"Race is a social construct, and this is how it was constructed in Nazi Germany and much of Europe.... [W]ell-meaning people... don’t know how to define Jews [because]... Judaism predates Western categories. It’s not quite a religion, because one can be Jewish regardless of observance or specific belief. (Einstein, for example, was proudly Jewish but not religiously observant.) But it’s also not quite a race, because people can convert in! It’s not merely a culture or an ethnicity, because that leaves out all the religious components. And it’s not simply a nationality, because although Jews do have a homeland and many identify as part of a nation, others do not."
Writes Yair Rosenberg in "Are Jews a Race?/Whoopi Goldberg’s Holocaust comments reflect how Jews don’t fit into Western boxes" (The Atlantic).
Another reason why it's "not quite a race" is that race was never good science. From "The Disturbing Resilience of Scientific Racism" (Smithsonian):
Fossils, as well as cave art, DNA samples and other evidence later uncovered around the world pointed to a more complex picture of human origins... Rather than distinct races, groupings or borders, the continually mixing populations produced only gradients, with some traits slightly more common in some regions than others.
Lighter skin color in northern climates emerged late; some Britons were shocked to learn that Cheddar Man, the remains of a man who lived in southwest England almost 10,000 years ago, would today have been considered black.
In the 1950s, geneticists began to confirm what some archaeologists had already surmised: “Individual variation within population groups, overlapping with other population groups, turned out to be so large that the boundaries of race made less and less sense,” [writes Angela Saini in "Superior: The Return of Race Science"].
The conclusion was that no “pure” races exist that are distinct from others. Despite this evidence, those eugenicists still practicing sought to prevent their supposedly superior race from being overrun by immigration, miscegenation and higher birth rates among other ethnicities....
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61 comments:
. . . some Britons were shocked to learn that Cheddar Man, the remains of a man who lived in southwest England almost 10,000 years ago, would today have been considered black.
Really? Who was shocked? Why is this news?
When you follow the links back to the BBC story on the DNA analysis of Cheddar Man, you find that the article says that only about 10% of modern Europeans are related to Cheddar Man.
I've known several hard core racists. None of them used science to form their racist beliefs. That didn't stop them from using science to justify their beliefs after they formed them, because that is the way we are taught to justify beliefs these days.
The lank Canadian eager trims his fire,
And all around their simpering stoves retire;
With fur clad friends their progenies abound,
And thus regale their buffaloes around;
Unlettered race, how few the number tells,
Their only pride a cariole and bells
- Standish O'Grady
I close my eyes and see her in Pryor's album cover for ...is it something I said?
Your turn in the barrel, Ma'am. Enjoy the ride.
If you didn't know the job was dangerous when you took it, you should have.
race was never good science.
respectfully, in the immortal words of SE Hinton; That Was THEN, This Is NOW
and NOW....
race is something that is SO REAL, that One Drop of Black Blood makes you Black
meanwhile...
Today; Sex and Gender are, LITERALLY, Just clothes you put on. Carry a purse: you're a woman
The whole business of dividing up people based on made up “races” is dirty and immoral. Those who approve of allocating benefits or burdens based on “race” are complicit in perpetuating the system.
For the racist left, each of the seven billion plus people on the planet must be assigned some pigeonhole of race, for arbitrary and politically driven reasons.
How many races are there? Once you stray from the answer — one, Human — you can make up as many as you want, and the country next to yours can make up its own list, too. Want to say Pashtuns, Lapps, and Lebanese are “white”, sure, why not? Are Pakistanis, Koreans, and Indonesians all “Asian”? If you say so. Irish, Han Chinese, Aleuts, and Māoris all “indigenous”? Okay.
The whole rotten structure should be scrapped.
I am still of the opinion that the 'is anti-Semitism racism?' debate is being engaged because it is far more comfortable than confronting the subtext of Whoopi's remarks, which is why should a black person care about what white people did to each other? Don't forget that the Nazis created a narrative where the Aryan/Germanic people were the *victims* of oppression and cultural genocide. This is where the Left's insistence on racial classification and balkanization lead, and we're farther down that road then we want to admit.
