and also a fundamental assault on the meritocratic system in which Jews have thrived, in spite of profound antisemitism. Jews have thrived in America and everywhere by accepting the rules and the standards of the culture at large and achieving against all odds. Demanding handouts, special treatment, corrosion of standards, corruption of rigor, pathologization of conscientiousness and discipline, denial of genius and aesthetic beauty in favor of endless virtue signaling, yes, this is all a profound affront to the Jewish people and all we've rightly earned. Frankly, the victim mentality that defines so much of the American black community is disgusting, and it ensures the perpetuation of blacks as an underachieving, socially destructive underclass.
There was never an alliance to break. There are two cultures with foundationally different values, diametrically opposed values, and these values are not qualitatively equal by a long shot. There is a profound cultural sickness in the American black community which manifests in remarkably high crime rates, remarkably low achievement in almost everything except sports and music, remarkably high rates of broken families, remarkably high rates of substance abuse, a high rates of criminality, remarkably high rates of conspiratorial thinking and embrace of misinformation, and remarkably high rates of antisemitism. There is much that goes right within Jewish communities, and Jews are, by and large, one of the least violent, most high achieving, most philanthropic, most pro-social communities in America, as we have been everywhere. Black Americans could learn a great deal from Jewish Americans and Jewish Americans would be happy to lend a hand, as we have always shown, but black Americans treat us with resentment and hatred, and often murderous violence. Too many black Americans rage over "microaggressions" or the phantasm of "structural racism" while simultaneously calling for a second Holocaust in Israel and slandering American Jews as some kind of domestic enemy. The irony couldn't be more stark.
You can be sure that American Jews read Baldwin, Ellison, Wright, Hurston, Hughes, and yes, the people with three names. American Jews really do revere MLK, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Rosa Parks. We really know and honor the history and tragedy of slavery and Jim Crow. American Jews readily do love and appreciate jazz. How many black Americans know much of anything about the Holocaust, let alone the Russian pogroms, let alone the blood libel, let alone the Inquisition, let alone the endless series of slaughters at the hands of Christian and Muslim mobs over the centuries, let alone the extermination of the Jews of Arabia by Muhammad, let alone the Roman occupation and ethnic cleansing of our homeland, the one place where, for better or worse, we are indigenous? How many black Americans read Singer, Aleichem, Roth, and Bellow, or listen to Gershwin, Bernstein, Copland, or Goodman, or have the faintest idea of our holidays, traditions, culture, or values? It has been a one way love affair, an abusive relationship.
Now that legions of black Americans are actively celebrating a genocidal assault on thousands of Jewish civilians in Israel and openly call for the destruction of the state of Israel, a second Holocaust, a great many of us Jews feel like the decades of abuse and ingratitude and simmering hatred are no longer matters for our own introspection, our own redoubling of efforts to understand, excuse, justify, forgive, and wave off. For decades, we have done our damnedest to be allies with people who accept our allyship only when it's convenient and then immediately stab us in the back. Now that Jews are actually in an existential struggle (which blacks are manifestly not), many of us are forced into recognition of who our friends and enemies are whether we like it or not, whether it confirms or upends our prior allegiances. Jews have been extraordinarily supportive of black Americans throughout our shared history on this continent and the searing ingratitude and violence we've gotten in return is inexcusable. I don't think many Jews are in any appreciable way racist. This is a question of culture. Realistic Jews, Jews intent on survival, will gladly work alongside black conservatives, black patriots, black allies. Sadly, the obvious truth is that this is a distinct and reviled minority in the American black community, most of which is in thrall to a corrupt and pathological culture that threatens our people, who are under more than enough threat as it is.
I might add that the embrace of Palestinian Nationalism, seems be fueled by an anger and a drive for vengeance. Perhaps it’s a desire for blacks to assert their independence in directing foreign policy, but their has not been a lingering anti French hostility inspite of France’s role in Algerian colonialism, or anti British hostility inspite of the British history of African colonization. Even now, Hamas executed a student hostage from Tanzania, but this has elicited no response from anyone.
I think you buried the lead by stating this so late in your essay, “For at base, this emerging political identity among blacks, unlike its counterpart in Zionism among Jews, is profoundly anti-Western.”
I have never thought about this difference, and it leaves me despondent. Do you think this difference holds true?
Excellent essay! "I do not know whether, all these years later, I should feel proud of the essay's prescience or dispirited by its continuing relevance." Both, I think. As I have said before, I believe that the problem of disparate socioeconomic outcomes between different groups is the key to understanding this conflict, which I fear will persist as long as those disparities continue.
See my May 8, 2023 comment on Dr. Stanley Goldfarb's article in The Free Press:
"How America's Obsession with DEI Is Sabotaging Our Medical Schools":
https://www.thefp.com/p/how-americas-obsession-with-dei-is/comment/15771376.
The vision of the future is Reginald Denny meets Damien "Football" Williams.
What would Scott Adams do?
I think dispirited is the proper choice.
If there are prospects for a better future, we must abandon any attempt to divine a pallet of different remedies that address the uneven real/imagined victimologies. We must recognize the internal contradiction of assuming there can EVER be consensus about adjusting preferential remediations among/between different aggrieved groups. There is no mathematical formula for dealing with real and perceived historical injustices.
The path forward must be premised on a policy that does NOT attempt to apply deferential remedies for some, but not for others. Affirmative discrimination can never be applied in such a manner that differential levels will satisfy everyone. It's a fool's errand to assume otherwise. Equality of opportunity and equality before the law are the only principles that can unite disparate identities for the common good.
Glenn, this is a brilliant essay. It took me back in time to those events and ideas that surrounded us in that era. “Comparative Victimology” is a phrase I have been looking for to describe those sorts of discussions. This essay could easily constitute an entire semester of analysis and discussion.