And when I say “whiteness,” I include concepts such as white-passing, conditional whiteness and functional whiteness. I am no longer going to discuss Jews in terms of whiteness.
First of all, confident assertions about the whiteness of Jews as a whole, certain kinds of Jews and/or a particular Jewish person relies on treating race as biology and geography, which is diametrically opposed to the purpose of using the phrase “people of color.”
Secondly, a lot of those “white Jews” live under a particular set of circumstances that only applies to a narrow segment of Jewish people, a segment that is deeply assimilated into mainstream American culture, all the way down to internalizing its most toxic attitudes and behaviors. The issue of Jews and assimilation beyond stringent halachic observance is a conversation worth having, but not like that.
Calling most Jews white because they’re lighter than a brown paper bag relies on an understanding of racial oppression that uses the Black American experience as a control group or a measuring stick, which I’ve repeatedly expressed my frustration with. If we go by that, every non-Black and non-Native group who willingly came to the United States is white. That sounds really ignorant when said out loud, doesn’t it? Ignores a lot of history, a lot of struggle, a lot of intergenerational trauma, doesn’t it? Yeah, exactly.
If I can be real for a second, I notice strong parallels between antisemitic stereotypes and anti-Asian ones, and I don’t believe that’s an accident. I remember when there was real, earnest discussion about whether East Asian people should be considered honorary whites and therefore exempt from anti-discrimination policies, particularly college admission. (And, when I’m feeling cynical, it comes with an added dose of, “See? They hate, fear, and exploit Black people too!”) No, this was not on Tumblr. This was in reputable media sources.
Thirdly, my experience with gentiles who are convinced of the whiteness of Jews is similar to Eric K. Ward’s. There’s something distinctly regional about it because most of the people I’ve encountered who are intractable about the whiteness of Jews are from New York and Chicago. I wasn’t particularly surprised by what happened at Chicago Dyke March, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a similar thing happens in New York, Los Angeles or DC. I’d be more shocked if it happened at the Albuquerque Dyke March. Not saying that they love Jews in Albuquerque, but places like NYC and Chicago maintain a certain brand of antisemitism that masks itself as resisting injustice. Not saying that these places are more antisemitic, just that the expression of it is different and often unacknowledged and unexamined. In my neck of the woods, antisemitism is more like–well, you remember Charlottesville.
Fourth, the majority of concepts and frameworks that dominate how we talk about racial justice are by and for people who are insiders to US history and culture, even if their experience of it is a horror show. Make no mistake, lots of folks on this website decry US-centrism as a way to shut Black Americans up when we talk about our experiences with antiblackness. Even so, there is an awful lot of projecting US racial dynamics onto non-US contexts, ignoring the historical, political and cultural distinctions of US racism. Don’t get it twisted. This doesn’t make other countries into some post-racial utopia. It just means that the how it functions and who it targets does not neatly map onto the US context. (Though everybody seems to have it out for Black folks, including other Black folks.)
Fifth, and this is where I’m gonna lose you if I haven’t already, I honestly believe that whiteness and Jewishness are antithetical to one another.
To be white is to own every place you go to. To be a Jew is to wander in search of home. To be white is to always be on the VIP list. To be a Jew is to never forget that we were strangers. To be white is to ignore the past. To be a Jew is to remember, remember, remember. To be white is to be a god to be obeyed. To be Jewish is to struggle with God.
Take whiteness away, and what is left? Whiteness is a blank sheet of paper. Whiteness has no center. It has neither roots nor wings. Whiteness rules the world (for now), but it sold its soul.
If (when) whiteness goes away, there will still be Jews.
“But, Eshu, if you’re not discussing Jews in terms of whiteness, how are we going to discuss the ways that some Jews are privileged over others because of skin color? Or anti-blackness within Jewish spaces like you’re always harping about? Or the ways that some Jews flat-out collaborate with white nationalists?”
I’m glad you asked, dear reader!
We can talk about colorism. We can talk about horizontal aggression. We can talk about internalized white supremacy. We can talk about assimilation. But none of that requires framing Jewishness as a form of whiteness or defaulting to white when talking about “regular” Jews.
THANK YOU.
(And a reminder for those in the back, calling (Ashkenazi) Jews white because of Ben Shapiro and Jared Kushner is about as stupid as calling Japanese people white because Japan collaborated with the Nazis. So shut up.)
Death By Catchphrase 