What Blacks can learn from Jews
In honor of the illustrious career of Helen Thomas who was forced to “retire” after making comments about Israel, I am reposting this blog. This is strictly about power. Blacks are collectively slandered, figuratively and literally dragged about the political landscape, wrongfully persecuted and there is scant recourse or repercussion. Take a lesson:
1. Value education – “ A mind is a terrible thing to waste”. Remember that old United Negro College Fund slogan? Nothing has changed.
2. Learn to deal with each other –Some real value came out of the Jews ghetto experience (and pre-integration Black life). I’m not saying it was pleasant or that all Jews love each other. However, Jew on Jew violence is not of great concern, Jews patronize each others businesses and once Jews “make it” they don’t flee their neighborhoods and disparage each other like crabs in barrel.
3. We need to own our shit and should be running SOMETHING. Can you say hip-hop??? Or maybe we just need to stop selling each other out to the highest bidder.
4. Memorialize (remember) the pain of our ancestors and subsequently be reparated for past wrongdoings. I don’t know what form they (reparations) should take but we’ve been shamed into not speaking out. “Never forget” is how the Jews keep the Holocaust ever present in both their minds and ours. Yet, many pretend (or maybe have no idea) that slavery has no modern day effects. Two words – institutionalized racism.
5. Maximize our small numbers into larger collective power. The AIPAC (American pro-Israel lobby) is among the top five most powerful in the U.S. Do you have any idea how much money we give to Israel? Check it out. We need to form and/or hold accountable organizations and institutions that staunchly defend OUR interests.
6. Make it untenable, indefensible and impossible for anyone to call you nigger, nigga or any variation thereof. We know very well that if you utter anything that could be remotely construed as anti-Semitic there will be hell to pay (see Helen Thomas); and from many different quarters. You know why? Collective power. When it comes to Black people, folks are emboldened to say and do whatever they want. It’s because WE haven’t kept them in check. And, no power means no one else is (or willing) to check for OUR interests.
7. And finally, we have to learn to stand united behind broader ideas such as those expressed herein. You probably don’t agree with everything I’ve said or maybe just the way I’ve said it. Nevertheless, petty differences have distracted us from the big picture for far too long. Orthodox, Conservative or Reform, most Jews agree that the unjust persecution of Jews is not to be tolerated.
Don’t hate – emulate.
4 Responses to “What Blacks can learn from Jews”
Leave a Reply
A sense of cohesion?? We do need that but exactly how does that come about? To some, yes it may be a pipe dream to think that those of us of African descent can come to some type of collective about anything, is as far flung as putting a man on the moon!! So I guess, yes it can be done. As a matter of fact it is being done. Maybe not on the large scale of which we would like but in small pockets there exists every bit of cohesion in the African American community as it is in other communities. It’s called family, it’s called churches and other religious organizations, it’s called fraternities and sororities, it’s any organization that unites for the purpose of advancing a noble cause.
We can not focus exclusively on the negatives and not even acknowledge the positives. Sure we have a long way to go, but we were the ones that had the most ground to make up. According to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education there are more blacks percentage wise graduating from college than there has ever been.
The question then becomes how do the Jews do the amazing job of cohesiveness when they face “some” of the same discriminatory practices that we have experienced. A good book to read would be “The Jewish Phenomenon” by Steven Silbiger. He lays it out in eye opening detail why the Jewish people have accumulated and maintained enduring wealth in the midst of prejudice and discrimination. With out giving away the book, the first key is education. I like how it was presented in the book as being “portable”. When the Jews fled Europe they brought certain skills for which America was willing to compensate them for. So now the Jewish people make up 2% of the US population but comprise 40% of the Forbes 400 richest people. Clearly they have done something right. It begins with, I believe, however dire the situation might seem we must never lose hope that we, individually as well as collectively can make a difference even if we don’t see necessarily, tangible results. We have to be able and willing to make the impact wherever we can. No matter how small or insignificant we feel about our contribution. If we all feel that we, we go no where. You change the world, by changing one. Despise not the day of small beginnings.