There is no periodic table of the races, but if a person can accurately catalog random individuals (not the rare specimens chosen to confound him) accurately virtually 100% of the time, and science can't, well, my goodness, gravity existed before 'science' understood it.
The Nazis defined Jewishness as a 'race' for their own political purposes, but since when do we let the Nazis dictate our science?
Why the Bone Marrow Registry Needs More Diverse Donors and How to Sign Up
How does race and ethnicity affect a bone marrow transplant match?
You inherit HLA genes from each of your parents. These genes then code for the proteins, or markers, on your cells. Siblings are often good candidates for donors because they are more likely to have the same HLA markers as you. However, about 70% of patients needing a transplant do not have a fully matched donor in their family, and they must use a registry of unrelated donors for help.
Race and ethnicity impact HLA markers. Certain combinations of HLA markers may be common to an ethnic group because of its evolutionary history. This commonality makes matches more likely among people of the same ethnicity or race. For example, African Americans have more diverse HLA markers than other people, which makes finding a match more challenging. People who are of mixed-race descent may also have HLA markers that are relatively unique and therefore more difficult to match.
The majority of, but not all, matching donors come from the same racial or ethnic group as their recipients, says Erica Jensen, senior vice president of member engagement, enrollment, and experience at Be The Match. For example, an African American patient can find a match from someone identifying as mixed race, white, or another racial or ethnic group.
Well, if the Smithsonian says it, you can take it to the bank.
"Rather than distinct races, groupings or borders, the continually mixing populations produced only gradients, with some traits slightly more common in some regions than others."
In this sentence, "populations"="races", as the word has been commonly used. There's a circularity in using a different word for a concept to argue the concept is invalid.
Unfortunately for America the dominant political party, nominally in control of DC now, claims to be the Party of Science while also being obsessed with race as the most important aspect of humanity.
Stanley Kubrick mocking diversity in Strangelove via Major Kong:
There will be some important promotions and citations when we come through this. That goes for every last one of you, regardless of your race, your color, or your creed!
Building on what Scott wrote let’s bring in Howard’s recollection recently of being taught as a youngster that the human race is made up of three primary types: negroid, mongoloid and caucusoid. From this pallet the rich diversity of mankind is made. Similar to the color wheel we learn in elementary school. America is the kid vigorously mixing the colors on the pallet and the results are predictable. In 100 years we will be tending towards a common color and blending of the genetic traits encoded along with our physical features. Maybe we’ll be beige and all get along. Then again as we become more homogeneous and differences in appearance less obvious we will find other distinguishing characteristics to use as stand-ins for Class. Because racism is rarely actually about race. It’s always about Class and Power.
Thank you, J. Farmer, for bringing a little reality into this conversation. I can't believe the number of people who believe this "there is no such thing as race" propaganda. Who are going to believe? The race-is-a-social-construct ideologues or your own lying eyes?
If race doesn't exist, then why when two people of sub-saharan ancestry have a child, the child is always black? Why does the child of Chinese parents always have the physical characteristics that are associated with this "social construct" called "Asian"?
To be slightly more scientific, DNA testing can predict with great accuracy the self-identified race of the person who submitted a sample. Race exists as a biological reality!
Saying race exists IS NOT the same as saying we should treat people differently because of their race or that any race is superior to others. I despair for our future that ostensibly intelligent people can no longer understand this distinction.
Babe Ruth was probably black. I saw one of those "Finding your ancestry" shows and there was a guy pictured, who they thought was the guy on the show's grandfather, and he was black, and looked a *lot* like Babe Ruth and he had illegitimate children all over the South. Babe Ruth grew up in an orphanage, just sayin'. Show me the other white guy who looks like Babe Ruth.
