{"id":2924,"date":"2002-10-02T09:45:27","date_gmt":"2002-10-02T09:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.armedliberal.com\/?p=322"},"modified":"2002-10-02T09:45:27","modified_gmt":"2002-10-02T09:45:27","slug":"anti-semitism-and-the-two-%c2%91n-words%c2%92","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=2924","title":{"rendered":"ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE TWO \u0091N-WORDS\u0092"},"content":{"rendered":"

My Central Valley bud Devra<\/a> points out Ampersand\u0092s comments<\/a> about conflating anti-semitism with criticism of Israel.
\nShe tags a few good points\u0085although I think Goodwin\u0092s Law<\/a> applies, and that the term \u0093Nazi\u0094 is most usually used as a meaningful-conversation-stopper; I think there has to be a distinction between some uses of the term\u0085for example, some of my motorcycling and climbing friends have called me \u0091the Safety Nazi\u0092 with mixed levels of warmth, which I don\u0092t find terribly insulting because I am inflexible about safety, and the use of the terms feminazi or econazi, which I\u0092ve heard used to apply to folks who are equally inflexible about feminism or ecology. Both have an element of the dismissive about them, and could, in some light be seen as insulting.
\nBut to call Jews \u0091Nazis\u0092 is a different level of the game, in no small part because it is a targeted and intentional insult aimed at the heart of their cultural and racial history. It isn\u0092t an indirect or general insult, it is a intentional slap in the face no less than the other \u0093N\u0094 word.
\nAnd because I usually use anecdote to make my points, here\u0092s a personal one.
\nAs a teenager, my brother went through a phase of his life when he was simply convinced he was black. He dated black girls, hung out with the black kids at school, spoke in that soft middle-class West Los Angeles version of a black drawl with traces of black urban grammar. I never quite figured out where it came from; both of us has been in part raised by strong black men who were close friends to our checked-out parents, but I\u0092d simply acknowledged my status as a mutt and always been comfortable with it. Maybe it connected with him in some deeper way, I really don\u0092t know.
\nLater in life, he would fall into his \u0091wigro\u0092 role among black friends or co-workers.
\nUntil one day, he got fired because in the heat of an argument at work, he\u0092d called a black co-worker by the \u0091n-word\u0092. He called me in tears and rage.
\nHe\u0092d used the same word, collegially, a dozen times, he told me. He couldn\u0092t understand why, now, his colleague had called management and management had summarily fired him.
\nI told him that I<\/u> understood, and that if he\u0092d worked for me, I\u0092d probably have fired him, too.
\nThe issue is that insult derives from context and intention.
\nTo call me a \u0091Nazi\u0092 because I\u0092m obsessed with and rigid about safety, or a women a \u0091Nazi\u0092 because she is obsessed with or rigid about feminism, or an ecologist a \u0091Nazi\u0092 because they are obsessed with or rigid about ecology is a different thing than to call someone by the name of the enemy who specifically targeted them out and attempted to exterminate them.
\nAnd to wave that off is simply as morally indefensible as what my brother did. At least he learned his lesson.
\nI\u0092ll add a \u0091geopolitical\u0092 point as well. The issue in criticizing Israel\u0092s sometimes misguided policies is to distinguish one key fact: do you support Israel\u0092s right to exist? As a Western and predominantly Jewish state? Because while I have been and will continue to be critical of many of their loonier policies, their right to exist trumps a whole range of other issues for me, and their opponents refusal to meaningfully agree to their right to exist and to take concrete steps to back up that agreement devalue their claims almost to zero.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Central Valley bud Devra points out Ampersand\u0092s comments about conflating anti-semitism with criticism of Israel. She tags a few good points\u0085although I think Goodwin\u0092s Law applies, and that the term \u0093Nazi\u0094 is most usually used as a meaningful-conversation-stopper; I think there has to be a distinction between some uses of the term\u0085for example, some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2924"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2924\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}