<p>
</p>
<p>Ya don’t say… 
</p>
<p>Of course, if we can just get the Democratic candidate to play in a few more mudholes by himself, all we have to do is note it. Not quite the same fun as slinging it, but less taxing and almost as entertaining to watch.</p>
<p>sunny I didn’t ask for the POW’s details. I asked how you know the POW. I think many people would feel honored to be associated with a person that endured so much horror for my right to speak freely</p>
<p>
No, a pic wouldn’t prove anything anyway. All I am saying is that I can’t know you here. The internet simply underscores how ultimately separated we are when you can tell me something sincerely, and I cannot receive the message genuinely. It takes a bit of trust on my part, or perhaps gullibility, something I cannot extend easily. I am extended it to you, but it was not my first inclination because, as I said, people do lie, and frequently, especially when they wish to promote some point. I suspect almost everyone who goes around claiming “I was once going to vote for Obama, but the Wright thing changed my mind” are just lying. Such fickleness is unusual , especially when its source is right winged hacks in such places as Newsmax and WorldNetDaily. That alone tells me these people are just lying.</p>
<p>I certainly don’t attribute my poor SAT performance to my skin. I attribute it to my culture. I was able to see this fairly early on, and made changes that eventually permitted me to get a degree and make quite a lot of personal progress. And you know what? I discovered that generally speaking, none of it really mattered. Oh, you can do better in life, and I think if it can be done it should be done, but when you are black you are still on the outside looking in – still not American. The cops still pull you over and harass you no matter what you do. You still are overlooked for jobs, and if you are hired, you are hired last. I have never been fired from a job, but I have had whites working in collusion against me so that it was only by God’s grace that I survived. Housing opportunities lost, bad looks, evil names, all that sort of nonsense. I know being Albino is no bed of roses because we blacks are out here catching it too. And we are catching it regardless of how well we do on the SAT.</p>
<p>On McCain-Hagee: It doesn’t matter how long and in what circle Hagee traveled in. McCain sought Hagee’s endorsement and relished it when he got it, proving McCain is not the experienced judge of character he wishes us to believe he is. Indeed, he has now done this twice, with two different religious nuts. Personally, I think both were honest mistakes, but knowing how one might hear guys like Wright and never come away thinking them racist, I can also see Obama’s point-of-view. No one has yet shown me a single thing Wright has said that was anything close to being as abominable as Hagee’s claims against Jews. The “worst” I have seen is his claim that like Jesus, blacks are having to negotiate life in a country controlled by rich white guys. Well, duh. That is nothing more than I have heard coming from women leaders all my life. I do not see how Wright is so evil, and we cannot make him evil just because he praised the work of Farrakhan. At best, we can say Wright was unwise to be at all affiliated with Farrakhan (which is true), but we cannot say Wright embraces Farrakhan’s beliefs. And we certainly cannot claim Obama embraces Farrakhan because of anything Wright does. People who go this far, go too far, proving themselves unreasonable, unfair, and likely dishonest where Obama is concerned.</p>
<p>I am not the least bit interested in proving myself to such people, certainly not to those who were once “thinking about” voting for Obama. Still, if I am telling the truth, then there are possibilities other than the lies and comprehensive nonsense a lot of folks tend to spread on these forums on things about which they haven’t a clue. I hope to show these possibilities to the one person in a thousand who is willing to open his mind to them. If he never comes along, it is quite fine to me. The time is not wasted because I get the chance to ponder my thoughts and question them. I think we should always question, question ourselves and others. We should always doubt. If we are really in touch with what we are, we can’t help it.</p>
<p>Okay! Back to work!</p>
<p>
Well, I actually do believe that I understand the appeal of Farrakhan. I agree that he has done some great things for the black community. I think you underestimate the understanding that Jews, particularly the children of Jews who suffered great degrees of anti-Semitism before and during World War II in Europe, have for the black community. Many of us do understand; we’ve been there. (My mother’s papers in Europe didn’t list her nationality as the place in which she was born - it listed “Jew”. She was not permitted to play in the parks; she could not play tennis or go swimming because she was a Jew. She faced quotas in elementary and secondary education - these quotas set a maximum number of Jews who were permitted to study. Her relatives in Russia were murdered in pogroms that burned entire villages of Jews just because. And of course there is more.)</p>
<p>That’s one of the reasons that Farrakhan’s stance is so hurtful to us. It is easy to blame one’s plight by demonizing another group, and throughout history, the Jews have been the easiest to demonize. Anti-Semitism is the oldest of all the prejudices. </p>
<p>Farrakhan could do everything he’s done and is doing to help his community without scapegoating. But he insists on scapegoating anyway. And to the extent that his followers believe him, he is a very scary person to the Jewish community.</p>
<p>My problem is not that Wright embraces Farrakhan or praises him. It is that the congregation, made up of its members and constituting the long institutional memory of a church, and of which Obama is an active member, embraces Farrakhan.</p>
<p>And I’m sorry if you don’t “get it.”</p>
