Schlepping toward the Ballot Box?
by Guest Contributor Matthew Egan
*Warning: Explicit Language*
(Sarah Silverman’s video for the Great Schlep)
There’s a thing you might have heard about, The Great Schlep.
Behind it is an organization called Jews Vote. Looking at their bios at Jewsvote.org, they look like pretty great guys. One’s the son of a partisan. There’s a video with Sarah Silverman (see above). If you’ve heard of the project, it was probably from a link to the video.
I like Sarah Silverman.
Sometimes, she fails at what she’s trying to do, and sometimes I think that she needs to put a little more thought into it, but mostly I think a lot of the criticism she gets in undeserved. She does obnoxious, self-absorbed characters you’re not supposed to like. I can understand that it can be hard to get into, but the joke is consistently about herself. On her most infamous joke, I agree with Kate Rigg. The character Silverman portrays doesn’t understand that the word ‘chink’ is still racist even in the context is ‘I love chinks,’ but I don’t think it would be a joke unless both Silverman and the audience both understood otherwise. She wouldn’t have written it if it weren’t about that juxtaposition. I say that mostly to point out that I’ll give Silverman more room than most Racialicious readers would.
However, I have a bit of a problem with her video for The Great Schlep. Not with the goals of getting people to vote for Obama or visit their grandparents. Please, do vote for Obama. And visit your grandparents. I can tell you most Jews are soundly behind those goals. Looking at my own family, my grandfather certainly would have voted for Obama. My grandmother, who said a few racist things in her day, I think would have voted for Obama. My mother and uncle (both in their 60s) will be voting for Obama. I asked my aunt about the campaing, and she started ranting about Palin. And the elderly Jews I know here in New York will all be voting for Obama.
But, when the Silverman video is offered for a general (not exclusively Jewish) audience, which I’ve certainly seen a lot, I feel a need to interrogate it further. As Jackie Mason (who’s rarely the voice of sanity) pointed out, you shouldn’t really threaten to withhold your love from your grandparents to force them to vote the way you want, but to me that’s Sarah being Silverman. She also puts up an image of a large nose to illustrate the word “Jew.” But when she says the Jewish grandparents won’t vote for Barack Obama because he has a scary name that sounds Muslim, that strikes me as more genuine. Isn’t that the point of the entire Great Schlep project? If that’s not the motivation, then why the video at all? And though I don’t think the Jewish nose is meant to racialize Jews, is it perhaps meant to remind us of antisemitism? Well, according to Jewsvote.org:
Everyone knows that Jews vote. By some estimates, 80% of Jews are registered to vote. Among registered voters, Jews tend to vote at twice the rate of the typical voter. In certain swing states, Jewish votes can make a significant difference between victory and defeat.
In presidential elections, when choosing between a more progressive candidate and a more conservative candidate, Jews overwhelmingly choose the more progressive candidate. Between 1924 and 2004, Jews have given their vote to the more progressive candidates at an average rate of 76 percent. In fact, none of the more conservative candidates has ever mustered more than 40 percent of the Jewish vote, while more than half received less than 20 percent. But do Jews really make a significant difference between victory and defeat?
Given this history, why is Barack Obama hovering at 60 percent of the Jewish vote, according to three separate polls? Is this all the product of a highly effective rumor campaign, spread through Jewish networks often by well-meaning individuals concerned that they information they received was true? Or is there something more?
I think that confirms me suspicions that this well-meaning project is based on some distorted ideas.
It seems born under duress. There’s been, as usual, a lot of focus on the Jewish vote during this campaign season. Some terrible, some merely bad. I’ve asked a few people about it, and I’ve been disappointed to hear that some people actually think Jews will vote for McCain. It seems the project aims to prove that Jews will vote for Obama, but it’s like when someone says Obama isn’t a Muslim – I don’t want the conversation ending there.
Some of those facts from Jewsvote are, to the best of my knowledge, reasonable. I don’t know how much more likely Jews are to vote, but I think we do, for various reasons, tend to participate in civic duties like voting in high numbers. And there are many more Jews in Florida than Omaha (though I have no idea what other swing states they might be thinking of). But have Jews ever made the difference between victory and defeat. Jewish votes don’t count less than anyone else’s (butterfly ballots excepted, though an information campaign can’t do anything about that), but I think that’s pushing things a little too far.
