Reddit reviews How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America
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Used Book in Good Condition
Yeah it happened in the
70's. I read a whole sociological study on it.Edit: I went ahead and found where I had read it, but it started post WWII, when america became "Sub-urbanized". Basically they got access to the same housing benefits as whites and started living around white people, until they were considered white. https://www.amazon.com/Became-White-Folks-About-America/dp/081352590X
How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America
How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America
Most of the Jews who moved initially were not wealthy or well off; and, why would their wealth matter?
Your assertion that Jews are "Westerners" is an idea that has only developed in America after the formation of Israel. (See: How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America) For the extreme majority of Jewish history, no one considered Jews to be "Western".
Further: you cannot "colonize" your homeland. Would you consider the displacement of the existing Jewish inhabitants of settlements by incoming descendants of Palestinians who became refugees in 1948 "colonization"? Likely not - because you consider them native and that they have a right to live there.
How long does it take for an ethnically cleansed native people to stop being "native"? A century? A millennia? What if that people maintained their national identity and refused to forget the homeland they lost?
All peoples have the right to self-determination. Article 1 in both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) reads: "All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development."(See: the Wikipedia article on Self-Determination) We have a human right to exercise our national self-determination, and as a people forced into extensive diaspora, we chose to exercise that right by reestablishing ourselves in our homeland.
The violent displacement of local Palestinians was a tragedy. I wish it could have been avoided. But as I noted in another thread that blame cannot be laid at our feet.
Many of us rejected the formation of an independent Jewish nation-state and tried to live with Palestinians in a single binational state; those anti-Zionist Arabized Jews of Hebron were massacred in 1920. That turned the political tide. So we agreed to split the land, since they refused to share what we both had a claim to; Palestinians and their many Arab-state allies violently rejected that, too.
If either the Hebron Massacre or the 1948 Arab War had not noccurred, then the Nakba would not have occurred. Note that Israel still has a 20% Arab minority. Note that most of those Arabs are the descendants of Palestinians who refused to leave in 1948. They have full rights as citizens and serve at the highest positions of government. If there had been no war, most of the 1948 refugees would not have fled the war.
Palestinian Arabs attacked Jews in the 1800s and 1900s for many reasons. Their leader during the Hebron Massacre was an outright antisemite and Nazi collaborator, for example. But blaming Jews for being massacred simply because they had the audacity to exercise their human right to live their is crass victim blaming.
That is why you cannot lay the blame of the Nakba at our feet: Jews had a right to live there in peace; Palestinians and other Arabs refused to live in peace with us; blaming the victims of racist aggression is immoral.
And further - I see you're a cultural Hindu. What are your thoughts on the Partition of India and Paksitan? Fourteen million people were violently displaced as part of Partition. That's ten times the number of people displaced as part of Israel's founding. Yes, seven hundred thousand Palestinians were displaced in the Nakba. Seven hundred thousand Jews were displaced from surrounding Arab states as well, both before 1948 and after.
Was the Partition of India and Pakistan invalid? Was it ten times as invalid?
To be fair, Jews weren't considered white until relatively recently.
This is an interesting book on the subject: https://www.amazon.com/Became-White-Folks-About-America/dp/081352590X
> Asians and whites on the whole stress education as a means to achieving financial success. That's all it comes down to.
If a minority works hard and thrive in America (becoming a "model minority"), they eventually become at least partially assimilated into American whiteness (becoming "privileged").
Economic and financial success is what made light-skinned Jews "white" in America. Check out How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America by Prof. Brodkin for an in-depth explanation. This "whitening" of Jewish-Americans wasn't complete: white supremacists see Jews are a perpetual and insidious Other (see Prof. Brodkins' more recent thoughts in How Jews Became White Folks — and May Become Nonwhite Under Trump; see also here), but it did happen to some degree.
That same process of (at least partial) whitening because of education and economic success is happening to Asian-Americans now, too. See here and here. It's even being talked about in The Atlantic: The ‘Whitening’ of Asian Americans.