It's all a very nice discussion, but when there is a group of men (and women) who storm into your house with rifles, throw you down the stairs and out into the streets with your wife and children, while claiming all of your worldly possessions, parading you, pushing you, beating you as they direct you into a cattle car to be taken to a camp to do work for them until they've had enough of you and just straight out kill you, all because they deem your 'race' is inferior, you don't have time to debate the nuances of your ancestry.
When the one holding the rifle determines you are of a race that is to be exterminated, you either fight back immediately or you are gone. There is no time for nuanced debate. No time for discussions on The View with airheads who think Ted Cruz is the next Hitler.
There are, IIRC, three different species of chickadees, the boreal, the black-capped, and the Carolina, they sometimes hybridize on the borders of their respective ranges. I guarantee you that if somehow they became a political football, and it was important to the left that they be defined as a single species, it would happen overnight.
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”. - Lewis Carrol, Through the Looking Glass
What Rosenberg says is true, but is this really a discussion we want to have to keep having? It's unfortunate if all this is necessary.
Ancestral population.
@Scott:
Rather than distinct races, groupings or borders, the continually mixing populations produced only gradients, with some traits slightly more common in some regions than others. In this sentence, "populations"="races", as the word has been commonly used. There's a circularity in using a different word for a concept to argue the concept is invalid.
Not only that, but the point about gradients is acknowledged by race science advocates. It's the continuum fallacy. The point about gradients could be applied to the language-dialect distinction or the reptile-mammal transition in the fossil record.
If we talked about family the way they talk about race, we would say that there are no human families only individuals who are more or less related to one another. As you move the common ancestor back through time, family would eventually include chimps and bonobos.
Probably the most scientifically tenable position is to be agnostic on the question of the biological significance of race. We do not understand the causal chain from cellular molecules to morphology/physiology and complex behavior. We don't even understand this for much simpler organisms under highly controlled conditions, let alone for human beings.
It is true that 19th century race science was used to justify atrocities. But the problem is not so much the "race science" as the "justify atrocities." If the race science had been 100% valid, the atrocities would not be justified. The Shoah was not the consequence of a failure of scientific reasoning but a failure of moral reasoning.
Lighter skin color in northern climates emerged late; some Britons were shocked to learn that Cheddar Man, the remains of a man who lived in southwest England almost 10,000 years ago, would today have been considered black.
In other words, racial differences in DNA are so pronounced, we can tell what race someone was 10,000 after they died by examining their remains.
I recommend The Modern American Law of Race by David Bernstein. There's a lot of historical background on classifications by race.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3592850
Any grouping of things can be considered an artificial construct: Whenever we categorize, there will be edge cases. Take the elements: In the periodic table, We categorize them into metals and non metals, but elements on the border between the two, don't show the clear-cut distinctions we see from elements in the heart of their category.
To carry the analogy further. The table was set up based upon the characteristics of the elements. Later, when atomic theory came along, the arrangement of the elements agreed perfectly with the number of protons in each element. It makes sense that atomic structure and behaviour would agree and it assures us that the arrangement was more like rational than arbitrary.
In a similar fashion, you can look at linguistic dendritic trees, which happen to agree very closely to genetic relatedness dendritic trees. So the groupings may be artificial, but they are clearly based in reality.
To get to the Goldberg fiasco--she's sort of right and wrong at the same time. The German NAZI's certainly thought of Jews as a race and persecuted them as such. On the other hand, while there are certainly Jews of all races, in Europe they were close to 100% Caucasian. Goldberg was wrong to think of the NAZI genocide as white-on-white hatred, since the NAZI's thought of Jews as an alien race. That doesn't change, just because 80 years later very few people think of Jews as a race.
Saying "there are no such things as races" is like saying "there are no COVID vaccines." You see, vaccines have to protect you completely and Moderna et al. don't. They may make you much less likely to get the disease and almost guaranteed not to get a severe case, vaccines have to do more. 10% less likely to end up in a hospital? Nope. 50% less likely? Nope. 1,000% ? Nope. Nothing less than perfection.