There is, of course, a long history of antisemitism that imagines Jews as controlling the countries in which we live. Recently, when SNL did a skit depicting George Soros as “owner” of the Democratic party that pissed a lot of people off. (That image with the flags is genuine Nazi propaganda.) Or, to quote from a more rabid antisemite:
Throughout the centuries, Jewish bankers bought for themselves some real reputations of backers and financers of wars [2] and even one communist revolution [3]. Though rich Jews had been happily financing wars using their assets, Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States, found a far more sophisticated way to finance the wars perpetrated by his ideological brothers Libby and Wolfowitz.
When I’ve talked to people who try to convince me that Jews really do have outsized power, they often point to Florida’s Jews. It’s not a careful study of Florida politics, but the “every stereotype has a grain of truth” school of logic. It ignores the rest of Florida and the rest of the nation. Even though Jews might be especially likely to vote, and we might be concentrated in just a few places, there still just aren’t that many of us, only about 6 million Jews total in the US. Further, Jewish citizens of America are treated as a special interest group rather than as Americans. Jewish voting is not seen as an exercise in democracy, but as a lever of Jewish control.
It’s also true, as Jewsvote notes, that we tend toward left/liberal politics, so Democrats since FDR have been able to rely on the Jewish vote. (Of course, if our vote is so reliable, it’s hard to imagine how we ’swing’ any vote.) And it is true that Obama’s support among Jews this year is less than Democrats could count on in the past. But when Hillary Clinton was still in the race, she wasn’t doing too much better. Polls pitting each candidate against McCain showed that 61% of Jewish voters would vote for Obama while Clinton could have counted on 66%.
So instead of asking what is it about Obama that makes Jews less likely to vote for him, it seems that we ought to ask what it is about McCain that makes Jews more likely to vote for him.
That seems obvious to me. It’s the same reason so many Republicans threatened to abstain from voting if McCain was the nominee: he’s not from the evangelical wing of the Republican party. His conservatism is mainly about economic matters. While that doesn’t mesh well with what most Jews consider to be Jewish values, it’s nowhere near as scary as the evangelical dogwhistles of Bush’s campaigning. McCain is from a school of individual liberty conservatism that’s completely at odds with the fundamentalist and evangelical segments of the right-wing. Though Palin is trying especially hard to undermine that trust, there are real reasons most Jews don’t view McCain the same way we view other Republicans. In fact, during the time when the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bills were a hot topic, most Americans had a similar view of McCain.
So let’s something straight. I haven’t seen any indication that elderly Jews are less likely to vote for Obama than elderly non-Jews. I can believe that elderly people of every racial and ethnic group might be less likely to vote for Obama.
Unsurprisingly, there exist elderly Jews, but why focus on Jews?
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Jay wrote:
There’s a strong undercurrent of pro-Republican sentiment in our local Jewish community at the moment. I think there are several causes – one is our very popular Congressman, who is a Republican and who routinely carries our district by a very wide margin. I’m also aware, though, that a number of my friends and neighbors started watching Fox News during the Lebanon war a few years ago because they felt CNN was anti-Israeli, and the same group is indeed worried about what Obama. I don’t think it’s fear that he’s Muslim, but more generally fear that he’s too pacifist and would negotiate with factions that my neighbors would prefer to see bombed. I think Clinton was more acceptable to them because they saw her as more hawkish overall.
I agree, though, that McCain is more palatable than, say, Huckabee would have been because he’s not an evangelical. And, for the record, my grandparents, were they alive and still voting in Florida, would have voted for Obama, and the current Jewish grandmother in our family (my mother) will certainly vote for him. She lives in New York, but still.
Posted 22 Oct 2008 at 7:31 am ¶
Jess wrote:
I think focusing on Jews as another interest group is little different from the focus on Irish Catholics in Boston.
Some of it comes from the fact that in New York, the Jewish voters are far more important than anywhere else. Same in places like Chicago or LA, I suppose.
