| . . . . Although I respectfully recognize a distinct Jewish
identity and culture, I also recognize that Jews are an
important part of the more general social construction of
whiteness. The dialogue between Cornel West and
Michael Lerner raises and illustrates similar issues. As
West says, "Even amidst anti- Semitism, the anti-Black
situation confers white-skin privilege on Jews." In
responding to this claim, Lerner argues that "by
calling Jews 'white,' Blacks are in effect denying [the
Jewish] history of oppression." This social construct
places Jews among the beneficiaries of European imperialism.
Yet far from benefiting, Lerner responds, "Jews have
been the primary 'Other,' have been socially and legally
discriminated against, have been the subject of racism and
genocide, and in those terms Jews are not white."
Outside of the United States, particularly in Europe,
Lerner's point is compelling. It transports less well to the
United States, however. Although Jews experienced
significant episodes of discrimination and exclusion, they
have not been subjected to the experience and legacy of
slavery or genocide, and they have not been the primary
"Other." Overt discrimination against Jews in the
United States subsided after World War II, in part because
of the abhorrence the nation expressed to Hitler's
anti-Semitism and murderous treatment of Jews.
I do not seek to belittle Jewish oppression. Clearly,
there has been quite reprehensible past discrimination
against Jews. Nor do I discount anti-Semitic sentiments that
still persist in America. I argue, though, that Jews in
America have sought and largely attained white-skin
privilege, a privilege that advantageously sets the stage
for their continued success and achievement as individuals.
The stage set for black success and achievement lacks these
associated props of privilege that Jews, as with most other
whites, often take for granted as neutral and universally
available to all, regardless of nonwhite color or history of
racist oppression.
Admittedly, the attainment of white-skin color privilege
by Jews has not only involved overcoming difficult barriers
of anti-Semitism, but has come at substantial psychic costs
and loss of identity. As Lerner points out, Jewish whiteness
"is the privilege to renounce one's Judaism. By and
large the way to get into this system is to take off your
kippah, cut off your beard, hide your fringes; in other
words, to reject your entire cultural and religious
humanity." I seek to empathize, here, as my previous
discussion of the sociological passing of blacks should
indicate. Nonetheless, the Jewish option to be white,
however difficult, has been exercised widely. It has been
the way to access mainstream opportunities, status, and
material rewards. I do not deprecate attaining that access.
Within the system of merit, as Farber and Sherry indicate,
Jews have outperformed other whites. I do not argue that
this access is simply a function of unjust power-holding.
Indeed, as an integration warrior, I function and am
rewarded for having attained that same access. But I will
not willingly serve to legitimate or apologize for that
system's unfairness and exclusionary features. I will not
legitimate my own race's oppression and subordination, and I
have little respect for those who do.
In an extensive examination of black-Jewish conflict,
Jonathan Kaufman reviewed the success of Jews during
the 1980s, the Reagan years. He observes that in Jewish
homes and around their dinner tables, conversations still
concerned the discrimination that plagued their parents from
the 1930s through much of the 1960s. Beyond the
discrimination of memory, however, Jews were making enormous
strides by any objective measure: "At one point in the
1980s, the Dean of every Ivy League Law School was
Jewish. In the 1990s the presidents of Harvard, Yale,
Princeton, and Dartmouth were Jews. When President
Bill Clinton nominated his first two judges to the Supreme
Court, both were Jews. No one even remarked on
it." As the 1990s began, over fifty percent of
Jewish men were college graduates, compared to twenty
percent of the general population. In 1970, the
average family income of Jews was 172 percent of the average
American family income, and recent income data reveal that
Jewish family income continues to be well above that of
Gentile families. In the early 1990s, Jews
"were turning more and more outward--through
intermarriage, success at universities, better jobs in
business and government." This outward turn
generally embraces white privilege, often at the expense of
discounting that which impedes success for those who are not
white.
My allegedly anti-Semitic scholarship is not directed
toward Jews. Rather, it is part of the critical
project to uproot what Cheryl Harris calls "the
property interest in whiteness," an interest that
builds on the advantage of white privilege and white
supremacy. This may coincidentally involve Jews, but
only because the white privilege that Jews have come to
enjoy is racialized privilege and status that allow
"expectations that originated in injustice to be
naturalized and legitimated." That Jews stood
outside of that privilege at one time does not place them
apart from other white people whose benefits stem from its
legacy, especially if Jews mute their historically
oppositional voice. Like individualism and
colorblindness, universal notions of merit serve as an
important reinforcement of white privilege. To the
degree that law and society incorporate this universalism,
as Harris argues, it masks as natural what is chosen;
it obscures the consequences of social selection as
inevitable. The result is that inequities in social
relations are immunized from truly effective intervention,
because they are obscured and rendered nearly
invisible. The existing state of affairs is considered
neutral and fair, however unequal and unjust it is in
substance.
At bottom, my alleged anti-Semitism apparently boils down
to linking Jews to white people and thereby implicating them
in their support of establishment, status-quo
arrangements. These arrangements are in turn tied to
the power that whites generally hold, and the
domination they generally exercise, over most colored
people. In Farber and Sherry's view, my anti-Semitic
expression is the failure to remove Jews from their
enlistment and complicity in perpetuating the oppressive
features of white supremacy. I, of course, would also
place blacks like Clarence Thomas and Proposition-209
supporter Ward Connerly in the same enlistment and
complicity.
Their friendly fire notwithstanding, Farber and Sherry
purport to be liberals who are genuinely concerned about
constructive dialogue. Beyond responding to their
views, I do think that a conversation about multicultural
ideals might open the possibility that successful people of
all kinds might re-think the oppressive features of business
as usual and seek alternatives that represent, instead, the
features of a just society. Part III concludes these
notes by opening that conversation. |