If you program a computer to put humanity into three boxes based on genetic similarity, you'll get West Eurasians, Sub-Saharan Africans, and East Eurasians (AKA white, black, and yellow; Caucasians, Negros, and Orientals). If you ask people to do the same with pictures, they will box people almost exactly the same way.
For millennia, geography largely separated the three groups and they drifted apart genetically. Not a complete separation and within each big group are lots of subgroups (that's why 23 and me can tell you 50% German ...). Of course, the subgroups aren't exclusive either.
Eastern Gray Squirrels and Western Gray Squirrels also exist.
This discussion of what the Nazis believed seems to ignore more recent history. Wasn't Trump's so-called "Muslim ban" deemed to be absolute proof of his "racism"? Doesn't it follow that the left regards Muslims as a separate race from whites?
OK, Adolph.
This is so hilarious. All the problems in this country and the MSM is obsessed with Maus and whoopi Goldberg. This is what happens when you don't have enough Trump.
Not very PC but since when are humans suddenly exempt from the laws of breeding we see in every other animal species? No one denies a chihuahua and a Great Dane are not dogs but there are pretty obvious physical and temperamental differences baked in each type. Humans are animals too - why can’t we express differences like every other species? We may be human but we do show enough differences you can see in DNA to categorize you by “race”. But somehow the obvious - like biological males not having any physical advantage in sports - has become toxic and racist to even acknowledge.
“Science” has been used to justify the worst prejudices in the past - but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a truth at the bottom that was enlarged and exaggerated. Groups May just have different means in certain characteristics - but there is a normal curve that insures overlap between all the different types. ( fancy way of saying not everyone in a group is the same).
I would have thought that Cheddar Man was orange.
"All we need is a voluntary, free-spirited, open-ended program of procreative racial deconstruction. Everybody just gotta keep fuckin' everybody 'til they're all the same color."
Sen. Jay Billington Bulworth
“It’s not merely a culture or an ethnicity, because that leaves out all the religious components.“ This is not consistent with the meaning of “ethnic.” Jews can be characterized as an ethnic group without regard to religious components because of many other commonalities.
The provocation for this discussion remains Goldberg’s insensitivity to the bigotry giving rise to the Holocaust. It was not merely “man’s inhumanity to man.” It was motivated by hatred and bias directed at Jews because they were Jews. It is irrelevant to her insensate observation whether the discrimination by the Nazis was “racial” or “ethnic.”
But don’t worry, Whoopi, the Holocaust does not rebut absurd claims by you and other multimillionaire celebrity race baiters that systemic racism dominates the US today. It just highlights their transparent stupidity.
It is way beyond my paygrade to explain anything Whoopie ever says, including this. I do not like seeing her put on the spot about this, as she just never does think anything through anyway. I think Yair Rosenberg is right in what he says about the difficulty of categorizing Jews racially or ethnically or religiously, etc. However, he misses a malevolent variant of this confusion that I see in a lot of the Woke rhetoric about ethnicity and race. The California Ethnic Studies Framework, for instance, is positively obsessed with defining what they call "conditional whiteness," which they see many Jews as embodying. That is, Jews who they see as "benefiting" from whiteness (which in that Framework means they are oppressors). The conditional part is that they benefit as long as they are not obviously black or brown, but also as long as they are "assimilated" to a white world. Of course, that part is b.s., since even obviously unassimilated Jews like Haredi often get attacked as "white" oppressors, too. In any case, the term "conditional whiteness" suggests the ages-old notion of Jews as hidden, behind the scenes, powerful and secretive ("wire pullers" Nazis called them).
Today of course if you are a Jew or Asian you aren't a minority of concern. Only blacks and browns need apply.
J Farmer - You have shown your anti-Semitic colors on this blog time and time again. Your "scientific" thoughts on the issue are worth shit.
Christopher B:
am still of the opinion that the 'is anti-Semitism racism?' debate is being engaged because it is far more comfortable than confronting the subtext of Whoopi's remarks, which is why should a black person care about what white people did to each other?