But in places where we move, I can’t see any candidate who has half a brain saying “well, it doesn’t matter” — especially if said Jewish people change the demographics of the county or state I am focused on.
For example, if I am campaigning in Florida, and say, Charlotte County went from being a small population of 50,000 to 100,000 and 10,000 of that increase is Jewish retirees from New York and Chicago, then damn right I am going to be all over that. I’d fire my campaign manager if he wasn’t.
Now, that said, given Jewish voting patterns, were I a conservative GOP candidate I’d want to make sure that I minimized the losses in that group, if I don’t win. The same applies in reverse — Obama is never going to win the white vote in Mississippi, but if he were to get 20% of them to vote for him then he wins the state. It isn’t always about “winning” the vote of a particular demographic. (BTW, it doesn’t look like Obama will do that well with white Mississippians, though he outperforms Kerry).
WIth all that said, there are issues on which Jews generally have voted for more conservative candidates. Israel is one. While it is not true that Jews are single-issue voters to the degree the Cuban population is, it is true that there is a sizeable chunk of the population that uses a candidate’s positions on the US alliance with Israel as a litmus test. Let’s say it’s 10%. In New York, where Jews make up 12% of the population, that’s a point in the polls that in a close election, no candidate can afford to concede.
In “swing states” such as Florida, a close vote can make all the difference. So if I am McCain, I want to see if I can peel off a few percentage points there. If I am seen as strong on national security issues (with the attendant meme that I am a friend of Israel) I can snag a few points and maybe get myself over the top to win the state.
That’s why every candidate makes a pilgrimage to AIPAC. It’s not that they think the Jews control the vote or are doing some Protocols of the Elders of Zion thing. It’s plain old politics, knowing that the Jewish vote does happen to be in some important places, and has a relatively cohesive pattern.
But this logic applies to any subgroup of voters. I think a lot of people don’t realize how sophisticated candidate marketing is. Both Obama and McCain have huge voter files, sometimes with data reflecting individual blocks. While Sarah Silverman may think the Jewish vote makes a difference, the candidates sure as hell aren’t approaching it that simplistically. They’re a lot smarter about it.
Now, there’s the whole other issue of Jewish voting seen as a lever of Jewish control, or the bit about Jews controlling the world via bankers et cetera. Honestly, I don’t think this is a huge factor in the candidate’s thinking, and while anti-semitism is alive and well, it isn’t something that dominates politics in many parts of the country the way it did in say, 1960, when being Catholic was a major issue.
Of course, for the evangelical GOP base, it is an issue, but that is why Jews aren’t responding real well to Palin and her whacko supporters, even though they might otherwise respond well to McCain (or better than to some other GOP candidates).
So why do we see so much focus on it? Probably because in large cities (New York being the best example) Jews have remained a coherent voting bloc whereas Italians and Irish people didn’t. So it’s sort of natural to assume that would remain the case in other areas where Jews tend to move. It isn’t always true — New York (and other big cities) have particular histories that make this possible at all — but it’s like the perception that Irish people are emotionally unstable drunks.
Then there’s the fact that Jews have money more than many non-white minorities do. That is, by any measure — average income, college education, all that stuff- Jews are a lot better off than, say, African Americans. So if I am a candidate, I’m gonna go there. There may be more black churches, but most of the time I am going to get more bang for the buck at an AIPAC dinner.
Of course, this strategy will change depending on the candidate and the office. But it’s the same reasoning that makes candidates hold $500 per plate fundraisers. If black folks were all millionaires, you can bet the candidates would be all over that.
Posted 22 Oct 2008 at 8:07 am ¶
emfole wrote:
I do not see a problem with racializing Jews- race is a social construction anyway.
Posted 22 Oct 2008 at 8:51 am ¶
Tara wrote:
According to a new poll, Jewish support for Obama is actually around 67%, so not as big a gap as it appeared before. Very interesting break down along *religious* lines though, with orthodox Jews overwhelmingly supporting McCain.
http://bjpa.org/view_record.php?id=9939
Posted 22 Oct 2008 at 10:04 am ¶
Ike wrote:
“The character Silverman portrays doesn’t understand that the word ‘chink’ is still racist even in the context is ‘I love chinks,’ but I don’t think it would be a joke unless both Silverman and the audience both understood otherwise. She wouldn’t have written it if it weren’t about that juxtaposition.”
