Can WE PLEASE stop comparing whatever travesty or injustice of the moment to antisemitism? For example, saying the following is obnoxious:
- Man, nobody says stuff like this about THE JEWS!
- EVERYBODY learns about the Holocaust! Why can't they put more emphasis on my cause?
- No one would have ever [offensive statement] that if [target of oppression] was JEWISH!
- If [stater of douchbaggery] said that about JEWS, they would have definitely been fired!
Have you ever wondered why we Jews are hyperaware of antisemitism? Or why we fund agencies like the Anti-Defamation League? Have you ever wondered why we bang down the doors when someone says something fucked about us?
It's because after >2000 years of being screwed over pretty much everywhere we live, we are always on the alert. It's not just the Holocaust. It's pretty much our entire freaking history. You build up a lot of caution after that much time. You learn that expulsion or genocide always starts with off-color remarks that become more and more acceptable and pervasive and then the cycle starts again and well, that's it for this country for a while.
For the record, I don't think that the US is going to be unsafe for Jews anytime soon. I feel pretty safe here. But I worry sometimes when things like this Pew study come out. Because hard economic times like these are ripe for greedy Jew stereotyping. And when people say the above statements, my gut always attaches a little "for now" to the end. People listen to us...for now. Many people think that Jew jokes are off-color...for now. People learn about our past oppression...for now. But I worry that it's temporary. Hell, I feel almost a certainty that it's temporary. After all, things seemed pretty awesome for a while in Poland and Germany and France and Spain and Iran.
So if you could make your point in some other way, that would be really awesome.
Thank you. I'm Jewish, disabled, and Queer, and whenever I hear these comparisons, it's like I'm being told I have to leave my Jewishness at the door. I keep being told I have to leave one or the other of my identities at the door. Playing the oppression Olympics does no one any good and alienates people disadvantaged on multiple axies of oppression.
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