Pious Encounters
I’m damned if I do, and damned if I don’t. But I’m more damned if I don’t, so I will. I will talk about race. And racism. And how our frum world is afflicted by it, ingrained as it is in our psyches owing to the notions of “chosenness,” the myths of black people and their descendancy from the Biblical Cham, the oft cited drivel of Yalkut Me’am Loaz about the inferiority and becursed nature of African peoples, and just plain old bigotry. It hurts to say it, and probably hurts more to hear it, but the honest truth can’t be ignored.
I was interviewing recently for a position with a frum real-estate firm.
“If we get 90 percent of the rent, we’re happy,” my interviewer said to me. A real Torah-true Jew, this man was. Studies at a local kolel until noon, and manages his business in the afternoon. Admirable. Real shtark, as the Litvaks would say.
“What about the other ten percent?” I asked.
“Well,” he said, “they’re mostly shvartzes, you understand?”
I wasn’t dressed as a frum Jew, didn’t wear my yarmulke, my Hasidic garb long discarded in some God-forsaken closet in my parents’ home. But he knew I was an insider by the Shulem Aleichem I gave him. Heimish is heimish, there’s no mistaking it. And insiders understand. You can say things to insiders, politically incorrect things, and they’ll chuckle along with you, twinkle an eye, finish your sentence for you.
But this guy was real analytical, see, with an authentic Yeshivish mind, and he had some insight to share.
“Shvartzehs are like animals, they only care about the present. That’s the fundamental difference between black people and white people. White people plan ahead; blacks act mainly on instinct, and only occupy themselves with temporary gratification.”
It reminded me of an old incident with my mashgiach in Yeshiva. I’d begun listening to talk radio, and somehow it reached the mashgiach’s ears. He summoned me to his office.
“You shouldn’t listen to goyish commentary,” he said. “They’re like animals. Chazal—our revered sages—in their infinite wisdom called non-Jews an am hadomeh l’chamor.” That last phrase is so coarse, I hesitate to translate it for the benefit of any non-Hebrew speaking readers, but I’ll do it anyway, because as I indicated, I’m going for honesty here. Am hadomeh l’chamor. A nation that is compared to a donkey. That sums up the goy in rabbinic literature. That sums up the goy to the Torah-true Jew.
My mashgiach didn’t differentiate between different types of goyim. It was all one to him. It was us and them. If you’re not us, you’re them. And if you’re them, there’s one definition for you. Am hadomeh l’chamor.
At the time, my mind wandered off. Suppose they were animals. Can’t animals be fascinating too? But of course, that logic wouldn’t work, because my mashgiach wasn’t operating from logic. It was based on his small-minded inferences drawn from the teachings of the Talmudic sages.
But this real-estate guy wasn’t like my old mashgiach. He was a man of the world, knowledgeable about many things, including many goyishe things, like computers and capitalism and how to manage bank accounts. He wouldn’t use the language of the Talmudic sages. He was more clever than that. He used real-life indicators.
But does one need to debunk such bigotry? Or can we take it for granted that most people realize its flaws, both moral and logical? One would think it obvious that human failings aren’t restricted to one group of people. And that opinions and commentary by those not influenced by the sacred words of the Torah and its sages might still contain bits of wisdom – or at least worthwhile material to keep a bored teenager entertained during a lazy lunch hour in Yeshiva. But apparently some are still stuck in a worldview where sane thinking and human equality doesn’t quite have the value most of us take for granted.
There is, however, an obvious commonality between these two individuals. They are both intelligent, adept at Torah study, and skilled at reasoning in general. So how is it that their faculties of reason and logic break down at times?
The answer lies in the fact that they both have areas of discourse where reason, however strong, doesn’t penetrate. They were indoctrinated from childhood with certain ideas being a priori truths. These ideas cannot be questioned and are accepted unequivocally. This, I can only speculate, creates a spot in their minds where logic is superfluous and even harmful. And since they have certain topics that are off limits to logical scrutiny, they will say things that seem absurd to those who lack the same indoctrination.
We are all guilty of faulty reasoning at one time or other. But the total breakdown of reason among intelligent people who are indoctrinated in fundamentalist faiths goes far beyond the simple failures of logic we might experience day-to-day. And they produce the kind of bigotry and indifference to other humans that we so often witness.
