4 ms·

To add to that, that's counting Jews as white. When you don't, two very unfortunate things happen: first non Jewish whites are now the most underrepresented cat

To add to that, that's counting Jews as white. When you don't, two very unfortunate things happen: first non Jewish whites are now the most underrepresented category, and two you end up sounding like Charlie Chaplin with a mustache.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
I find in particularly hilarious that white men are most definitely bad, but Jews are definitely not bad and definitely not white. However Jews and Arabs can be interchangeably considered white, Arab or Jewish, or Asian depending on what story you’re trying to tell. An Indian can be counted as just generically brown or “of color” if they’re participating in the correct political narratives, but most certainly become Asian the moment they start to consider getting in on some of that affirmative action. Isn’t it wonderful that ethnicity has once again become such a terribly important factor when it comes to passing judgements about people...
- zozbot234 6y ago
  > ...but Jews are... definitely not white To be fair, I don't think this is a common view anymore, least of all in polite society. "White" was extended from indicating strictly WASP settlers (excluding even the Irish) to Europeans in general as early as the late-19th to early-20th c. - and then further extended to include Middle-Eastern folks and the like sometime later. It's definitely weird though how these ethnical and even overtly race-based characterizations are used in the U.S.
  - rbecker 6y ago
    I think AmericanChopper meant that in the sense that when someone complains about whites, they don't have Jews in mind.
    - zozbot234 6y ago
      How could you tell that they don't, though? And does it really matter, since they probably don't have Polish or $RANDOM_WHITE_SUBGROUP folks in mind either, but this doesn't make Polish folks non-white.
      - austhrow743 6y ago
        Because the kind of people that complain about whites don't like the kind of people that complain about jews.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    The whiteness of Jews is certainly not a settled topic. You’ll find Jews with varying opinions on this, white supremacists generally don’t consider them to be white, and neither do those who support the “social justice” political ideologies. The reason it confounds so many people so much is because Jews are known to be a historically oppressed people (despite exceed statistical averages for life outcomes so consistently), and white people cannot be oppressed, because they are the people who do the oppression! In reality these contradictions only serve to highlight how stupid (and racist) it is to make those sorts of generalizations. Categorizing people by skin color is especially stupid, because the larger a group becomes, the less homogenous it becomes, and the less merit the generalizations have. Scottish, Irish and English people are all white, yet two of those groups have a rather long history of particularly horrific oppression at the hands of the 3rd. When should we start discussing reparations for the highland clearances? Should Dan Castellaneta resign from his role on The Simpson’s for so blatantly reinforcing a negative racial stereotype? Is Elon Musk America’s wealthiest African American? How much oppression does a brown-skinned African American have in common with a brown-skinned Indian immigrant? The reason those questions sound so stupid is because the world is actually full of roughly 7.5 billion individual people, who all have their own individual circumstances, views and life experiences, and the more you try and group them together, the further you drift from reality. Especially if you’re trying to group them together for the purposes of holding some form of racial prejudice.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - himinlomax 6y ago
      > and neither do those who support the “social justice” They certainly count them as white when complaining about representation in Hollywood.
      - AmericanChopper 6y ago
        Of course, their whiteness depends on the circumstances. They’re white when it’s time to complain about the oppressive white establishment, and not white when it’s time to talk about how they’re an oppressed ethnic minority. It’s the same way that an Indian is an oppressed person of color when they want to soapbox about progressive race issues, but absolutely not when it’s time to meet the diversity quota, or fill out college admissions forms.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  Well, to accept the “tech is racist” narrative you would need to do the mental gymnastics required to believe that Jews, South Asians and East Asians are all white. Similar to the mental contortions that Harvard uses to justify its racist admissions policies.
jariel 6y ago
Most Jews in America are Ashkenazi and are essentially German, Polish, Ukranian for them most part. i.e. 'Zuckerberg' 'Sandberg' 'Goldman'. They are genetically not different from other Europeans other than for some possibly some minor specific linkage way back. That wing of the diaspora has been in Europe for at least 1000 years, originating in the area from Netherlands down to Frankfurt and spreading Eastward towards Russia. Even many Sephardi jews, from the Med (i.e. Spain, Greece, Turkey), are more European than they are Middle Eastern at least genetically.
- luminaobscura 6y ago
  So they are a sub-group of whites. they have distinct culture and also some distinct genetic make up (look for Ashkenazi Jewish Genetic Panel) If this sub group has more privilege, don't we want equity for other sub groups?
- rbecker 6y ago
  Not necessarily, as historic rates of Jewish interfaith marriage were until recently extremely low. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interfaith_marriage_in_Judaism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interfaith_marriage_in_Judaism: Interfaith marriage in Judaism was historically looked upon with very strong disfavour by Jewish leaders, and it remains a controversial issue among them today. [..] In the early 19th century, in some less modernised regions of the world, exogamy was extremely rare—less than 0.1% of the Jews of Algeria, for example, practiced exogamy. In the early 20th century, even in most Germanic regions of central Europe there were still only a mere 5% of Jews marrying non-Jews. To underscore how very disfavored mixed marriages were, Bernard S. Bachrach's Early Medieval Jewish Policy in Western Europe states (speaking about the 6th century, but it is unclear how wide-ranging this policy was): According to Jewish custom a woman who willingly and openly went to live with a non-Jew was considered dead by her family and by the Jewish community. Legally it was the duty of the community to stone her to death if she could be found.
- himinlomax 6y ago
  The point here is to show the silly consequences of categorizing people by "race", not to argue about the minutiæ of how to properly do race discrimination.