Your comments are right on point Nashieqa. If Dr. King and Abraham Joshua Heschel could come together for a common cause during the 1960′s, you would think that more African American and Jewish brothers and sisters could come together now. The one thing about our Jewish brothers and sisters is that they have deep knowledge of their history and culture and at the same time aren’t afraid to express it and never let people forget even if it upsets people. As African Americans, we have lost that sense of togetherness and unity and could learn from Jewish people. Along with black folks owning hip hip, how about Jazz as well along with B.E.T., provided that African American is NOT like Bob Johnson, LOL.
Well, we might be actually learning the extraordinary accomplishments of Black people first but following you lead i will note four additional things we can learn from jews:
1. Jews had a significant role in the transatlantic slave trade. See “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews.”
2. Post WWII Jews benefited from govt. programs that blacks were systematically denied. See “How Jews Became Black Folks” by Karen Brodkin.
3. The NAACP was Jewish controlled up until the 1980s. Long Jewish president of the NAACP, Joel Spingarn, doubled as an agent for US intelligence. Spingarn spied of black people in the service of white power.
4. Jewish-Black relations have historically been exploitive.
Nash, interesting blog here. It’s my first time clicking through, and I will read more later. I’m Jewish, so I thought I’d check out this post in particular, and I feel obligated to respond to kwame’s post above.
Kwame,
What most of the Jews I know learned from things like the pogroms and the holocaust is just how terrible this kind of racist discrimination is, and that we should fight against it. We wouldn’t ever want that to happen to us, and we know that no one else would want it to happen to them either, so we have a bit more motivation than your average American to oppose “random” screenings at airports, police racial profiling, the illegal arrest and detainment of brown American “terror suspects” against whom there is no evidence, and generally all forms of racial discrimination.
However, most of the Jews I know also have that one old relative from New York who somehow didn’t get the message that racism is not a good thing. This is the guy who doesn’t like black people because a black guy robbed his jewelry store 60 years ago, and doesn’t like Arabs because Glen Beck told him that they all want Israel to be destroyed. Somehow, this guy’s just too old and thick-headed to understand the lessons he should have learned from history, and thinks that as long as racism appears to support his gains in the short run, it’s A-OK.
From your post above, it I feel you’re a lot like that old guy from NY. Do you not realize that you are propagating racism by using misleading and biased information? See my point-by-point below:
1. “Jews had a significant role in the transatlantic slave trade…” Imagine a documentary that recorded only the rape of Catholic girls by black men. Most black men don’t rape Catholic girls, and most Catholic girls who are raped aren’t raped by black men. Nonetheless, I’m sure this book could have hundreds of true examples. What might Catholic girls feel after reading such a book?
2. “Post WWII Jews benefited from govt. programs…” Could there be any people besides Jews who have benefited from govt. programs? Historically blacks have been denied a lot of things in the U.S. Is that because of some Jewish conspiracy, or because this country is back-asswards?
3. “The NAACP was Jewish controlled up until the 1980s. Long Jewish president of the NAACP, Joel Spingarn, doubled as an agent for US intelligence. Spingarn spied of black people in the service of white power.” Is there a possibility that Jewish membership (and founding) of the NAACP is because many Jews feel the need to advance minority voices, for the reasons I mentioned above? “About 50 percent of the civil rights attorneys in the South during the 1960s were Jews, as were over 50 percent of the Whites who went to Mississippi in 1964 to challenge Jim Crow Laws.” See http://www.pbs.org/itvs/fromswastikatojimcrow/relations.html Presuming that Joel Spingarn was a CIA operative, does this he was spying on the NAACP for “white power”? If you weren’t aware, “white power” doesn’t tend to be a fan of Jews either. The president of my university’s Vietnamese student union was white. Do you think he was a spy?
4. “Jewish-Black relations have historically been exploitive.” Christian-Black relations have historically been exploitative. Black-Black relations have historically been exploitative. Mentioning only one exploiter out of context sounds bigoted.