I think this is very accurate. Whoopi Goldberg is interested in defining race as white vs. black, and as something more serious, more "systemic" probably, than "man's inhumanity to man," which can happen any time, anywhere.
In fact, genetic analysis can differentiate Jewish genetic background from different kinds of "European" genetic backgound, even though some "Europeans" have become Jews by religion, and some Jews have joined "European" religions. Hitler made use of this as a way to "save" Germany from its difficulties and to acquire for himself the power and glory of being a great "savior."
Whoopi would rather we all think of just two racial categories, "white" and "black," and that they would be honored as linked in a "systemic" racism, not just everyday "man's inhumanity to man." In this view, affirmative action against Asians is fine; Asians are actually "white"--that is, by "acting white" they share in the privilege of whites.
rcocean - Right - why should anyone care about the dramatic rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the world over the past few years. After all, Jews make up only 0.2% of the world's population. They get way too much attention don't you think? The only thing of importance they have done is killed Christ.
Just curious - what do you care about?
I was going to say there is only one Race. Black. Then all the rest of the population but they cant be classified as a race.
But even Black does not include all Blacks. Clarence Thomas and Condeleezza Rice, come to mind. So actually you aren't Black unless you are a leftists.
But todays debate is all about gaining political leverage by the group being oppressed.
Oppressed being one of those ambigous words that take in Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah, but not Thomas Sowell.
There are only two races: "us" and "them". Everything else is post hoc justification for how a person or group selects people into these two categories.
@jim5301:
J Farmer - You have shown your anti-Semitic colors on this blog time and time again. Your "scientific" thoughts on the issue are worth shit.
Wow, someone being mean on the Internet. I've never seen that before.
Let me save you some time, Jimmy. I'll happily concede any insult you want to throw my way. Give me all the -isms: anti-Semit, rac, sex, class, able, age. You can even throw in fat, ugly, stupid, and queer if it makes you feel any better. I do this for two basic reasons. One, I don't give a fuck. Two, they have no relevance to the worthiness of my thoughts. Perhaps they are worth shit, but that will rest on the thoughts themselves.
p.s. What are "anti-semitic colors"? Red and black? Yellow?
p.p.s. How do you fit 50 Jews in a car? The ashtray!
@TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed:
There are only two races: "us" and "them". Everything else is post hoc justification for how a person or group selects people into these two categories.
I take your point, but the us-vs-them dynamic is inherent to all group identities. They're either in-group or out-group. But that is separate from the number of different group identities. For example, the same dynamic occurs with ethnic identity, but it would not make sense to say there are only two ethnicities: "us and "them." Whether there were five ethnic identities or five million, each must distinguish between members("us") and non-members ("them").
The root of the problem with trying to understand Nazi racial ideology in modern "racist" terms is that National Socialism's understanding of "race" was built upon the terms of 19th C "Scientific Racism". A good original source on 19th C racism, and one much admired by the Nazis ("Hitler's Favorite Frenchman"), was Arthur De Gobineau's An Essay on the Inequality of the Human_Races.
The term the Nazis used that is often translated into English as "race" (Volk, as in Herrenvolk=Master Race) really is closer in meaning to "a people" than "a race" in the modern white, black, yellow, red, etc, sense. For the Nazis, the "Volk" was the engine of history and the Volk shaped the consciousness of its members in a manner exactly parallel to how the Marxists thought that class determines consciousness and shapes history. For the Nazis, the world was made up of "peoples", and these peoples were in a continuous struggle with each other for mastery, with the nation state as the modern instrument of struggle among peoples ("The Reich is but a vessel and it is the Volk that fills it" -- Hitler).
From within the ideology of National Socialism, the German Nation was in a struggle with the peoples of Europe, and the people that had always and were now the greatest enemy of the German Volk were the Jews (das ewige Jude -- "the eternal Jew"). Now, why it was the Jews and not the British, French, or Slavic peoples who had historically fought the Germans I have never been able to understand, and, believe me, I've looked.
