I'm honestly shocked when I see White Jews in the United States not understand that they are White. The history of how White Jews became White in the US is actually very interesting and complex so maybe that's part of it, and there's an excellent book on the subject I would strongly recommend. (If anyone sees this comment and is intrigued by the book but isn't able to buy it or get it from a library dm me and I can send you a digital copy)
You might also like How Jews Became White Folks and What that Says about Race in America, by anthropologist Karen Brodkin, though it's limited to talking about ethnic and racial identity and change in the U.S.
Many American Jews check off "white" on boxes, though that's a fairly recent phenomenon and most Jews (such as myself) have a sense of cultual identity distinct from a default American white one (we talk differently, eat different foods, etc). There is a book on the subject that I hear is good.
>Am I misunderstanding her?
Pretty sure, yeah. Though if there's one thing marxists have in common, it's that they're really obtuse when citing frameworks from their grad school sociology textbooks.
So first;
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>Black to me is both about a race that's been constructed
This is a (relatively) modern textbook definition of race. A wave of scholarship in anthropology and evolutionary biology in the 50s and 60s essentially discarded the notion that race could be reliably defined by genetics or epigenetics. Rather, belonging to a race is completely contextual to a society, socioeconomic status, religious affiliation, culture, etc. For example, washing away the pretense that there is some underlying physical basis to an "Irish Temper", other than the society to which a person belongs. All other definitions of race, even ones that are purportedly based on physical characteristics like skin tone, eye color, hair type or facial features, ultimately fail under scrutiny.
So her first definition is acknowledgement that there exists in America a social construct of a race called "black" to which many people are assigned, that can be contrasted with other races to which other groups of people are assigned. And "blackness" is the condition of being assigned to that group.
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>...but it's also a political statement. It's a political framework.
So separate and apart from the social constructs of race (which is nominally but not actually based on skin color), she's asserting that there also exists a power dynamic, where "whiteness" is synonymous with the in-group, and "blackness" synonymous with the out-group.
When she says "political" here, she's not talking about specific ideologies or parties. She's referring to the group power dynamic. That is, the enfranchisement and privileged social status and opportunities that one group has or restricts from the other.
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>... we've seen that throughout history when groups were not white and when the white power structure was threatened, they figured out a way to make groups white.
In reference to historical non-white groups, I assume she's talking about changes to membership of the "white" in-group. Think about 19th century nativists in New York in contrast to Irish, Italian, or Jewish immigrants. Or Southern Whites settlers (who considered themselves master descendants of Huguenots, Cavaliers and Jacobites) vs Northern Whites (largely Puritans, who they deemed to be lowly Saxon serfs).
It's hard to contest that today, those various ethnic groups have been incorporated into the "white" in-group in terms of political power. But the idea that an Irish person could enjoy any semblance of "white privilege" in America would have been outrageous 100 years ago.
She's asserting that at many points, clinging to a certain definition of membership for the white in-group becomes untenable. Imagine a dominant in-group of (hypothetical) anglo-saxons in Connecticut at risk of being outvoted in the face of swelling numbers of Irish Catholics and blacks. If they could not figure out a reliable way to disenfranchise them, then they would ultimately need to accommodate some them by expanding the definition of the political bloc of "whiteness". Hence a creeping definition of whiteness over time.
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So when she says...
>And I think as we move forward we have to figure out political alignments that hold blackness as a broader framework than just sort of the skin we're in, but as a political statement
She's speaking optimistically about 1) more individuals coming to describe their "blackness" as the political out-group consciousness rather than the racial construct. And 2) using that consciousness [somehow, details not provided] to make the current in-group/out-group dynamic untenable, and thus ultimately become incorporated into the in-group.
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Edit: when you see large numbers of hispanic or Native Americans taking up the cause of "Black" Lives Matter as though it represents them (rather than just being an ally) you can start to pick up a little more on what she means.
Some light reading on the subject;
https://www.amazon.com/Became-White-Folks-About-America/dp/081352590X
My research in college was on discriminations against Jews in college admissions in the 1920s-1930s. I highly recommend to you the book "How Jews Became White Folks."
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https://www.amazon.com/Became-White-Folks-About-America/dp/081352590X
> Thank you kindly for proving my point beyond any reasonable doubt. If you knew anything about Jewish history,
I’m a Jew. Are you?
>you would know that Jews are not white
Jews are white.
https://www.amazon.com/Became-White-Folks-About-America/dp/081352590X
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/are-jews-white/509453/
>and were murdered and persecuted throughout history;
Because Hitler didn’t consider them white. Do you agree with Hitler? Race is a construct. It’s not a real thing.
