Running racism in America thread

I hope it was just an honest mistake. I'm glad to see he addressed it rather than just deleting it.

 

From what little I know of the Nick Cannon quotes that started all this, it sounded like he was channeling boilerplate from the Black Hebrew Israelites. Sadly, there's plenty of language like that to be found in Farrakhan / Nation of Islam, too; and in the worst of the uptown preachers, like Sharpton.

That sort of anti-Semitism is still all too common among black Americans.

Even with a shaky truce across some of the Civil Rights years, there's a long unhappy history here.

 

Good column.

Where did the DeSean Jackson comments come from? Was he riffing on Cannon's comments, or did they come before Cannon's comments?

 

I believe Jackson precedes Cannon, but I'm not 100% sure.

 

I didn't hear about Cannon's comments until yesterday, but the podcast aired June 30. Apparently, it was recorded last year. Jackson made his posts July 6. Jackson's just got mainstream attention sooner.

Nick Cannon apologizes for anti-Semitic remarks after firing: ‘I feel ashamed’

Cannon apologized late last night, but his first response after being let go by ViacomCBS was to lash out and claim they were just "making an example of an outspoken black man."

 

More than a decade later, I still cringe when I think about it. Not only had I severely insulted the Celtics’ fan base, but I had made a joke about the Nazi leader who orchestrated the murder of 6 million Jewish people. I was, of course, aware of the Holocaust, but I had given little thought to the feelings of the Jewish community because, frankly, it wasn’t my own. When others pointed out the insensitivity of my statement, I was mortified. I apologized and wrote an entire column asking for forgiveness. ESPN suspended me for a week, a punishment that I deserved.​

Meh. Lines like that make the whole piece ring hollow. OMG, she was ... mortified! Sorry, doesn't pass the authenticity smell test.

 

I believe her. I don't always agree with her, but I find her sincere. Always have.

 

Late to the DJax/antisemitism discussion, but W.E.B. DuBois? I haven't heard that before and I can't locate any evidence of this. I'm not disputing you, but do you have any evidence of this (from an objective source of academic quality)?

Als0 -- being Jewish, myself, I have a lot of conflicted feelings on all of this. I'm absolutely frustrated and disgusted by the general lack of outrage (outside the Jewish community) surrounding both Jacksons' comments and, more recently, Nick Cannon. I find the dismissiveness to be really offensive -- it feels like antisemitism (along with anti-Asian bigotry) is a form of bigotry that seems to get a pass, largely because of Jews' economic influence and success in America. It's still a major problem that I wish people took a lot more seriously, all the time, and not just when something like the Pittsburgh shooting occurs. All that said, I think a lot of my fellow Jewish people maybe need to be a little careful with their own rhetoric and make sure their own house is clean. Some of the same Jewish folks in my circle shouting for Desean Jackson to be suspended, cut, banned, whatever (I don't remember them taking such a stand when Riley Cooper was throwing around the N word and not getting suspended, cut or banned), also say a lot of racist -- or at least obtuse and intolerant -- shit themselves while patting themselves on the back for their Jewish forebears' support of civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s. I'm sorry, but the murder of Andrew Goodman and Mickey Schwerner -- or the fact that rabbis marched with King 60 years ago -- doesn't give Jews an eternal pass. And while this is by no means an excuse for anything either Jackson has posted or said, let's be real here. These are African-American men who've made their living (a nice living to be sure) in a field where the owners are disproportionately Jewish, the agents are disproportionately Jewish and a lot of the media that cover them (Schefter, Eisen, Rapoport, a number of beat writers) are Jewish too. And these relationships can fuel resentment. Desean Jackson has no doubt experienced Jeffrey Lurie and Howie Roseman playing hardball with him. Then his former agent, Drew Rosenhaus initiated a pretty lengthy legal battle against him over 700k. A Jewish arbitrator, Roger Kaplan, ruled in Roseman's favor before Jackson finally prevailed in court (potentially thanks to the work of a Jewish lawyer? I have no idea). Despite the fact that he attended UC-Berkeley, I have no idea how educated Jackson himself really is (did he graduate? Did they funnel revenue-sport athletes into a different track? Did the public schools in Crenshaw or Long Beach teach him a lot about the insidiousness of anti-Semitism in the black community?). And to be sure, his large paychecks have come from Jews -- and it's the work of Jewish professionals that got him a pretty good contract. But I can't say for sure if I was looking at the world through his lens, whether I wouldn't recognize how much money my Jewish owners and agents are making off my physical talents and willingness to put myself at extreme physical risk and wonder if I'm being exploited. I know this plays into all sorts of toxic tropes, but it's worth discussing. And to be perfectly honest, for every time Jesse Jackson has grumbled about "hymies," I've heard a dozen elderly Jews talk about the "shvartzers." Or, among those closer to my own age, expressing a lot more outrage (or at least paternalistic hand-wringing) over protestors and looters than the underlying issues that resulted in the protesting and looting. Being politically liberal (or at least voting Democratic) and being technically in favor of civil rights doesn't really make one "non-racist" or "anti-racist." I guess what I'm really saying is that the anti-semitism expressed by many in the black community makes me sick, but so does the hypocrisy I've seen from some of my landsmen.

 

This is what I wrote about a bit yesterday. Everybody needs to clean up their act and do better, but that doesn't justify what Jackson posted or what Cannon said. It also doesn't justify the lack of response by black players in the NFL.

This is why I was encouraged to see that both Zach Banner and Cameron Heyward did speak up.

 

Just saw your post. Almost thought of deleting mine as duplicative. By the way, my mother grew up in Squirrel Hill (she's in her 70s) and that entire side of my family is from Pittsburgh. I used to visit a lot while my grandparents were still alive. I know the Pittsburgh Jewish community well. We may have some mutual acquaintances.

 

It is certainly possible. Our mothers both grew up in Squirrel Hill and they were close to the same age. My mother would have been 73 now, but she died four years ago.