The 3rd Reich undertook a very expensive & complicated program to systemically murder every Jew that they could lay their hands on, including women and the youngest children in scenes of such moral horror that make even atheists wonder if Satan walks among us, because they thought that the Jews were not only a completely different Volk than the Germans, but that the Jews were the existential antithesis of the German Volk (people) & Reich (nation).
The Volkische ideology of National Socialism wasn't just different from later race based ideologies in the Anglo-Saxon world in terms of how it separated the human race. It was, from its inception, genocidal.
German Jews were the ones with stripes; Polish Jews had horns. According to the film-maker Allen Konigsberg, anyway.
Fat Hermann said, "I determine who is a Jew," and it was just that arbitrary. His right-hand man Milch (and his siblings) were declared to be Aryan after their Aryan mother and her Aryan uncle swore that they were the real parents, and that Herr Milch senior was a bystander.
One of the ironies of German history is that in the period before the Turd Reich the intermarriage of Gentile and Jew was growing and being deplored by some Gentiles and Jews alike. There were Jewish leaders and organizations trying to slow down the process, which they feared would lead to gradual disappearance of Jews through assimilation and conversion. Jews were only about 1% of the population anyway.
The tragedy of science and race is that the truth--should we ever know it--is actually not that relevant to most.
As a Roman Catholic of the lapsed, nonpracticing subset, I too identify my religion as a race, which crosses so many group identity boundaries as to render it perhaps the most intersectional of races. As soon as we find a way to make non-heterosexuals good practicing members of the race, we take over everything, again.
The conclusion was that no “pure” races exist that are distinct from others.
No one is purely good or purely evil. Therefore good and evil do not exist. QED. Science!
"It is true that 19th century race science was used to justify atrocities. But the problem is not so much the "race science" as the "justify atrocities."
Yep. The USSR and other Communists regimes justified THEIR atrocities while practicing "Anti-racism".
Scientific truth is the scientific truth. If the truth can be misused, the answer is NOT to believe in lies. Its to not misuse science. Just like we do with every other scientific fact.
"Another reason why it's "not quite a race" is that race was never good science."
How true! Like sex, race is a social construct. It has no genetic component.
" Right - why should anyone care about the dramatic rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the world over the past few years."
Why don't we confine ourselves to the USA. Give me your top five "antisemetic" incidents in 2021. I have an open mind. I'll assume you'll provide me with a list USA Synagogues bombed. Or Jews shot by Neo-Nazis. IOW, actual, dangerous, antisemitism. And not just somebody painted a Swastica. Or posted a mean tweet.
We're all against racial predjudice and bigotry. And scaremongering.
https://www.adl.org/education-and-resources/resource-knowledge-base/adl-tracker-of-antisemitic-incidents?field_incident_location_state_target_id=All&page=2
Nothing to worry about. Just a few pranksters. kids will be kids.
"There were Jewish leaders and organizations trying to slow down the process, which they feared would lead to gradual disappearance of Jews through assimilation and conversion."
Well, there is quite a bit of Jewish history which illustrates in great detail what happens to them when they repeatedly ignore an express and unequivocal command of G-d not to intermarry with those around them. So it would be sensible for those Jews who are attuned to their history to be concerned about that happening.
"Give me your top five "antisemetic" incidents in 2021."
Does random violence against Orthodox Jews walking in NY count as "actual, dangerous, antisemitism"?
I am curious of what sort of anti-semitism you would consider not "dangerous".
Just want to be sure of the rules before I get down into this rabbit hole.
rcocean
Wants to see actual, dangerous antisemitism.
Okay, here are some American examples for the last several years.
2018 A mass shooting took place at the Tree of Live Or Simcha synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA. The congregation, along with New Light Congregation and Congregation Dor Hadash, which also worshipped in the building, was attacked during services. The suspect killed eleven people and wounded six.