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This really hit home…
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“Shvartzehs are like animals, they only care about the present. That’s the fundamental difference between black people and white people. White people plan ahead; blacks act mainly on instinct, and only occupy themselves with temporary gratification
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wouldn’t you agree that this statement applies to a very sizable part of the black population? i would dare to say it applies to the vast majority of them,
just look at detroit,newark,all the inner cities, a wasteland,blacks make up almost 80% of the jail population,while being only 15% of the population.80% of black babies are born out of wedlock,and grow up without fathers,
the bottom line,saying the obvious truth does not make one a racist
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Chaim: You bring up a good point.
A non-racist doesn’t need to ignore the statistics you cited. A non-racist just needs to realizes that a individual shvartze is a person, not a statistic.
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Excellent post.
The first crack in my wall was when I came home from school all shaken up with the news of the Challenger explosion. My father couldn’t understand. “Would you care if seven (or was it nine) cockroaches blew up in the air”?
I tried the “we don’t say full Hallel on Pesach counterattack”, but it didn’t work.
When the Berlin wall came down a couple years later, and my father was grief stricken while I was jubilant, the ” don’t blame the son for the sins of his father argument, didn’t do much to change his foul mood.
After 9/11 I asked my father if he too would travel to a hell hole in middle america and volunteer to dig corpses out of the ground. My father for once, was speechless
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Chaim,
So what do you think it is? You believe that your son is biologically and genetically superior to a child born to black parents?
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> White people plan ahead; blacks act mainly on instinct
And here I thought the myth of white supremacy died on the battlefields of the Crimean War.
Racism is a product of an “us / them” mentality. WE are people, THEY are not like us, and therefore must be something else. How many aboriginal populations had names for themselves that mean, “The People?” If WE are special, THEY must not be.
> But the total breakdown of reason among intelligent people who are indoctrinated in fundamentalist faiths goes far beyond the simple failures of logic we might experience day-to-day.
Yes, but in the case of racism it isn’t just religious fundamentalists who are immune to logic. Racist views are accepted as the way the world is, and changing them is very difficult. If you want to get someone to abandon racist views, get them to work together towards a common goal with members of the group they denigrate. Logic won’t do a thing.
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I’m no racist and I believe in equality of rights for all men; but I’m not as daft as to believe that all men are indeed equal. Which is actually an argument against racism; not for it. Because in spite of an entire group being perceived as what the majority of them are, it would be unfair to the individual.
That isn’t to say that categorizing an entire ethnic group is wrong. Politically incorrect? Certainly. But scientifically inaccurate? Hardly.
Some races are simply genetically predisposed to being physically superior, while others might be more aesthetically pleasing. Still others will indeed have predisposition to violence, or even drug addiction. And since our intellect is in some way imbedded in our DNA, is it really a stretch to say that some ethnic groups are genetically more stupid?
I’ll grant you that no individual should be judged by the ethnic group he was born into. But as for the question posed before – Can I believe that my child is biologically and genetically superior to a child born to black parents? Indubitably. But then I believe my children are biologically and genetically superior to my neighbors’ kids too. Perhaps it is just because I’m of the very conceited opinion that they got to pick from a infinitely superior gene pool; but be that as it may, the feeling of superiority does not make one a racist.
Harboring animosity, or even simply being indifferent, does.
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Chaim,
The facts are true, but what lies behind them is where Chasidim go wrong. The fact that whites oppressed them for so long is why they still live like that. It will take many years for the cycle to end, and we need to make sure it does.
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If I may, I would like to -with all due respect, every so humbly, point out the irony here. If I read this piece correctly, which I think I did, the writer was trying to explain how an entire society indoctrinates its youth to share a certain viewpoint. This particular sect of narrow-minded individuals seems to all share opinion that it is never about the individual but about the group. These bigoted people don’t see the person but rather condemn the entire race.
Forget that there might be (and are!) many in this group who don’t hold this way. Who truly cares about the families who raise their children to be respectful of all mankind? For the most part this entire segment of people are just racist bigots. And that is the point that needs to be made here.