But that’s the thing. Even if we give Silverman the benefit of the doubt and say that she was trying to make a joke about how being lovingly racist is still unacceptable, most people do not understand that “ch*nk” is an unacceptable word.
If the amount of racist material making fun of people of Asian descent is any indication, most people are still very racist against Asian Americans and view them very stereotypically.
In essence, it was yet another joke at the expense of Asian Americans, after which they were told to “stop whining” and “learn to take a joke” by people who look like the people who hold power in this country.
Posted 22 Oct 2008 at 11:27 am ¶
Rob Schmidt wrote:
I haven’t read anything about Jews being swing voters in this election. I have read about Hispanics and Native Americans being swing voters.
There’s probably a good reason for this. Jews tend to live in “blue” states that will go Democratic regardless of how they vote. Hispanics and Natives tend to live in blue or red states that could go either way.
Posted 22 Oct 2008 at 12:01 pm ¶
roschelle wrote:
Palin told James Dobson on Monday that she’s putting the outcome of the election in God’s hands.
Posted 22 Oct 2008 at 12:29 pm ¶
Daisy Bond wrote:
So let’s something straight. I haven’t seen any indication that elderly Jews are less likely to vote for Obama than elderly non-Jews. I can believe that elderly people of every racial and ethnic group might be less likely to vote for Obama.
Unsurprisingly, there exist elderly Jews, but why focus on Jews?
Because the organization is question is run by Jews, and the spokesperson in question is Jewish? Jews are just another demographic: there’s no reason not to specifically target us just like candidates specifically target other voting blocs. I’m a Jew living in New Mexico — both campaigns are currently running ads in Spanish here to target the Northern New Mexican and Mexican immigrant populations here. Campaigns nearly always make an effort to sway working class voters, conservative Christian voters, etc.
The real question, then, would be why not Jews? Any demographic big enough to make a difference is going to be specifically addressed and catered to; it’s just good strategy.
Posted 22 Oct 2008 at 12:59 pm ¶
em wrote:
why do i take issue with the sarah silverman ad? because she calls “jews” the most human rights lefties ever and then points out that obama passes the supports israel litmus test. after looking at the human rights record of the state of israel
http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/israeloccupied-palestinian-territories
http://www.hrw.org/doc?t=mideast&c=isrlpa
most human rights lefties and passing the support the state of israel litmus test could never be more mutually exclusive.
yes i know i’ve dropped a major issue bomb, but don’t worry–no matter who gets elected, mcain or my candidate of choice (that one)–israel has a friend in america.
Posted 22 Oct 2008 at 2:15 pm ¶
JLC wrote:
You fatally undermined your credibility by beginning your post with a defense of Silverman’s use of the word “chink.” She used that word precisely because most people in the audience would find it not offensive but funny–because it’s okay to use “chink” as opposed to “nigger.” Thus, she could capitalize on the shock value without the backlash. There was no deeper point, there was no irony, just racism.
And don’t think that referring to some Asian person settles the issue. She is wrong, as are you.
Posted 22 Oct 2008 at 3:23 pm ¶
jvansteppes wrote:
I’m sure Silverman has good intentions but I’m with Ike here. Also, she and her beau or ex-beau or whatever, Jimmy Kimmel, are big fans of Vice Magazine, everyone’s favorite vehicle of hipster racism.
Posted 22 Oct 2008 at 4:07 pm ¶
Tim wrote:
I can’t for the life of me figure out why anyone would care what Sarah Silverman thinks in a political race anyway. She contributes nothing to society but entertainment, if she were some sort of intellectual she probably wouldn’t be a comedian. She’d be out doing something useful. Whew, now that I’ve got that off my chest, let’s get to the issue.
If jews are voting on the Isreal litmus there’s no way Obama would ever pass. He sat in a church for 20 years that gave a lifetime achievement award to Louis Farrakhan. I know the argument is that he cut ties to Rev. Wright back in the spring, but the fact is he sat there for 20 years. Would you sit in a church that had George Bush preaching his beliefs for 20 years if you didn’t agree with them? If you can answer that question with a yes, then Obama passes your litmus test on Isreal.
