Not Good for the Jews
Donald “I am not a racist” Sterling gave an interview to Anderson Cooper on CNN last night and boy it was just a beautiful example of Asshatery.
“Jews when they get successful, they will help their people, and some of the African Americans – maybe I’ll get in trouble again – they don’t want to help anybody.” – Sterling.
Simply this guy is just horrible. He needs to stop talking and go away. I am ashamed to have him as member of the tribe and hope he fades into obscurity.
However, he isn’t alone. We all know that and won’t talk about it.
Everyone knows “that guy” who talks about how the Jews are the only minority that look after their own. We all have a cousin who carefully uses phrases like “the Arabs” and “the chronically poor” or even the ever infamous “real Americans” carefully integrated with traditionally liberal arguments. There is an “old friend” who uses Yiddish terms to talk about the Shvartsers or the Shiksas hurting our community. We ignore it, and then we get pissed when Donald Sterling comes out and says what he says.
But what really gets my goose is that old story that we heard from our grandparents: When the news is bad, a robbery, a rape, a murder, we hope the perpetrator isn’t a Jew. Because for a lot of Americans in small towns and big cities, this Jew on the news is the only Jew they know. Donald Sterling is currently the most famous Jew in the news, whether we like it or not.
Jews can get up and say whatever we want to push back against these statements but the reality is we can’t put the Sterling’s racist feathers back in the pillow. If we stood up to Uncle Bob or Cousin Stan, perhaps we wouldn’t be dealing with this but we are dealing with this now. It is 2014 and Jews are making news for being racists.
In short this isn’t good for the Jews.
Sterling has been an ass a long time. No one was complaining when they were cashing his checks in exchange for two NAACP lifetime achievement awards. Donald is just playing the game. And so is everyone else. You win some, you lose some, it’s all in good fun. Is there anything more exciting than self-righteous indignation? Feels good, right? Gets the blood going, at least until the next natural disaster halfway around the world or political scandal.
It’s all a game, including this obligatory “bad for the Jews”, “every’s got a racist uncle Lenny” garbage on Jewschool. Yes, let’s all partake in yet another round of some good old fashioned feel-good Jewish self-shaming just because some asshole in California that none of us has met or ever heard of before got in a fight with his [Editor’s Note: this sentence redacted for offensively sexist insults of Sterling’s mistress.].
Yes Yenta, that is it exactly. It is bad for the Jews. However, I don’t feel so good about this situation. If he was just some shmuck who happens to be Jewish saying this shit then it would have been bad. But he isn’t. He is saying that as a Jew he is better than black people. He is kicking people of color out of his apartment buildings. We are past self-shaming here. We are to the point of damage control.
But hey, you are right, it is just a game and we all play our role. Just like you Yenta, we didn’t care when we didn’t know so we can’t care now, right?