2018 – Los Angeles synagogue attack[7] shouting anti-Jewish invective, a driver tried twice to run down Jews leaving a synagogue.
2019 On the last day of the Jewish Pasover holiday, an assailant fatally shot one woman and injured three other persons, including the synagogue's rabbi, at Chabad of Poway synagogue in Poway, CA, about 20 miles north of San Diego.
2019 – Failed plot to bomb the Temple Emanuel Synagogue in Pueblo, Colorado and poison its members. The would-be perpetrator pled guilty in 2020.
2019 Shooting at a Kosher supermarket in Jersey City, New Jersey. Two assailants killed 39-year-old Detective Joseph Seals, who had been a police officer since 2006, 33-year-old female store owner Mindy Ferencz, 49-year-old male employee Douglas Miguel Rodriguez, and 24-year-old male rabbinical student customer Moshe Deutsch. Two officers, one male and one female, were wounded in the shootout and were released from the hospital the same day. A wounded man escaped out the back door of the store.
2019 A member of a synagogue in N. Miami Beach, FL, 68, was shot in the legs, as he was unlocking the front doors of the synagogue prior to a religious service. The assailant drove up in a black Chevrolet Impala, and shot him multiple times.
2019 Five people were stabbed during Hanukkah festivities at the home of a rabbi (which was being used as a synagogue) in Monsey, New York.
2021 Attempted forced entry in a Bal Harbour synagogue by an Arab speaking man with package who began shouting praying in Arabic.
2022 Four hostages were taken at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, by a gun-wielding attacker who held them hostage for more than 10 hours, threatening to kill them.
But we all know that seeing a rise in slams on Judaism and on the state of Israel (the Jewish state should be boycotted, condemned, not defended against enemies like Iran) is where the real action of anti-semitism is. People who pay attention to the changes in culture and politics can see where the threats are without demanding that buildings be bombed and people shot before taking notice.
Okay, rcocean, here are some examples of "actual, dangerous antisemitism in the US recently.
2018 A mass shooting took place at the Tree of Live Or Simcha synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA. The congregation, along with New Light Congregation and Congregation Dor Hadash, which also worshipped in the building, was attacked during services. The suspect killed eleven people and wounded six.
2018 – Los Angeles synagogue attack[7] shouting anti-Jewish invective, a driver tried twice to run down Jews leaving a synagogue.
2019 On the last day of the Jewish Pasover holiday, an assailant fatally shot one woman and injured three other persons, including the synagogue's rabbi, at Chabad of Poway synagogue in Poway, CA, about 20 miles north of San Diego.
2019 – Failed plot to bomb the Temple Emanuel Synagogue in Pueblo, Colorado and poison its members. The would-be perpetrator pled guilty in 2020.[9]
2019 Shooting at a Kosher supermarket in Jersey City, New Jersey. Two assailants killed 39-year-old Detective Joseph Seals, who had been a police officer since 2006, 33-year-old female store owner Mindy Ferencz, 49-year-old male employee Douglas Miguel Rodriguez, and 24-year-old male rabbinical student customer Moshe Deutsch. Two officers, one male and one female, were wounded in the shootout and were released from the hospital the same day. A wounded man escaped out the back door of the store.
2019 A member of a synagogue in N. Miami Beach, FL, 68, was shot in the legs, as he was unlocking the front doors of the synagogue prior to a religious service. The assailant drove up in a black Chevrolet Impala, and shot him multiple times.
2019 Five people were stabbed during Hanukkah festivities at the home of a rabbi (which was being used as a synagogue) in Monsey, New York.
2021 Attempted forced entry in a Bal Harbour synagogue by an Arab speaking man with package who began shouting praying in Arabic.
2022 Four hostages were taken at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, by a gun-wielding attacker who held them hostage for more than 10 hours, threatening to kill them.
