Plum Crazy

I'm really very tired of being a minority. I'm tired of people in the majority who play into the all-too-frequent view of members of minorities as not really being individuals, not in a truly meaningful way. That is a bigoted point of view, and the bigotry is not caused by actions of any of the members of the minority. I'm just as tired of those who enable people who can't allow members of minorities to be individuals in a truly meaningful way. I'm really sick of it all, but there isn't anything I can do to change it. So I have to live with it. I generally live with it by refusing to deal with such bigots and/or enablers of bigots. Although, in reality, I believe that those who enable the bigots are, in fact, bigoted themselves.

So today I ended a friendship with someone who was enabling that point of view. This person told me that some antisemitism is caused by the actions of some Jews. It didn't justify the antisemitism, but it did cause it. We had previously had this argument, and I thought we had agreed that, in fact, it was untrue that the actions of some Jews cause antisemitism. They can exacerbate pre-existing antisemitism, yes. They can make the antisemite (falsely) feel justified in being antisemitic or openly expressing antisemitism, unfortunately true. But that they were not the cause of the antisemitism. It turns out that I was mistaken, and we had reached no such agreement. That in fact, he really believes that the actions of some Jews cause antisemitism. This is blaming the victim flat out.

There are only two scenarios under which one could believe that the actions of some Jews cause antisemitism:

1. If the person believes that Jews are some monolithic bloc who all believe the same thing a la the Borg.

2. If the person believes that all Jews are responsible for the actions of some Jews and/or have a greater responsibility than some other groups for making sure that group members stay within certain pre-defined acceptable behavioral boundaries.

The problem is that both of those beliefs are already antisemitic. Both strip Jews of our individuality. We do not act as ourselves. We act as Jews. Whatever we do is representative of Jews as a whole, not of us as individuals. Refusing to grant us individuality in one's mind is most certainly antisemitic and is a priori antisemitic.

The actions of a specific Jew or Jews will not cause someone to believe that. I don't know what does cause someone to believe that; there are probably numerous causes. However, the only way you can extrapolate from the specific to the general is already to be prejudiced against the general. Ergo, the specific is not the cause of the prejudice. The prejudice pre-exists whatever specific action ignites its expression. To believe otherwise is either to be an antisemite or to enable them, and, as I previously said, I see damn little practical difference between the two.

Sadly, for refusing to traffic with those who peddle such beliefs, I am the one deemed to be in the wrong. I am "overly sensitive." I am "defensive." Nothing negative is attached to the bigotry, only to my reaction to the bigotry. The only thing I hope now is that my specific actions in this instance won't be seen as justifying a belief that all or even most Jews are "overly sensitive" and "defensive", but I don't hold out much hope for that in this instance.

I also must confess that I find it rather ironic that the same person arguing that the actions of some Jews cause antisemitism also pooh poohed concerns by certain Jews that a negative depiction of some Jews would lead to an increase in expressions of antisemitism. The cognitive dissonance of such a contradiction must have cognitively deafened the individual in question.

Incidentally, this treatment of minorities as groups rather than individuals is not unique to Jews. Blacks suffer from this treatment and, in fact, I believe much more openly and frequently. Women suffer from it. Any group in the minority anywhere in the world suffers from it.