I'm no Jew lover.....
It was a common expression a half century ago, so reflective of the American Zeitgeist that the words just came out in conversation, even among people who knew I was a Jew. The phrase had a companion, one used as a preface to saying something that could be viewed as supportive of a widely despised group that I will get to in a bit.
I am fortunate enough to have a regular tennis game with a group of men. The ages and background are diverse ranging from the 40s to late 80s; with politics from Ditto Heads to staunch liberals. And ethnically from Wasp, a few Jews to.....a single black man, who I'll call Cal. After tennis we have coffee, where we talk about anything and everything, politics, religion, personal problems, and a whole lot of jokes-- that because of our age can be told repeatedly, each time getting a laugh.
Cal is an outgoing educated man who is the youngest of the group, in his early 50s, and who has struggled financially. He works mostly in settings helping kids who have been in trouble and need some guidance. His humor dispels the tension of being a single black man in this group of whites; such as when a passerby commented on the manifest pleasure of our informal discussions, Cal said, "Hey, I'm not in the group, I'm just here as as a token affirmative action person"
He knows that feeling well, having been one of the early children bussed to elementary schools where he was not exactly accepted. But, out of that experience, while he understood the general rejection he faced, he also must have developed a great appreciation for those who accepted him as a person, who enjoyed his company, and invited him into their lives.
Just last week, as a few of us were lingering around the table, Cal was engaged in a conversation with a couple of men at the next table. It was good natured and animated, so I continued my discussion with Manny who is a retired teacher, the oldest of the group, who at 89 is quite clear in his liberal orthodoxy based on his life experiences.
We were talking about the need for scapegoats in all societies, my life interest and the theme of several books I had been reading. I lowered my voice to make a point, almost whispering I said, society needs its out groups, adding to the example of "I'm no Jew Lover" the phrase, "I'm no nigger lover.." Cal stopped in mid conversation, turned around and said, "What's that, What did you say!"
And then a smile broke out, and he laughed. He didn't hear the context of what I was saying, but as softly as I had spoken it, he did hear the word, the N word. But in this case, he knew that it was Al talking to Manny. And just as during all his days, from his early childhood, while surrounded by a diffuse casual racial animostity, he also knew that there were those who didn't see him as "one of those" , but considered him as just a person. And he knew that Manny and I were these people, his friends.
I did explain to him the context, but it really wasn't necessary, since he assumed that it was Al doing his thing, which is trying to understand, explicate and then share his observations. And he had no reason to make me feel bad for using this word, as at that moment I was part of the black community, at least this community of three, and I had the privilege of using this forbidden word.
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Where the hell am I going with this?
Am I bragging to this liberal readership how colorblind I am, that I am so far above those who had to certify their innate red blooded bigotry with the words, "I'm no Jew/nigger lover," before saying a word that sounded like acceptance of these despised groups. No, I accept who I am, someone who was reared in Jim Crow Washington D.C. with at least a residual racism that I will have for the rest of my life. Cal understands, and doesn't hold it against me.
This fit's into many themes that I am currently involved in. First there is the issue of Julian Assange, and my knee jerk reaction to a report on his being an Anti-Semite. Like Cal, although I wasn't bussed to an all white school, I did attend a predominantly Christian public school, before the days when minority religions had any legal protections from bullying from kids, or more subtle assaults by teachers. Jews were then still certified Christ Killers, and there were no blacks on the premises to take the role of scapegoats.
So, just as Cal heard the N word through the din of the McDonalds, I heard the words "Anti Semetic...Assange" and the reaction was instant. He was my enemy. It doesn't matter that he may have exposed the underside of the cynicism and deceit of international players that are shaping our world. It doesn't matter that it took great personal courage to do this. And I no longer had to do the hard work of really thinking about the actual effects that this one man could have on world history. I knew enough. He hated me and my people, and therefore I hated him.
That's who we are. We being the vast majority of humans. We are interested in many things, and we try to learn as much as we can, but there are more primal concerns. We are wired to discern danger. And in a literate world this means seeking out patterns, words that represent such danger in the form of hatred towards self or group.
A Jew can see a Swastika in the most convoluted abstract design, and a black person can see an epithet in a word such as "niggardly" which has no etymological association with the taboo N word. And an avid Dailykos member can discern a "right wing talking point" in the midst of a more complex essay, subjecting the writer to anger that is immune to any explanation.
We can never eliminate the inborn acute sensitivity to words of hate, words of attack, words of danger. The best we can do is try to rise above it. When all communication is reduced to either the inclusion or exclusion of such words, there is no actual discourse. There is no possibility of transcending these primal feelings to go to a different plane of interaction.