Funny thing though. If one truly cares about the individual apart from the group, then these blanket statement about this fanatical society should be seen as the racist comments they are.
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“At the time, my mind wandered off. Suppose they were animals. Can’t animals be fascinating too?”
You can’t take the Talmudist out of the yeshivah boy.
Great (and may I say, brutally honest) piece.
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TC: it just so happens, I mostly agree with you — on your first comment, that is. I don’t think what you say contradicts anything in the piece. I had the exact discussion earlier with the original author of the piece. Some people have higher intellectual capacity. Or athletic capacity. Or artistic capacity. And that someone might be your neighbor, your friend, or even a family member. And sometimes that applies to entire groups. But even when one has no strengths at all in any particular area, while perhaps indeed “inferior” when judged by a specific standard, they are no less human. And dehumanizing them, referring to them as “animals,” or somehow treating them as if they are not deserving of the same consideration as other “more worthy” humans is certainly a serious moral failing.
Those who consider entire groups “animals,” should by the same logic stop supporting HASC, stop referring to those children as “special,” and start treating all developmentally disabled folks the way they treat animals in a zoo. The flawed thinking then becomes obvious. Humans are humans, and should be treated with dignity and respect. Especially if you generally make claims to holding such values.
As to your second comment: hogwash! The point isn’t that *every* chasid feels that way. The point is that such indoctrination is actively taught and consciously espoused by a large segment of that society. The criticism isn’t more directed at the society as a whole than at those individuals who hold them. And that’s very different from calling an entire segment of society “animals.”
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TC,
Spot on, on your first and 2nd comment.
It is amusing to sit on the sidelines and observe how the writer (or maybe even this whole web site) is denouncing racism or bigotry, which by definition means a blanket view on an entire race, yet he is caricaturing a whole other segment of folks. The writer is successful to do both using the same words. Some would argue that THIS is a more pure racism, I would call this talent…
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TC, great to see you again.
Question;
If your” biologically and genetically superior son” was adopted at birth by black parents and raised in the ghetto, how would he fare?
When you refer to intelligence,how do you measure that?
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HR, I agree with your agreement of TC’s points; I do not agree that her second comment is hogwash. Of course the point isn’t that *every* chussid thinks this way, just as I believe that nobody who has a brain in his head truly thinks that *every* black is intellectually inferior. (For the record, I want to say that my smartest professor in college–my mentor, actually–is black.) Still, she’s right that the anti-charedi blogs participate in the precise behaviors they condemn in charedim.
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Hmmm…we’re observing strange bedfellows here, which speaks to the members’ commitment to intellectual honesty
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chaim- first of all, i don’t know where you get your statistics from, but they are wrong.
But even if they were right, they don’t prove anything. Blacks are more likely to go to prison than whites, true, but mostly that is due to a) extreme rates of poverty due to historical and still present discrimination that prevents black people from getting well paying jobs and forces them to turn to the ‘informal economy’ (Don’t think that’s true? Google “Devah Pager” and check out her articles on racism and hiring) and b) systematic racism at all levels of the system from getting arrested to getting convicted. Blacks are more likely to be arrested rather than given a warning compared with white who commit the same crimes, blacks are more likely to be pulled over on the highway, blacks are under higher scrutiny, meaning when they commit a crime they are more likely to be caught, blacks are more likely than whites to be convicted for the same crime, and they get longer sentances. Plus crimes more prevelant in the black community are treated more harshly than those in white communities. Look at the differences between cocaine and crack laws. Cocaine and crack are basically the same exact substance, except crack is boiled and mixed with other substances (and so is more adulterated), and is cheaper. Crack is also much more common among blacks than whites while the opposite is true for cocaine. Under current law possession of 5 grams of crack carries a 5 year mandatory minimum sentence, while to trigger the same sentence for possession of cocaine you need to be in possession of 5 HUNDRED grams- which is nearly impossible, given the price of cocaine, unless you are a drug dealer, while for crack it is much easier to posess. SAME exact substance!
Therefore the fact that blacks are more likely to go to jail is not a reason to say they are inferior, but a reason to say the system of justice and economy in this country is unfair and discriminatory towards blacks.