>Israel was not a settler colonial project of white Europeans,
It was. Almost all the people who settled Israel in the Aliyahs were from Europe. I’m happy to have a conversation about it but if you keep lying about obvious facts, we won’t get anywhere.
>despite what your gender studies Professor has said.
I never took gender studies. Reported.
>As for your claims that 'credible' organizations 'say otherwise,' you lose your credibility as a respectable human rights NGO when you accept large swath of funds from countries who are some of the worst violators of human rights themselves - cough, cough Amnesty, cough cough HRW.
Organizations within Israel say the same thing.
>...I'd also much rather be a Jordan Peterson fan, someone who can actually think critically than a blind follower of scandalous left-wing NGO's.
You didn’t answer my question. Are you a fan of JP?
Have you read this book by Karen Brodkin?
You make an important point about distinguishing between 'white' and 'jewish.' But, here's an article that discusses that concept: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/are-jews-white/509453/ There's also a book about the disappearing lines between the two groups: https://www.amazon.com/dp/081352590X
Historically, the Irish, Italians, and others, like the Jews, were not considered 'white' in the US but eventually, due to various sociocultural and economic factors came to be included under the standard of 'white.' The problem isn't that people are white but what some people who identify as white do with that identity. Aaron Schlossberg is important, because his 'white privilege' is evident even in how he treats other Jews (with whom he disagrees). See more on his various public rants: https://heavy.com/news/2018/05/aaron-schlossberg/
Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, etc are free to believe what they will, but to identify oneself based not on one's actions or words, but rather how one looks (skin color, gender, body type/shape, etc) can be problematic since such things aren't controllable (yes, there are instances where they are but that doesn't mean that in all instances they are). Schlossberg might have a Jewish name and claim to be Jewish but he doesn't appear to be following the Talmud or Torah. Whatever Mr. Whitey Kentucky is following must be the cult philosophy of white: I am white therefore I am great (i.e. uncontrollable factors such as to whom one will be born make him great) and at the same time that P.OC. are not equal to him.
I'm not sure where you are getting the numbers for 95% control of trade and 60% of the slaves. These ideas seem to come from anti-Jewish rhetoric, not facts (although a fairly liberal site, useful facts): https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-labour-s-latest-blaming-jews-for-slave-trade-1.5390569
It appears the facts that you note regarding Jews are drawn from a 1994 academic study that has proven to be quite flawed: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1995/09/slavery-and-the-jews/376462/ Here, the reviewer (Winthrop Jordan) of that flawed study, the reviewer being a famed professor and scholar of slavery and black American history, debunks all those myths.
In any case, thank you for the support. I do appreciate it, but I would like to emphasize that only those who have done wrong (or benefit from wrongs) should be held responsible (insofar as they are guilty). Everyone has done something wrong somewhere; it's not about being perfect, but rather about accepting responsibility instead of shirking it for self-perceived superiority.
Calling the Holocaust "white on white genocide" when the perpetrators of that genocide considered Jews nonwhite is an absurdity. How dare you use the Holocaust to justify the claim that white people have suffered genocide.
No one anywhere considered any Jew white during the Holocaust, not even the people fighting the Nazis. Today, only some white people conditionally consider some Jews white. And the very scholar that wrote the book on how Jews in America became "white" has recently written that even those white-skinned Jews are at risk of no longer being "white."
Even if you accept that some Jews are white today, the fact is that the Jews who suffered repeated ethnic cleansings and genocides weren't white then.
"Jewish whiteness became American whiteness after WWII."
Jews were not white in Europe until really after WWII. It happened a bit earlier in the U.S.
Read this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Became-White-Folks-About-America/dp/081352590X
Applies to Italians, Irish, Greeks, etc. too. All the 'kinda white' groups in the USA.
You, my friend, are an abject loon.
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It is only criticism to the extent that "white" is a pejorative term. Obviously its very pejorative, but its accurate.
Do some reading: https://www.amazon.com/Became-White-Folks-About-America/dp/081352590X
Yeah, you seem to have a very skewed view of who is on the anti-discrimination side of this debate. Rest assured, it will be a very small minority of people who love Farrakhan, and call the anti-defamation league evil.
As for Jews being "White", under the current social paradigm they are considered "white" by most. Certainly from a perspective of proportionality in the wealth distribution and political and social capital they (as a group) are relatively high up there. Which, based on your previous posts I feel I need to emphasize, doesn't mean they are bad or evil. More power to them. It is terribly sad that they are targeted for hate crime and we should do everything we can to prevent that.