AmericanChopper 6y ago

I find in particularly hilarious that white men are most definitely bad, but Jews are definitely not bad and definitely not white. However Jews and Arabs can be interchangeably considered white, Arab or Jewish, or Asian depending on what story you’re trying to tell. An Indian can be counted as just generically brown or “of color” if they’re participating in the correct political narratives, but most certainly become Asian the moment they start to consider getting in on some of that affirmative action. Isn’t it wonderful that ethnicity has once again become such a terribly important factor when it comes to passing judgements about people...

zozbot234 6y ago
> ...but Jews are... definitely not white To be fair, I don't think this is a common view anymore, least of all in polite society. "White" was extended from indicating strictly WASP settlers (excluding even the Irish) to Europeans in general as early as the late-19th to early-20th c. - and then further extended to include Middle-Eastern folks and the like sometime later. It's definitely weird though how these ethnical and even overtly race-based characterizations are used in the U.S.
- rbecker 6y ago
  I think AmericanChopper meant that in the sense that when someone complains about whites, they don't have Jews in mind.
  - zozbot234 6y ago
    How could you tell that they don't, though? And does it really matter, since they probably don't have Polish or $RANDOM_WHITE_SUBGROUP folks in mind either, but this doesn't make Polish folks non-white.
    - austhrow743 6y ago
      Because the kind of people that complain about whites don't like the kind of people that complain about jews.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  The whiteness of Jews is certainly not a settled topic. You’ll find Jews with varying opinions on this, white supremacists generally don’t consider them to be white, and neither do those who support the “social justice” political ideologies. The reason it confounds so many people so much is because Jews are known to be a historically oppressed people (despite exceed statistical averages for life outcomes so consistently), and white people cannot be oppressed, because they are the people who do the oppression! In reality these contradictions only serve to highlight how stupid (and racist) it is to make those sorts of generalizations. Categorizing people by skin color is especially stupid, because the larger a group becomes, the less homogenous it becomes, and the less merit the generalizations have. Scottish, Irish and English people are all white, yet two of those groups have a rather long history of particularly horrific oppression at the hands of the 3rd. When should we start discussing reparations for the highland clearances? Should Dan Castellaneta resign from his role on The Simpson’s for so blatantly reinforcing a negative racial stereotype? Is Elon Musk America’s wealthiest African American? How much oppression does a brown-skinned African American have in common with a brown-skinned Indian immigrant? The reason those questions sound so stupid is because the world is actually full of roughly 7.5 billion individual people, who all have their own individual circumstances, views and life experiences, and the more you try and group them together, the further you drift from reality. Especially if you’re trying to group them together for the purposes of holding some form of racial prejudice.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - himinlomax 6y ago
    > and neither do those who support the “social justice” They certainly count them as white when complaining about representation in Hollywood.
    - AmericanChopper 6y ago
      Of course, their whiteness depends on the circumstances. They’re white when it’s time to complain about the oppressive white establishment, and not white when it’s time to talk about how they’re an oppressed ethnic minority. It’s the same way that an Indian is an oppressed person of color when they want to soapbox about progressive race issues, but absolutely not when it’s time to meet the diversity quota, or fill out college admissions forms.
goatinaboat 6y ago
Well, to accept the “tech is racist” narrative you would need to do the mental gymnastics required to believe that Jews, South Asians and East Asians are all white. Similar to the mental contortions that Harvard uses to justify its racist admissions policies.

jariel 6y ago

Most Jews in America are Ashkenazi and are essentially German, Polish, Ukranian for them most part. i.e. 'Zuckerberg' 'Sandberg' 'Goldman'. They are genetically not different from other Europeans other than for some possibly some minor specific linkage way back. That wing of the diaspora has been in Europe for at least 1000 years, originating in the area from Netherlands down to Frankfurt and spreading Eastward towards Russia. Even many Sephardi jews, from the Med (i.e. Spain, Greece, Turkey), are more European than they are Middle Eastern at least genetically.

luminaobscura 6y ago
So they are a sub-group of whites. they have distinct culture and also some distinct genetic make up (look for Ashkenazi Jewish Genetic Panel) If this sub group has more privilege, don't we want equity for other sub groups?
rbecker 6y ago
Not necessarily, as historic rates of Jewish interfaith marriage were until recently extremely low. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interfaith_marriage_in_Judaism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interfaith_marriage_in_Judaism: Interfaith marriage in Judaism was historically looked upon with very strong disfavour by Jewish leaders, and it remains a controversial issue among them today. [..] In the early 19th century, in some less modernised regions of the world, exogamy was extremely rare—less than 0.1% of the Jews of Algeria, for example, practiced exogamy. In the early 20th century, even in most Germanic regions of central Europe there were still only a mere 5% of Jews marrying non-Jews. To underscore how very disfavored mixed marriages were, Bernard S. Bachrach's Early Medieval Jewish Policy in Western Europe states (speaking about the 6th century, but it is unclear how wide-ranging this policy was): According to Jewish custom a woman who willingly and openly went to live with a non-Jew was considered dead by her family and by the Jewish community. Legally it was the duty of the community to stone her to death if she could be found.
himinlomax 6y ago
The point here is to show the silly consequences of categorizing people by "race", not to argue about the minutiæ of how to properly do race discrimination.