Posted 22 Oct 2008 at 6:42 pm ¶
F wrote:
I find Sarah Silverman incredibly unfunny, and I particularly don’t think her ‘humour’ about racism is interesting, worthwhile or amusing. She lacks perspective completely and seems uninformed and ignorant, the type of person who thinks that it is safe to make racist jokes now because everyone gets along. As JLC said, ‘ There was no deeper point, there was no irony, just racism.’
Posted 22 Oct 2008 at 7:27 pm ¶
Nina wrote:
My biggest problem with the video (which was not the focus of your article so I understand that this may be somewhat out of context), is Silverman’s comparison of a black man to her jewish grandmother. Particularly bothersome was the line “his friends are dying, your friends are dying.” At that point in the video the black man gets up and leaves in disgust and Silverman turns to her grandmother and says “but it’s true.” Hipster racism at it’s best.
Posted 22 Oct 2008 at 7:49 pm ¶
Jess wrote:
@Tim
Jews don’t all vote on the Israel litmus test. But I figure there is a percentage that do, judging by what I see around the neighborhood (the Upper West Side in NYC. You are free to make all the stereotypical Woody Allen jokes
). In this area, the lefty-tendencies among Jewish voters outweigh the Israel issue, at least to a point, for most. That is, if a candidate says he doesn’t think Israel has the right to oppress Palestinians, and is good to go on other stuff, s/he’ll get elected. But that’s this district, the dynamic changes some in Brooklyn’s Orthodox neighborhoods. I’d bet that the Orthodox are probably Obama-leaning voters, if for no other reason than Sarah Palin. But maybe the Israel thing outweighs that. (Don’t get me started on the Orthodox who don’t think Israel should exist. There’s a whole other discussion there and I don’t feel like plumbing the depths of Jewish theology today).
@Rob
The Jewish populations in order of size: New York (8.4%), New Jersey (5.51%), Washington DC (5.09%), Massachusetts (4.30%), Maryland (4.20%), are the top five, and those states are pretty safe for Democrats, though New Jersey has been a tease for the GOP for a generation now.
But after that you get into some interesting places. Florida (3.67%) is next on the list, and is a state that is very much in play. California is next (3.31%) and Connecticut (3.19%) and that aren’t likely to go back to the Republicans anytime soon.
But then we get to Nevada, where 69,000 Jews live and make up 2.88% of the people in the state. that’s a swing-able state, and the population has increased pretty steadily in the last decade or so. Pennsylvania is another state with enough to swing in a close race, though this time around it is unlikely.
Colorado, Virginia and Ohio all have Jewish populations that are more than 1% as well. Even McCain’s home state of Arizona comes in at 1.79%, and if McCain wasn’t from Arizona they could certainly swing a close race to the Democrats, though I don’t know what the party ID numbers are for Jewish voters there. (Odds are they lean Democratic, but maybe all of David Horowitz’s relatives went there).
Now, the percentage of the electorate is different, but generally speaking a group population’s percentage of the voters tracks the numbers in the population — though with Jews it may be higher.
As for Sarah Silverman, I have to say she doesn’t make me laugh all that much. My wife thinks she’s awful, and I admit I watch for the train wreck value. I do think the great schlep video was funny though, but maybe it’s only funny to Jewish people.
Posted 23 Oct 2008 at 8:05 am ¶
Matt wrote:
@Ike, JLC, jvansteppes, F, Nina, anyone I missed: I understand a lot of the concern over Silverman. The questions you guys raise are important, but I also think there are other ways to look at her work that are also important. However, I am more interested in the way the media has portrayed the Jewish vote.
As Jess writes:
So nowhere above 10% and almost completely in safe blue states! Yet there’s this perception that Jews are vital for every candidate. It’s as if no one else had a vote.
I think that comes from the myth of Jewish control.
Posted 23 Oct 2008 at 9:24 am ¶
gh wrote:
anyone gonna address comment #3?