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as for black women having children out of wedlock, first of all it’s not 80%, although it is higher than whites, and the rate of births among whites that are out of wedlock are around 40%. Around half of those are born to cohabiting couples (couples that live together but are not legally married), so they are not being raised by “single mothers” necessarily. Second of all, research by harknett and mclanahan has found that this discrepancy is explained by the number of men vs. women, the % of men in prison (which makes them “unmarriagable” to most women) and the % of men unemployed or “Underemployed” (employed,but earning below poverty level wages). If we corrected other problems in hiring and wages, many of these other problems would start fixing themselves with time.
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a simple jew- there is a difference between judging individuals based on groups in which they are a part (such as saying “All blacks are x”) and observing that a group has a commonly occurring characteristics (“Haredi jews commonly have an attitude that is y”). The first makes assumptions that specific people in a group will always act in a certain way, while the later is a statement of fact that people in that group commonly act that way. Do you see the difference?
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A.E.
In your comment please switch “blacks” to “Haredi jews” and “Haredi jews” to “blacks”. Now do YOU see the difference?
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a simple jew- do you have a point?
this part of the post “But apparently some are still stuck in a worldview where sane thinking and human equality doesn’t quite have the value most of us take for granted.” makes it obvious that he is not painting all haredi jews as racist precisely because he uses the word SOME. Which is just a statement of fact.
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This whole article doesnt hold water.
What this bussines-wingerman said happens to be right, he said nothing wrong here. See, I love the shvartza, they are very funny, hillarious sometimes, I love the shvartza comedians etc and I voted for Obama who happens to be a smart and charismatic black person. I work with them and socialize with them, however, you cant deny the fact that most of them are below the average level of smart, most of them are violent, just be on any train 3ish when they leave school, sit and watch which children sit civil and orderly on their places and which kids turn the train into an animal cage, they just can’t help themselves, they are violent from the minute they enter this planet, the language in their homes is laced with foul and profanity language, they are broght up like animals to be frank, have you ever listened to a black mother screaming at her child??my god! what do you expect from this little kid when he grows up?and dont give me the “oppresion ghetto” retort, they live freely for over 100 years already, in noraml cities, why are they still at the same level? this businessman simply said “they dont think ahead, they live for the moment” can anyone refute that???
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A.E.
I don’t want to sound rude or obnoxious, but it appears you got my point loud and clear. Your obscure response about the word SOME proves it.
Bottom line is this, it appears that its ok and perhaps even lofty to blankly bash chasidim about the way chasidim blankly bash any other ethnic group.
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It is offensive to act upon an assumption that any individual Haredi is racist, even if you think it might be statistically logical to presuppose that.
However A Simple Jew, within the system, when one finds oneself admonishing ones child for repeating racist language, word for word the utterances of an esteemed school teacher (I did that yesterday), what should one do?
Go to the heads of the school and complain? What kind of response would that solicit from the heads if not a harsh rebound of wanton bewilderment and utter dumbfoundedness? So here I am assuming that the heads are racist too. How ironically racist of me eh?
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“Some races are simply genetically predisposed to being physically superior, while others might be more aesthetically pleasing. Still others will indeed have predisposition to violence, or even drug addiction. And since our intellect is in some way imbedded in our DNA, is it really a stretch to say that some ethnic groups are genetically more stupid?” -tc
out of respect for the readers and writers of Unpious, i will not reproduce the text that this sounds like, but please note the similarity to the eleventh chapter of mein kampf. (you can find it online if you google hitler and race. i’m purposely not posting the link.)
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Thanks, Emily.
The similarities between what some of these people believe and Nazi ideology are frightening.
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So is it basically a a obligation for us to do a תיקון תשובה & break the cycle?
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Let us ay that it is similar to Mein Kampf, does that invalidate the truth?
I am not saying it’s true. I just don’t understand how political correctness goes into the open mids of our skeptics.
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While you’re right that the fact Hitler shared the opinion doesn’t automatically invalidate it, it does mean that it should be approached cautiously given it’s demonstrated potential for harm.
Anyway, it’s just not so. The genetic variation within races is much greater than the genetic variation between races.
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Great post, and an even more interesting discussion. I’ve put up one persons take on this issue at http://daashedyot.blogspot.com/2010/01/biased-perspectives.html.
