Xeni, You Tryin' To Say Sumfin'?
BoingBoing’s Xeni Jardin selected the image above to accompany this post featuring a Flickr photoset of Unfortunate Childrens Books. I’m assuming some reader took offense prompting Xeni to change the image. Um, yeah, about that…
I’m sure she means nothing by it. ;P
Sure, that “I Am a JEW” is deemed an unfortunate title may be offensive. It is the cheesy cover that is so hilarious and thus unfortunate i.e. it doesn’t do American Jews justice. Whatever.
What bothers me is that someone left a post simply saying “jews did wtc.” Sure, it may be a little sarcastic joke but it doesn’t really seem like that is the case. It’s too out of context and random.
What’s the point? I’m not talking about the cover of the book (which I think is a real hoot). It’s almost impossible nowadays to find a post pertaining to Jews where someone has not left a bigoted statement. Look at comments on Ha’aretz or YNet articles and you’ll notice the messages left by anti-Semites. Read an article about the Middle East on a college newspaper web site and there will be at least one comment spewing some anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
Oy, that is our lot. In some ways, “I Am a Jew” is an unfortunate statement. Okay, enough whining.
Hey, I’m the owner of that photostream… I knew it was going to be iffy to include it, but I got a kick out of the cover art and in insinutaion that one should fill in the blank. I thought my Jewish friends would get a laugh out of it. I never intended to infer that there was anything at all unfortunate about being Jewish, just the book cover itself being unfortunate.
FWIW, I have Jews in my family, and I think they are swell. In addition, I took down that “jews did wtc” nonsense and prohibited that knucklehead from postins to any of my stuff again.
Sorry for the trouble.
-MisterEric