Posted 23 Oct 2008 at 11:54 am ¶
Lakergrrl wrote:
Okay I don’t really like Sarah Silverman, especially when she’s doing her tired hipster racial schtick . But the tracksuit joke was pretty funny.
Posted 23 Oct 2008 at 1:43 pm ¶
Orville wrote:
I think Sarah Silverman is just disgusting my personal opinion. I also believe Silverman hides behind her so called “invisible minority status” of being a WHITE AMERICAN JEW.
I also wonder why this website and the USA media don’t CHALLENGE the racism of WHITE NORTH AMERICAN JEWS? Talk about double standards. What discrimination do white Jews encoutner in North America in the year 2008 anway?
Shouldn’t the article be specific it seems to me it is about WHITE JEWS in the United States. The one thing I don’t understand is how can white Jews suddenly ignore their white skin privilege in North America? Why does the media and this website also ignore their white skin privilege of WHITE JEWS?
Posted 23 Oct 2008 at 2:47 pm ¶
Jess wrote:
Whoa there, Orville, chill.
Jews don’t ignore the privilege that comes with being “white” or as my (AA) friend says, “passing.” (He’s been ribbing me with that one for years).
In fact, within the Jewish community, there’s a lot of angst and discussion over whether you are really “white” or not. The Germans demonstrated to us that we aren’t, if you don’t want us to be. And y’know, my elder relatives are still skittish about certain things. I don’t think it’s warranted, but these feelings are real.
And Jews do get hated on in some spots. Go to a Palin rally and listen carefully. It’s scary.
Discrimination isn’t as big a deal for Jews these days as it once was, that is certainly true. And there are privileges that go with the light complexion.
But that doesn’t alter the fact that Jews are still different and often not seen as part of the “mainstream” whatever the hell that is. It’s just that a lot of the bullsh*t is more subtle these days. Fading, true enough, but just as real.
I don’t think any Jew with a brain would try an oppression olympics these days. I hope not. But that doesn’t mean stuff ain’t real. Remember, not everyone lives in New York City.
The Jewish community has had a sometimes contradictory view of race, and it gets sort of complicated. But to dismiss people because they do get some of the race privilege because of something they can’t control is simply silly. Just ask any of those Latin folks who “pass” or even the black folks that do.
Posted 23 Oct 2008 at 5:34 pm ¶
WestEndGirl wrote:
Co-sign at Jess #20 in a big way.
Your calm, clear response is far far far more measured than I could have managed in response to that diatribe!
The interesting thing for me – as a mixed Jew based in London – is that my skin colour changes hugely depending on the season: in the winter I’m as white as white can be but still regularly taken for Greek, Spanish, Italian, Turkish etc etc. But in the summer, I’m regularly taken for Arab, Iranian, South American etc etc. So I really can’t work out what privilege I have and when. And I’m sure that’s the same for many “white” Jews as well in North America, they certainly don’t look like your typical WASP for sure (unless they do courtesy of the hair straighteners, bleach, nose jobs etc, lol).
The thing that clinches it for me, is that I’ve experienced anti-Semitism from black people (both Afro-Carribbean and African), white people (traditional far right types but also regular English people and Europeans), Sub-Continental Asians (typically Muslims), Middle Easterners (all sorts) and South East Asians (Malaysians, Indonesians). I’m also always asked ‘but where are you *really* from on a more than weekly basis?’
So, really, when all is said and done, I know that Jews – whether snowily white or black and almost regardless of the country – will always be *different* *foreign* *strange* *Christ-killer* *insert local negative cultural stereotype here* and treated as such. It’s just only a matter of when those sentiments bubble up into something overtly nasty.
I wish I could be more positive, but people rarely learn from history and history has a habit of repeating itself…..it’s just a shame that Orville can’t see this more complexity than literally in ‘black’ and ‘white’
Posted 24 Oct 2008 at 8:32 am ¶
gatamala wrote:
I know that McCain may “seem” less scary.
But considering that he actively courted the evangelical vote (their ideas on Israel don’t include Jews), became a Baptist around 1993 and attends a church of the SOUTHERN Baptist variety I fail to see what would be so comforting about him.