<p>Growing up, I belonged to a congregation whose rabbi was committed to the destruction of the Palestinian people. He didn’t say it quite that way. He just made it clear that the land - the ENTIRE land - (from Egypt to the Euphrates) was part of the Biblical promise to the Jewish people, and he called the Palestinians “Edomites”. Most of the congregation simply nodded their heads - the reality was that all the other Jewish congregations in the neighborhood essentially held to the same belief, and all the major Jewish magazines we received (from Bnai Brith on down) essentially said the same thing. </p>
<p>I thought (and still do think) that this group-think, which, in various shapes and forms, and with different borders assumed, was (and is) highly destructive of Jewish values. To this day, I can’t attend a Seder at some of my relatives homes because they lick their fingers happily when speaking of the 10 plagues visited upon Egypt, and having once tried, it is not even worth attempting to engage in discussion. </p>
<p>My problem was not with the Rabbi (Biblically, he was correct). My problem was that congregation virtually universally embraced these views (there are different ones today among some Jewish congregations, which I applaud), and which drove me away from my pre-rabbinical studies, and eventually from the religion itself.</p>
<p>I think it worth noting that the views of Hagee are mirrored, in an ironic way, by the more than 100,000 Jewish followers or Reb Joel Teitelbaum, who preached for his entire life that Hitler was God’s judgment upon the Jewish people for embracing the Zionist ideal. [Joel</a> Teitelbaum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Teitelbaum]Joel”>Joel Teitelbaum - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>But, at any rate, if I were to condemn every Jewish leader and politician who has belonged for a lifetime to congregations who embrace these views, I would have a very, very long list. I have better ways to spend my time.</p>
<p>“It is a very tricky situation, and I have never met a white person in all my life who has been able to understand it.”</p>
<p>We’re in Hyde Park, Dross. 
Come say hello. Pick a church/temple at random, and you’ll find us.</p>
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</p>
<p>Undoubtedly. I certainly identify with Jews, and never really understood why so many folks, white and black, have such hatred toward them. Still, I have never quite encountered a white person who was able to grasp the odd relationship that many blacks have toward Farrakhan, a man blacks quite generally reject. They may understand his allure, but it is the intense dissonance within black people regarding Farrakhan that I think few understand. When Farrakhan had his “Million Man March” I recall my friends preparing for it, and when they saw me they asked why I would not join them. I spelled it out quite clearly-- that the man is an anti-Semite, and that I could not have anything to do with him, etc., etc. My friends were instantly angry because they expected me to do as they had always done, namely, reject Farrakhan the Black Muslim, while accepting help from wherever it came. In this case, they rejected Farrakhan the Black Muslim, but accepted The Million Man March as a unifier of black men. It was difficult, to say the least, to convey the point that anything having to do with Farrakhan was unsuitable as a unifier of anything worthwhile. It all fell on deaf ears because those guys were desperate for encouragement.</p>
<p>I do not expect Jews or white non-Jews to understand this to such an extent they are willing to treat it as I do. As I have said, I have never met a white person who could. I am trying, nevertheless, to share how very many blacks perceive it in case there are non-blacks who can breach this gap in understanding. I think Farrakhan is a blight on the black community. Guys like me spend a lifetime trying to convince hurting blacks that Farrakhan is poisonous and unworthy of them. I am convinced even Wright has done likewise, encouraging blacks to instead join his church rather than join the so-called “Nation of Islam”. I never regretted my decision not to join my friends. But I understand them as guys who do not accept Farrakhan, but who thought themselves obligated, as members of a people who are customarily discriminated against, to attend his event. That is why I can’t crash down on them. I think likewise about guys like Wright.</p>
<p>Now, I think Wright certainly failed both blacks and Jews by honoring Farrakhan. I must be clear that I do not agree with Wright on this and in fact on most other things. I understand his pain, but he is a leader of people and that means he must be held to a higher standard. I think he failed, tragically here, and it is one of the main reasons why I cannot follow him. I also reject Liberation Theology, Wright’s style, his lack of intellectualism, most of his beliefs about the solutions to black problems, and many other things. But nothing Wright has done would compel me to think of him as racist and therefore worthy of my denouncing him as a friend. Were he as close to me as he was to Obama, I could not easily reject him even over Farrakhan, due to my understanding of the nature of Farrakhan’s relationship to poor blacks. I would tend rather to work with him to convince him of his error. My doing so could not be interpreted as my support for Farrakhan, but only as my love of Wright.</p>
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</p>
<p>I get this. I am sorry you don’t get what I am talking about. That congregation does not embrace Farrakhan, else it would be in Farrakhan’s organization. Most of those people reject the Nation of Islam outright. But many of them are feeling pressured by the larger American culture to such an extent that it makes little sense to them to reject help from Farrakhan when the help comes out of the same sort of pressure. They are identifying with their mutual anger, and not with religion or anything else. I understand that this may be impossible for you to grasp. I am just throwing it out because it is the truth, as unfortunate as it is.</p>