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Abandoning Eden,
There is substantially greater amount of violence among blacks than whites in this country. Below is FBI statistics on arrests. You suggest that the greater number of blacks who are arrested is because “[b]lacks are more likely to be arrested rather than given a warning compared with white who commit the same crimes.” But that would not apply to the murder rates. While people might get warnings about littering, surely you do not think that any white people get off with a warning for killing people. You also seem to suggest that if it is true that blacks commit crimes with greater frequency, it can be attributed to “extreme rates of poverty.” However, you will note in the FBI statistics linked to below that blacks are arrested for rape at a substantially higher rate than whites. There is no economic benefit to committing rape.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/data/table_43.html
Finally, you state that “extreme rates of poverty [among blacks is] due to historical and still present discrimination.” You do not provide a basis for your assertion, and you expect the reader to take that as a given. Yet there is substantial evidence that blacks have a lower IQ than whites or Asians. It is hard to argue that there is no relationship between intelligence and economic success. The problem with your argument, that historical racism fully explains why blacks are disproportionately poor, is that there were many other groups that historically were discriminated against. You might want to read about discrimination against the Irish and Chinese in this country. Somehow, there does not seem to be any lasting effects of this discrimination.
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Emily,
I am afraid you commit the logical fallacy known as Reductio ad Hitlerum. That Hitler believed something is not proof that it is wrong. Hitler was a vegetarian; would criticize vegetarians on grounds that they share a belief with Hitler?
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Emily,
Again it is interesting to read on a so called blog of, and for, open minded-truth seekers-philosophy enthusiasts, the kind of argument you just made in reference to mein kampf.
I will site the chapter and verse in mein kampf, where hitler denounces communism. Those the lone fact that hitler argues against communism, validates it (even after approaching the argument carefully).
The problem with hitler’s race philosophy was NOT the philosophy itself (it appears some on this blog don’t have the emotional capabilities to tackle this issue) but the ensuing solution, namely gassing human beings on a scale unseen before.
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I love it. You guys aren’t even ashamed of yourselves…
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Will start with baby steps…
Please copy and paste this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_genetics
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Vag,
You claim that there is substantial evidence that black people have lower IQs than whites. As a professional who administers psych educational evaluations to both black and white kids every day, I would love to see the evidence you’ve been privy to, that I am apparently unaware of. And if you will use the “bell curve” as scientific evidence, just know that in our field it has been disproven and denounced as pseudo-scientific crap.
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If hitler didn’t believe in the premise of Arayan supremacy, he wouldn’t try to rid the world of the jews.
To say that what we believe doesn’t matter, as long as we don’t “do” is ludicrous.
If you subscribe to a specific weltanschauung, it is a given that those perceptions and believes will color your psychosocial.
If I told you I had serious doubts whether god existed, think praying is meaningless and boring, and hated jews, would it be fair for you to come to make the assumption that I probably am not a great jew in practice?
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Actually a jew was on that flight
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Groyseh gibor! How very forward looking and enlightened you are! Schvartzes are not chamorim. Pshhh a real Mar bar Rav Ashi.
Nohr the emess is, you didn’t deal with the issue at all. You went schor schor like a nazir.
There is only one issue to be dealt with here. Can people be compared to animals. And the answer is yes. If you live like an animal, without any thought of anything spiritual, but only to satisfy your immediate physical needs. Then why, you are an animal! And that applies to most of the writers on this website.
So if it makes you feel better, schvartzers and all the white writers on Unpious.com are all animals.
How very egalitarian! Surely, you have no complaints against such a statement?! Or do you?
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Chamor,
I for one have no problem with your last statement. I’d rather be an animal (which we all are) than be like you!
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We are all human with the same capabilities. It’s all circumstantial. If u grow up in the ghetto u might not have the same access as the white suburben kid, hence the violence the ghetto kid might turn to. Maybe cuz thats all he saw as a kid, or opportunities are not available to him.
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I think saying that what this man said is true kind of takes away from what this was meant to be.
Now you want to hear racist? Walk into a second-grade class and listen to the words they call Basketball players. That is all you need to do to take this post home. Doing that to your mind when you are young is RACIST and it is MIND-CONTROLLING!!
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