I think I was clear that my opinion was a reflection of my experience as a Black American. I would also like to point the out the title of the thread:It is frustrating to hear people in America blame their failure to succeed on their race/ethnicity/skin color.
I'm not really in the position to speak on European Colonialism and how it has affected West Africa and the Caribbean. I also am not really in the position to talk about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, if that's what you mean by Jews.
I would like to point you to a book titled How Jews Became White Folks if you were more interested in Jews in the US.
> Did you mean Ali doesn't like gefilte fish, or Ali dwells a little bit too much on "appropriation" of cuisine
Appropriation of cuisine. He's proposing a clear cut moral restriction against Jews eating Arabic food because of Jewish ancestry.
> We still have mansaf, and that can never be taken
Don't be so sure. Lots of Israeli restaurants here serve it as Israeli food.
> Jon Stewart though?
Yes. He's made fun of some Israeli policies much like he was other countries. Nothing outside his norm.
> If you have anything I could read [on Mondoweiss writers]
Nope. Just formed an opinion reading them. Some I've met IRL.
> The nuts that are burning and shooting up synagogues aren't leftists, they're alt-right.
I see the depth as more dangerous. My feeling is antisemitic attacks are little different than other random shootings in the USA.
> We're white. Until you know our names.
There is a famous book on this: https://www.amazon.com/Became-White-Folks-About-America/dp/081352590X
> I don't think it's about a "win-lose" deal. I'll be honest and say my ideal solution looks exactly like a Rick & Morty punchline. Smoke it out and get along
We've agreed on that one before. Don't do permanent damage, solve the smaller problems.
Best response in the thread, imo. I had to read this book in college and it was really eye-opening.
My partner views themselves as white even though they were born in Israel and come from a sephardic background because their only American experiences are in liberal San Francisco. Which is fine, b/c "white" is a meaningless/useless label.
However, I grew up in Texas and my experience is very different. So, when the white nationalist uprisings started during the election and whatnot I had to explain to them that many people in America don't consider Jews to be white—it made them so angry and they didn't believe me until that whole disaster in Charlottesville.
In the US Jews weren't really considered white until the 1970s. There's a book that came out a while back called How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America that discusses this topic in detail.
> Speaking as a 'Jew' in the racial lineage sense, and not the religious sense, the issue around race is contentious.
Are you saying that ethnic groups are races? And that therefore somehow to speak of a Jewish ethnic group makes me a racist? But magically it is OK to talk about the Palestinian ethnic group and to talk of the Hispanic ethnic category.
Jews are not a race, race is a social construct and generally used to describe others. Jews are an ethnic group. Oh, and it was not all that long ago when Jews were not considered white. We can talk about the socially constructed races if you want as long as we recognize that the social constructed does not mean unreal.
>Blood lineage is a real concern in some quarters,
That is pretty vague. What corners? You make an accusation like this back it up.
>To pretend this is not a thing among certain Jews is to be intellectually dishonest.
Certain Jews? I'll admit that there is at least one Jew who holds that view. Can we now hate all Jews?
>There has been considerable stigma in Israel about one's lineage
Oh, I get it. You have one standard to condemn Jews and a different standard for others. Let me guess: Arabs can't be racist. Is that it?
BTW, Palestinian is entirely defined by lineage, entirely. It is impossible to convert, to join, to become one over time. Are you prepared to attack that racism? Or do you concentrate on saying why Jews are wrong?
>it's not unheard of in the past for this issue to result in different treatment for those from different heritages.
Yeah, big whoop. Jews are not perfect. It is a good thing your society is perfect, right?
>t's insufferable to watch genuine concerns about, say, Israeli Governmental Policy regarding how a roadblock should be manned correctly, based on the number of Palestinian women who can't get to a hospital through them while in labor, be diverted into matters of the Holocaust.