It is foolish to underestimate the power of such words, such symbols, so loaded with historical violence. When such words are made taboo, they may in fact have greater potency. They then enter the world of coded messages, "dog whistles" only meant for those of like values. When we no longer accept the legitimacy of explicit language, we have not eliminated the underlying causes of such expressions or the sentiments behind them. We now have transformed the function of language, from an ever evolving medium for advancing knowledge, to a collection of phrases to be used for eliciting emotional response.
"Framing" is the current word that is used for this activity, this "language as propaganda." It is the stuff of the practice of politics but not of the understanding of political forces. It degrades language, the most definitive artifact of our Civilization, this tool that gave us the ability to understand the forces that shape our world. We are trading in this medium, this language, for something atavistic, a collection of symbols, a call to arms, a rallying to hatred of the outsider.
As with my working class friends at the Automat in the 1960s, who before saying a good word about blacks or Jews prefaced it by say, "I'm no lover of them," I feel similar pressure right on this site. Only the hated out-groups are different. These guys, had a strong need to be part of something that was defined by who was denigrated by their group, the regular Archy Bunker Americans; and it was so strong that they couldn't imagine that their friend Al, who they knew was one of them, was really one of them.
Dailykos note:
The need to belong is powerful. For me Dailykos was a rare venue of both friendship and intellectual stimulation. I had never found it before. Not in undergraduate school nor at Columbia University Graduate School. It was a wasteland, a high level vocational school, during the 1970s when I attended. I did have two friends, one a staunch Opus Dea Catholic and the other the most stalwart liberal. Both of them who were open to the most searching probing discussions. I write about them here, as they both just died within the last three months.
So, if the subtle changes of this new version of Dailykos makes it no longer my venue of intellectual stimulation and friendship, it is not a minor loss. It's damn serious for me. This was part of my identity, and those recs were little shots of endorphins that said "you belong here." It was so easy during the Bush years to get my daily fix, and now I really don't know how. Oh, yeah, you notice I'm just like those people who needed to be part of the anti-semite anti-black, anti-communist or any body, just so they could belong.
I just don't know how to do it anymore here. From the very top of Dailykos, as enshrined in the official guidelines, "Conservative" is conceptualized in a way similar to how a Jew was viewed during the run up to the final solution. Jews had been seen previously in Germany as a belief system, that could be changed like one's political party registration. Variations of Judaism were nurtured during this period, with versions that facilitated the rational exploration of religious functions. It was only with the evolution into the concept of being in the blood, that Jew hatred became the driving ideology of the perversion of Germany during the Nazi era.
And so use of "conservative talking points" is grounds for TR/HR which in excess can lead to banishment. The implication is that use of such words are inherently disruptive, a sign of out group status. Therefore making an argument that happens to be one generally espoused by conservatives, is not refuted on its merits, but because the person making it is identified, disclosed as being part of a hated group. It is sad to say that the official, not universal by any means, use of "conservative" is exactly the way the rabid right wing uses the word, "liberal." Once the source is identified, anything said by such out-groups are inherently to be attacked.
"Identity Politics" is usually used to describe race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation and other sociological entities. I see it right here, on dailykos, with the same dynamics. It could be that it is even more nefarious on this site, since the great potential is to bring together those of diverse backgrounds who should be able to expand each others perspectives. There is really a subtle, but important difference, it creating an umbrella group to unite disparate identities, which is what political parties do in a two party system, and what I'm talking about.
A political party has a goal, which is limited to use language as a tool to sell their organization as the best option available to each customer. With this goal, framing, glorifying the goals of their group and vilifying the opposition is their job description. It is not in the tradition of "value free" academic exploration of social historical forces, at all. It is a specific application of the tools of propaganda and public relations. Just as a successful lawyer must subordinate his/her goal of a better society to zealously advocate for their client, so those who write to advance a political party, must negate a wider understanding that their party may be harmful on some dimension.
Dailykos is defined clearly as having the purpose of "elected more and better Democrats." Implementation of this goal has always been mediated by users, those who had varying commitment to this goal, especially when it conflicted with larger principles. The new version has changed the format just enough that the exact degree of enforcement that this is an organ of the Democratic party is still to be determined. Will the roving band of TUs who act as antibodies to any sniff out talking points that signal an alien presence gain predominance?
Orthodoxy never appealed to me as a religion or a political movement. Life if much too complex, and certainty is always illusory. How did I ever get so attached to a web site that defines itself by promoting one of a two party system, and tacitly encourages rejection of perspectives from the other side? The answer lies in the actual composition of the users who are so much more than this. While Dailykos will survive, maybe even prosper in this new format, whether these same people will still be here is the open question.
It is telling that I wrote this several months ago, and am only posting on Dailykos now, June 3, 2011. It took me this long not to care that much about the reaction, or lack thereof.