Gawker 
Enter your username and password.
-
posts about #maxblumental more → Some Young Jews Are Not Fans of Obama
New York, 1:09 AM
Wed Dec 9
45 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip Your Editors:
Tipline: 646-214-8138
Editor-in-Chief:
Gabriel Snyder |
West Coast Editor:
Richard Rushfield |
Contributing Editors:
Valleywag:
Ryan Tate |
Media:
Hamilton Nolan |
Politics:
Alex Pareene |
Investigations:
John Cook |
Entertainment:
Brian Moylan |
Nights:
Adrian Chen |
Azaria Jagger |
Ravi Somaiya |
Weekends:
Foster Kamer |
Video Editor:
Richard Blakeley |
| posts about #maxblumental more → |
Some Young Jews Are Not Fans of Obama |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
06/06/09
06/06/09
06/05/09
The fact that they're Americans reminds me of a friend I had from Liberia (who was black). He said he fucking hated black tourists from the US who kept talking about Liberia and Africa as the "homeland," and how paternalistic they got about this country they'd just arrived in. Whereas white tourists in Liberia knew that they were merely tourists, and consequently comported themselves in such a way that recognized their own otherness. In this video, these kids are assuming a patriotic fervor for a country they're only scratching the surface of, before they go back to their comfy lives in Westchester or Silver Spring. They're just as arrogant and unrealistic as those black tourists to Liberia are, figuring they know best when it comes to a country they don't even know at all.
06/05/09
Then I actually watched the video. Those dudes cannot possibly be the educated class of Israel. I feel a little bad that I can't feel genuine horror, as much as amused disregard.
06/05/09
06/05/09
06/05/09
06/05/09
1) I didn't know that pointing to the racism of other people made one an anti-semite. But, apparently under some conditions, that is the case. Good to know.
2) Likewise I didn't know that pointing a camera at a bunch of drunken assholes and asking their opinion about the President and his policy toward one country made one a self-hating Jew and an anti-semite. I shall alert my friends.
3) I really need to know what specific brands of alcohol (and/or drugs) cause one to talk about niggers and faggots, advocate the assassination of a sitting president, etc. You might also want to pry these magical elixirs from the hands of these kids' parents, because these are learned attitudes.
4) Okay, so you convinced me, I don't really give a shit about dual citizenship. What I would like, however, and what I haven't had in my lifetime, is a foreign policy in the middle east that puts the United States' interests first. Maybe we'll get it now (although until yesterday, nothing Obama ever said made me think this was the case).
5) When I suggested that these kids should have to choose their citizenship, I never imagined for a second that they would choose the Israeli option. I don't blame them; and no matter, we share our country with all manner of cretins...even ones from Crete.
6) The accusation of anti-semitism is ridiculously overused. Quick quiz: who are the other "Semites" in the region? Quick answer: the Arabs. But you know an Internet discussion has lost its intellectual spark when the old saw comes out.
06/05/09
"Perhaps a missile attack was an over-reaction on Israel's part."
"From what page of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion did you pull that from?!?!?!"
06/05/09
06/05/09
06/05/09
They're negative behavior would immediately attributed to an entire race or group of people.
I can appreciate that these jerks in the video are not representative of every single person who happens to be Jewish. I doubt many, many of these same posters would agree and come to the defense of the kids if they were from Queens or Pilsen or East LA, Youngstown, Ohio, or Iran.
06/05/09
06/05/09
06/05/09
06/05/09
06/05/09
There are a lot of obstacles on the path between those two points -- or so one hopes -- and three rounds of drinks don't suddenly enable one to make the whole journey in one night. In fact I'd suggest it takes years of training.
That's what's so unsettling about this video, even if the words wind up being completely empty: That these kids posit the existence of a community where saying such things out loud isn't the social equivalent of immediately dunking yourself in shit and being set on fire.
For some groups, we think we know why they say such things and where their ideas come from. For this group, however, the sources of their behavior are somewhat less clear to many of us, and that's why it's unsettling.
To anyone has a handle on why these kids think it's OK to act this way: I understand why your reaction is "Come on, it's not that big a deal, it's really no different than any other group of kids who would say such things. You're blowing it out of proportion." I think you're probably right. I just suggest that we who are stunned by this are stunned because we're confused and unsettled, not because we think these kids are representative of anyone but themselves and the (hopefully imaginary) community where they think such utterances are fair game.
06/05/09
People should accept that racism is everywhere and the stereotype that it's a Southern product needs to be packed up.
As for this video, freedom of speech is something many people embrace until they hear something they don't like. Then they become repressive tyrants.
06/05/09
06/05/09
06/05/09
06/05/09
Way to throw the door open to antisemites. No, I'm not talking about people who are critical of Israel, as they should be. I mean not asshats who say things like "We should all just feel so blessed for the eternal gift Judaism -- who knew that an ancient dogma dogma rooted in self-obsession and exploitation would lead to such nuanced and intelligent behavior?"