You started at a race. So OK, roadblocks. Given that Fatah has strapped explosives to women so they would look pregnant until they blow themselves up in a crowd whom do you blame for that roadblock? It is acceptable to you that Jews protect themselves from suicide bombers or should they always assume that this time there is no bomb?
No, they aren't.
I am a white person. That is my race, but that is not my ethnicity. My ethnicity is a mix of variety ethnicities, primarily Portuguese and Irish.
Race is a social construct, so it changes based on society's decision about who belongs to which race, (and which race is favored over another). Black and white are races, not ethnicities.
That's why we have books entitled "How Jews Became White Folks" and "How The Irish Became White," but we don't have books entitled "How The Irish Became Irish." That's because ethnicity is unchangeable - no one needs to know how an Irish person became Irish - while race is malleable.
Most Jewish people have been considered white by Americans for decades. Here's a good read about the shift in perceptions: http://www.amazon.com/Became-White-Folks-About-America/dp/081352590X
There is a whole book about it:
https://www.amazon.com/Became-White-Folks-About-America/dp/081352590X
Again, what evidence are you presenting?
Right on. See this book.
You make an important point about distinguishing between 'white' and 'jewish.' But, here's an article that discusses that concept:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/are-jews-white/509453/
There's also a book about the disappearing lines between the two groups:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/081352590X
Historically, the Irish, Italians, and others, like the Jews, were not considered 'white' in the US but eventually, due to various sociocultural and economic factors came to be included under the standard of 'white.' The problem isn't that people are white but what some people who identify as white do with that identity. Aaron Schlossberg is important, because his 'white privilege' is evident even in how he treats other Jews (with whom he disagrees).
See more on his various public rants:
https://heavy.com/news/2018/05/aaron-schlossberg/
Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, etc are free to believe what they will, but to identify oneself based not on one's actions or words, but rather how one looks (skin color, gender, body type/shape, etc) can be problematic since such things aren't controllable (yes, there are instances where they are but that doesn't mean that in all instances they are).
Schlossberg might have a Jewish name and claim to be Jewish but he doesn't appear to be following the Talmud or Torah. Whatever Mr. Whitey Kentucky is following must be the cult philosophy of white: I am white therefore I am great (i.e. uncontrollable factors such as to whom one will be born make him great) and at the same time that P.OC. are not equal to him.
I'm not sure where you are getting the numbers for 95% control of trade and 60% of the slaves. These ideas seem to come from anti-Jewish rhetoric, not facts (although a fairly liberal site, useful facts):
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-labour-s-latest-blaming-jews-for-slave-trade-1.5390569
It appears the facts that you note regarding Jews are drawn from a 1994 academic study that has proven to be quite flawed:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1995/09/slavery-and-the-jews/376462/
Here, the reviewer (Winthrop Jordan) of that flawed study, the reviewer being a famed professor and scholar of slavery and black American history, debunks all those myths.
In any case, thank you for the support. I do appreciate it, but I would like to emphasize that only those who have done wrong (or benefit from wrongs) should be held responsible (insofar as they are guilty). Everyone has done something wrong somewhere; it's not about being perfect, but rather about accepting responsibility instead of shirking it for self-perceived superiority.
A source
"Jewish whiteness became American whiteness after WWII."
[Not until recently though] (https://www.amazon.com/Became-White-Folks-About-America/dp/081352590X)
It's a pretty recent advent that Jews are considered white: http://www.amazon.com/Became-White-Folks-About-America/dp/081352590X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417044202&sr=8-1&keywords=how+jews+became+white+people
The Irish weren't considered White for quite a while either.
https://www.amazon.com/Became-White-Folks-About-America/dp/081352590X
>Irish, Italian, or Jewish
All of whom went through an extended period of not being considered white.
>separate race
"Race" is a concept that doesn't exist. Jews are a panethnic ethnoreligious nation, and are typically not considered to be white.
Here's a very interesting book on the topic: How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America