People who understand how culture and politics change know that a rise in antisemitism is shown by lots of slams against religious Jews and campaigns to boycott and condemn Israel, the Jewish state, or just fail to defend it against Iran, that offers realistic threats to eradicate it. They don't really need to see the rise in "actual, dangerous antisemitism" at a retail scale.
Preach it, TheOne WINO. As I said, "Who is a Jew?," and "What should Jews do?," are best left to Jews and those that identify as Jews.
Under the dispensation you describe, what percentage of the calamities, catastrophes, and pogroms in Jewish history are the result of Jews rising to the top of the most advanced societies, and liking it?
Maybe G-d was punishing them; that's not for me to say.
@ YoungHegelian says
...
The term the Nazis used that is often translated into English as "race" (Volk, as in Herrenvolk=Master Race) really is closer in meaning to "a people" than "a race" in the modern white, black, yellow, red, etc, sense. For the Nazis, the "Volk" was the engine of history and the Volk shaped the consciousness of its members
-----
I remember READING ABOUT Kant calling/REMARKING then "emerging American Nation" at the time as MONGRELS
can you explain
if Hegel trace back to that for Volk and Consciousness?
also the Volk shaped the consciousness of its members <===> origin of social construction of language?
I have heard the "no such thing as race" argument a lot over the last thirty years, and while it is based on some truths, it is not convincing. It is true that categorisation according to color increased during the age of exploration, for the simple reason that people were more aware of each other now. Also, Europeans had a desire to redefine the people they wanted to enslave to justify the practice.
I would prefer there be no categories, only individuals. But the supposed kindness of race real on Tuesday for one purpose but not real on Wednesday for another is a sham, and will serve to reward only a black elite, not African-Americans in general. It is intellectually and morally indefensible, a shell game.
Narayanan, you are definitely on to a big something. I can't recall the details on Hegel or Kant, but their contemporaries the Grimms saw language as the key to any volkish identity; probably most people did.
Is language a social construction, or does language construct societies? Maybe it's the same-same.
@Narayanan,
I remember READING ABOUT Kant calling/REMARKING then "emerging American Nation" at the time as MONGRELS...can you explain
Kant, as was much of anthropology/natural history of the time, under the influence of Comte de Buffon. Buffon posited, based on what he claimed were reports from explorers from the New World, that the environment in the New World was foul & pestilent, and it degraded not only the native inhabitants of the New World, but also any European human, plant or animal who had the misfortune to be living there. For example, Buffon said that European dogs brought to the New World forget how to bark.
One Jefferson's key aims in publishing his natural histories of the New World was to combat what he considered to be Buffon's baleful influence on how educated Europeans saw the Americas.
if Hegel trace back to that for Volk and Consciousness?
No, Hegel posits in his Philosophy of History that history is consists of epochs, and consciousness of all humanity within those epochs is shaped & constrained by the unfolding of Geist(Spirit/Mind) in history up to that point.
That Consciousness could be determined by ethnicity or national character is 19th C Scientific Racism.
also the Volk shaped the consciousness of its members <===> origin of social construction of language?
That's not Hegel, and matter of fact the big proponent of that in 18/19c European thought was Kant's biggest critic & one of the founders of Romanticism, Johann Georg Hamann, a quirky, fascinating, historically important, but understudied philosopher
21st century shibboleths:
There's no such thing as race.
Diversity is our strength.
Men can become women or vice-versa by wishing.
Ms. Althouse, I may have posted a comment about the Lia Thomas controversy in this thread by mistake. If so, please delete it. And this one, too.
Thank you.
"Jewish" has always been an ambiguous term; nonetheless, Nazis defined Jews as a race and persecuted them on that basis. Nazis certainly didn't care if you were religious or, if so, in what way, nor did they care about what culture(s) you identified with.
They cared who your parents were and, if they were Jewish then you were Jewish.
In any case, I suspect the essence of whoopi Goldberg's complaint is, essentially, "If you ain't black then you're not a victim. Jews (with very few exceptions) are not black; therefore, they cannot and could not have been victims."
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