Posted 24 Oct 2008 at 9:05 am ¶
Matt wrote:
That’s from Gershom Gorenberg. I should mention that when he put TGS up as a post, it didn’t bother me in the same way it bothered me in other places (though he could mention that the Jewish vote isn’t the string for America’s puppet masters). Given his audience it felt to me less coerced and less about proving to the world that Jews can be good citizens.
So, it’s good to note that TGS was based on some assumptions about older Jews that were, well, wrong. Based on flawed media reports and stereotypes.
Posted 24 Oct 2008 at 9:37 am ¶
dirkdiggler wrote:
if some regular white person from the south were doing the stuff silverman were doing, everyone would agree it was clearly racist. because she considers herself a “liberal” and a supporter of bo, she believes that she can peddle her hipster racist crap. she has made her success mocking asians and other minorities, and she feels entitled to do this because she’s a minority too, “look i have hairy arms!” she’s part of the problem. she’s made the soft bigotry that pervades the so-called “hipster” generation, acceptable. you may be focused on how she deals with the issue of jews and the election, but she’s a stone cold bigot. she just seems to get away with it.
Posted 24 Oct 2008 at 9:07 pm ¶
Matt wrote:
Btw, Orville, Dave Neiwert at Orcinus just put up a post with 10 domestic terrorists or groups (the point being to criticize Palin). At least 7 were significantly motivated by antisemitism. One attacked a Jewish daycare.
Posted 25 Oct 2008 at 9:29 am ¶
Jess wrote:
@dirkdiggler
It’s a little more complicated than that. I don’t personally find Silverman funny most of the time. I think she gets real close to the line on racist humor.
That said, it isn’t as simple as “what if a white southerner were doing it.” Just like the jokes Woody Allen makes are very different from the ones about Jews made by WASP anti-semites, even though a transcript might look similar in isolation.
DO I think Sarah Silverman can tell bigoted jokes? Yeah, the Mongolian thing was really stupid. So is Trey Parker and Matt Stone (”My City wall”) sometimes.
But it isn’t as simple as the way you posit it, not at all.
Posted 25 Oct 2008 at 7:47 pm ¶
gh wrote:
it fees like offensive comments targeted at Jews on this thread are being allowed in ways that comments targeting other groups on other threads aren’t allowed. but maybe that’s just me. anyway, thanks to all the folks who responded so well to Orville. that stuff was scary and I appreciate your patient demeanor. =)
Posted 25 Oct 2008 at 10:22 pm ¶
dirkdiggler wrote:
@jess:
but isn’t it that simple? woody allen and his jokes about jews are of course different than when a non-jew would say them. and that’s because he’s jewish himself. and that contextual difference makes all the difference. how does that apply to sarah silverman mocking people of ethnicities other than hers? wouldn’t she be, in your analogy, be equivalent to the wasp anti-semite?
and the fact that there are others in the media who perpetrate bigotry under the guise of “humor” and “creativity” doesn’t and shouldn’t condone the bigotry of silverman.
Posted 26 Oct 2008 at 9:44 am ¶
Wren wrote:
Yay, Jess–comment #20! I am a mixed race Jew from the Midwest–My ancestry is Sephardic–specifically, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Spanish, and African, with a bit of German and Italian thrown in…. Usually, folks peg me as Middle-Eastern or Sicilian–sometimes, as a light-skinned Black woman. My accent throws folks off, too–Mexican mixed with Wisconsinite…. My reality goes beyond binary thinking, beyond simply pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian. It’s this multi-vocal call-and-response of experiences, ancestors, my present, my community all informing my present state and choice in this election. It is the candidates themselves. It is how *our* stories call and respond to one another.
Posted 26 Oct 2008 at 12:50 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:
@Orville
I have nothing to offer re: Sarah Silverman but your comment (#19) is textbook Anti-Jewish sentiment. If you are so curious about the relationship of Jews to racism perhaps you should get up from the computer and go look in a mirror. Yup! There it is!
@Westendgirl
Unfortunately I cosign your experience. Especially since 9/11 I am as likely to hear Orientalist crapola from Black folks as White. Sad.
Posted 26 Oct 2008 at 4:03 pm ¶