When I've been asked for my explanation of anti-Semitism, my first reaction is to think "Is this person asking me to excuse it? To make them feel better by saying it was partly the Jews' fault?" I don't know if this is my craziness or not.
You're not crazy, you're not imagining it, that's a real and very strong, and very old meme/vibe (predating the Reich, in the UK, that I've read personally) still going strong in the US at least - it's part of the general "blame the victim" syndrome, the attitude that Jews/blacks/Native Americans/Mexicans/women/whoever wouldn't be being treated badly, if they weren't doing something wrong to provoke it.
Because "nice people just like us/our ancestors" couldn't have gone out and done awful things for no good reason, that's too troubling a thought to allow. If black people are still disproportionately poor and ill and imprisoned, the "proper" question is not "why is there still discrimination?" but "why can't black people take responsibility for their lives like white folks?" and if women are disproportionately the targets of spousal violence even to death, the right question is not "why do men think it's all right to choke their wives?" but "why are women such bitches to their loving husbands?" and if Jews have been persecuted across centuries and oceans the proper question, in this mindset, is "what do you keep doing to make everyone mad at you?"
In some older writings I remember encountering how both cultural difference and assimilation were used, sequentially, to justify anti-Semitism - damned if you do, damned if you don't.
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zvi and
No.
Date: 2007-10-16 01:41 pm (UTC)You're not crazy, you're not imagining it, that's a real and very strong, and very old meme/vibe (predating the Reich, in the UK, that I've read personally) still going strong in the US at least - it's part of the general "blame the victim" syndrome, the attitude that Jews/blacks/Native Americans/Mexicans/women/whoever wouldn't be being treated badly, if they weren't doing something wrong to provoke it.
Because "nice people just like us/our ancestors" couldn't have gone out and done awful things for no good reason, that's too troubling a thought to allow. If black people are still disproportionately poor and ill and imprisoned, the "proper" question is not "why is there still discrimination?" but "why can't black people take responsibility for their lives like white folks?" and if women are disproportionately the targets of spousal violence even to death, the right question is not "why do men think it's all right to choke their wives?" but "why are women such bitches to their loving husbands?" and if Jews have been persecuted across centuries and oceans the proper question, in this mindset, is "what do you keep doing to make everyone mad at you?"
In some older writings I remember encountering how both cultural difference and assimilation were used, sequentially, to justify anti-Semitism - damned if you do, damned if you don't.