My father’s side of the family is Jewish. He was the only atheist in his family and I was raised Methodist but am proud of my mixed heritage.
Up here in rural New England, I’ve seen my fair share of antisemitism, most of it “jokingly.” Before I met my current wife my circle of friends were mostly locals about my age. Once someone thought to ask about my last name, the jokes started in. Our humor was pretty blue across the board and I’m not easily offended so I didn’t call them out, (“I’m just joking,” the alt-right’s joking not joking defense would have been rolled out), but I marked them all as closet bigots at that point and moved on from them not long after.
While waiting tables I had a line chef crack jokes about my last name saying it meant soap in German (it doesn’t) and working in something about lampshades. I told him if he kept it up I’d stab him too (I’d earned the respect of the head chef by threatening to jump over then counter and stab him in the fucking eye) and he shut up. I left that shit hole of a job shortly thereafter. (And no, I wouldn’t have stabbed either of them but I did have a scary temper in those days so they weren’t taking any chances.)
My first wife told me shortly before our divorce that she was glad to be getting rid of my Jewish last name because she was tired of people thinking she was Jewish. ‘Said she got lots of antisemetic cracks but it was clear she was an anti-Semite herself so Fuck her too.
My wife today, like me, is proud of my heritage and in the circles we travel when someone asks if we’re Jewish it’s always in a positive light.
IMHO, it’s more horrifying now. When political ads from a major party which is in power in most states are openly anti-semitic, it has gotten a lot worse than it has ever been in my lifetime in the USA.
Part of it is that Jews have learned through painful historical experiences to belt up. It may not be easy to “hide” your Jewish-ness if your last name is Weinstein or if you are Orthodox but the Reform Jew whose last name is innocuous generally does not flaunt their religion in many parts of the south or midwest. They may live next door and you might never know. They may even put up Christmas decorations just to fit in. That may sound sad but it is a protection mechanism to not deal with the inherent prejudices that all too often manifest themselves once it is revealed that a person is Jewish.
I guess so, but it’s also a thing where people don’t overtly say shit about Jews.
Trust me, they’re more than happy to tell you how they feel about gays, blacks or Hispanics, but I’ve never heard anyone seriously say anything negative about Jewish people. Like ever. And I’ve had this forced conversation probably a hundred times with other groups. If you’re a white male in Iowa, at some point some racist fuck will assume you’re in on the whole “we’re all really racist, but just pretend otherwise, but in private we let it all out,” idea that they all seem to ascribe to. I’ve never had that conversation with someone who really hated Jews.
Growing up in Eastern TN, I witnessed some pretty gnarly anti-Jewish sentiment in high school/my college years while back in the area. Most of it more in the form of grotesque stereotypes and mockery than outright “kill them k—s” kinda shit, but people didn’t even reveal a lick of shame over that.
Growing up in rural Minnesota, there were no Jews. And no one that was black until I was into high school when iirc a younger girl was adopted, there might’ve been Hispanic but if so they don’t stand out in my mind, one Korean girl a year older than me who’d been adopted, at least one Native American who joined my class in high school, but no Irish or Italians that I can recall. It was mostly Norwegians and Swedes but screw all Swedes because of they way a bunch of them got drunk and messed up the local US Centennial celebration back in 1876.
I remember the high school principal, who also worked as a Jr high Social Studies teacher and a football coach (that’s how small rural schools operate - everyone is coach sooner or later), while talking about racism citing the term “trying to Jew someone down” as being a racist term. Stuck out in my mind because I’d never heard anyone use the term before.
Hah, sounds like you were in the same ballpark as my Eastern TN county. We eventually had three black kids in the high school when I was growing up (though one a year below me); two are dead now, so that’s not great odds. After the Mexican kid, Guillermo, flunked out, I was the only even partial Hispanic in the class that I’m aware of. One Asian girl, whose parents operated the local Thai place, because of course. Lots of kids who could elaborately explain their 1/16th Native American (well, to them, Indian) heritage traced back to a local Cherokee princess who never seemed to have a name, but that’s just Appalachia for ya.
But then the one Jewish kid, and the one guy who, I dunno, had like a Jewish aunt or something? The nicknames were. . . not kind :-/
By contrast, my high school was 80% minority not counting Jewish kids who were just lumped in under the general heading of white. My soccer team senior year had a 24 man roster with 16 different nationalities represented. The congregation at my church was similarly diverse.
I definitely did not take this diversity for granted growing up — I knew it was something special at the time. The lack of diversity when I moved to New England has pained me and is one of the few things I dislike about where I live.
I grew up and live in an area so lacking in diversity that every time our one and only known black DJ spoke on the radio, someone, fellow high schooler, would say he must be gay. I said no, he’s black. Now it turns out he could have been… but no he’s not. He’s still here, has a family. He just has a good and unique voice, like most DJs. And yes, I don’t just mean radio personality, he has done DJ work in addition to his radio time.
Nephew #2, by age, is very fortunate not only to live in a really good school district but it’s very diverse. I think there is a large Indian population, a notable Jewish population. I’m excited for him.
I put my son in an international baccalaureate intermediate school for precisely this reason. He is grown now and I do not believe he has any prejudices due to race, gender, religion, etc. By exposing him to cultural differences, he not only learned to accept them but embrace them in many cases. He disliked his High School in part because it was too homogeneous.
In eastern Dublin, CA, white people are the minority. It’s mostly Asians - Chinese and Indians. My son is in kindergarten and I think there are only one or two black kids. The schools are excellent, which of course begs the question - are they “excellent” because of the teachers or because Chinese and Indian kids are more likely to work than the white kids?