Or "The funny thing about these people is they have no problem invoking the Holocaust." Yes, Gawker, you encourage these troll jackasses, and their sentiments will now be embraced by your servers forever.
How is it that this site can find douchebags anywhere -- heck, that's what it does best -- but only manages to generalize them all as something like "The Young Jews" in, oh, certain cases?
This sort of thing came up throughout the election, when Jews as a whole were constantly being "jokingly" ridiculed on this site as Obama-hating racists. The fact is, and remains, that 78 percent of American Jews voted for Obama, versus 43 percent of whites in general. 78 percent. But you find a few racist douchenozzles getting drunk and and mouthing off in a disgusting manner, and suddenly "The Young Jews Are Not Fans of Obama."
Fuck these assholes? Yes, I agree. But fuck you, too, Gawker. Just fuck you.
06/05/09
I think everyone -- even the lurking anti-semites, who I can't deny are probably out there somewhere -- recognizes this behavior for what it is: extremely poor judgment by folks who aren't operating at their highest level. We've all seen that happen in our own lives, multiple times in fact, and we're just thankful there weren't cameras around then.
06/05/09
And the commenter who made that "eternal gift" comment...I just banned him about 5 minutes ago as I made my way through this thread. First one ever and certainly very deserved.
06/05/09
06/05/09
06/05/09
I'm not sure it does, actually -- I find an assertion like "X begs the question" hard to interpret.
But here's my attempt anyway: Such overt expressions of racism are worth shining a light on, and denouncing, in contexts where they're not already cliches.
I'd say that among groups of Americans abroad, this behavior is not a cliche and thus is pretty shocking. In the expatriate groups I've encountered, there might be one or two loudmouths willing to utter such sentiments, but they know that they're acting against group norms and usually wind up acknowledging that social pressure.
That's my brief attempt to describe why this video feels sui generis and shocking enough to be of note -- which could be the "why" you asked about.
Possibly you could counter me by arguing that these kids' shocking utterances don't really have any content and aren't even "meant" in any significant sense. I'd listen to that argument, if you thought you had some insight into what makes these kids act this way. On that topic, I've got nothing.
06/05/09
Yep.
06/05/09
But I have felt for a long time that Gawker has a thing about "The Jews" -- something that may seem intended as sophisticated mockery against a group that can take it, but happens so often that it seems generally meanspirited and to come from a bad place. And the reappearance of genuinely bigoted trolls is an indication that they're going to a bad place, too.
Usually when I see these posts I just tell myself to shut up and move on, but the headline on this post (which was by no means the worst of the genre) just got to me. And I appreciate you changing it.
I do think the meme Gawker ran with throughout the election period, of "old Jews / young Jews / all Jews hate Obama because they're secret racists and because he might not love Israel enough, and those Jews maybe have too much power and could ruin the 'hope and change' thing for the rest of us," is not just hateful but untrue, and has to stop. I mean, 78 percent support. Sheesh.
06/05/09
It seems to me, and the original headline and the overhyped rhetoric of the journalist who shot the video would seem to support this, that what supposedly made this so shocking is that these are Jewish kids in Israel. That's pretty much it. Otherwise it's just a bunch of stupid college kids ranting, which would hardly seem to merit that much attention. Maybe they're representative of a much larger group, but this video does nothing to demonstrate that -- it's eight people, most of whom seem to know one another, but suddenly we're supposed to be outraged and horrified by what they say because -- why? Sure, they're saying stupid obnoxious things, but after everything that was seen in the last election, are we really surprised by seeing obviously stupid people say obnoxious things about Obama? When they're drunk? Really?
This just seems like an utter non-event to me that got attention solely due to the religion/ethnicity of the people who said it. It's the crappiest kind of bogus trend-story reporting. I could see posting it to make fun of the original poster before being shocked and outraged by the content.
I mean, if this is that newsworthy, I think Gawker should also be trawling Youtube on a weekly basis to post the best of morons on the Internet.
06/05/09
06/05/09
06/05/09
06/05/09
Nice working interviewing a wide range of people, Max. I could walk into any bar in any city in the world and recreate this scene. Fish in a barrel.
06/05/09
C'mon, "ANY bar in ANY city in the WORLD"???
Care to put money on that? I could use the cash.
06/05/09
06/05/09
06/05/09
06/05/09
06/06/09
06/06/09
[gawker.com] "Thank goodness I married a gentile" While we Jews are also grateful, we do send our sympathies to the gentiles.
You go beyond mere criticism of Israel (and Jews) and right into Jew-bashing. "Some of the most racist supremacists that you will ever meet are Jewish." That could have been taken verbatim from the Stormfront message boards. They love self-hating Jews.
You didn't just "poke fun" at a racist, but showed your bigotry as well. You are no better than what you criticize.