<p>And hey, I don’t even care whether you vote for Obama. I do not think Obama should be president. In fact, I do not think he has what it takes to lead America, since, at best, he is just a regular politician – which is to say he is about as much of an empty suit as McCain is. I think, if he could hold true to the ideals he has espoused, then he would be much more superior a leader than most American presidents. I do not think he can hold to these because America is unable to allow it. The country is unworthy of Obama in this regard. I would rather you vote for McCain and get what you deserve.</p>
<p>Dross, I don’t think it’s so difficult to understand. Groups who perceive themselves to be under threat from the outside react by circling the wagons. Disagreements, including extreme disagreements, within the group are addressed within the group. But when the external enemies come riding up, you stand together.</p>
<p>Individuals (like you) who may not perceive the external threat the same way don’t join the wagon circle with group members they find abhorrent. But those who feel they can’t afford to give up any members of the phalanx hold their noses and stand together with the distasteful members of the group.</p>
<p>I don’t agree with that choice, but I don’t find it mysterious or confusing.</p>
<p>Well hmmm. It is obvious you understand it then, Hanna, because you’ve explained it perfectly. Have you experienced it? That would certainly help you sense why it is that while not agreeing with it, I cannot be angry about it. I am angry about Farrakhan to be sure, but not about those, like Wright, who think they must keep him in the phalanx.</p>
<p>Your posts are always bang on. Even when I have rejected them, they have been very hard to get around.</p>
<p>Thanks, Hanna, for summing up what I was also trying to say. </p>
<p>And it’s not at all unusual for those groups under threat from the outside to “blame” another group that’s *also/I] under threat from those same outsiders. That seems to be the dynamic in play.</p>
<p>“Have you experienced it?”</p>
<p>Only secondhand. If you go to a majority-black elementary school and spend your childhood singing in a majority-black choir that performs at black church services, you get to see more black-on-black interaction than is usually available to white people. This is one reason people from Hyde Park have such a high opinion of Hyde Park, although we are often guilty of thinking we understand more than we do. (We’re also Farrakhan’s neighbors, and we’re pretty used to him and his followers.)</p>
<p>Ironically enough, I’ve run into a circle-the-wagons attitude from fellow Jews on occasion – the small number who flip out when I criticize Israel publicly. I don’t consider Israel to be like Louis Farrakhan, but I think it has followed some terrible policies. The Jewish community has an us-against-the-world contingent who think all Jews need to express 100% support for Israel all the time.</p>
<p>^I really don’t find that surprising since there are many survivors of perhaps the worst attempted extermination of a people ever still alive. Its enough to make anyone a bit touchy and defensive.</p>
<p>Hanna,</p>
<p>I so agree with your point about Israel. The ironic thing is for all the horrors that jews experienced during WWII they got a sanctuary (Israel) very quickly, whereas African Americans had to wait over 100 yrs to gain rights just to acknowledge them. (Civil Rights). We have treated African Americans in an atrocious way, whether it is due to fear or ignorant bias. To this day the American society still can’t acknowledge that we screwed up in our own ignorance.<br>
That being stated let’s also remember that there is also a prejudice against jewish people too. I openly admit that I am Catholic, but I have seen the prejudices that my sister has endured b/c her last name is a typical jewish name, like Cohen, Kohn, Weiss, etc she has had realtors say to her you don’t want to live there b/c they are very restrictive and I am not sure they would accept you since you are jewish! BTW my brothers wife is jewish, my M-I-L is jewish, I have seen the snide look quite frequently from ignorant people. </p>
<p>My point is jewish communities and black communities both have had to fight for their rights. I can get the jewish community being upset with Obama saying he would talk with a guy who says Israel should be obliterated. My only comparison I can think of is how the black community would feel if a white jew said he would invite David Duke to WH to talk…just talk</p>
<p>B&P</p>
<p>Let’s assume David Duke says he wants to wipe blacks off the face of the earth (which essentially is what he wants anyway). And let us assume he is leader of a sovereign nation. And let as assume he is pushing forward to gain nukes which he very likely will extend to anti-black terrorists who will try to wipe blacks off of the planet.</p>
<p>Now, let us further assume two guys are running for president, neither of whom Duke hates for his race. Let’s assume they are white guys. </p>
<p>White guy 1: This guy wants to simply shun Duke as Duke continues to build toward his nukes. Perhaps he might bomb Duke, leaving him or his supporters in place to thereafter keep building his nukes.</p>
<p>White guy 2: This guy decides he will always keep the bombing option in play, and let Duke know it is in play, but he also wants to see why it is Duke hates blacks what can be done to get him to not to want to blow them all off the earth. While holding a bomb over Duke’s head, he wants to see if Duke can reason his way out of his anti-black position and leave both nukes and blacks alone.</p>
<p>No contest here. I want White Guy 2.</p>
<p>Hanna:</p>
<p>Fascinating.</p>
<p>“he Jewish community has an us-against-the-world contingent who think all Jews need to express 100% support for Israel all the time.”</p>
<p>I think that is true of the AMERICAN Jewish community as a whole, but much, much less true among Israeli Jews, or so has been my experience. The group-think I have experienced here has had far worse ramifications - to Jews themselves, no less the Palestinians - than anything Farrakhan has ever said or done (and I am no fan).</p>
<p>You forgetting to add in the arrogant attitude of of Duke.</p>
<p>Look at Castro, 40 yrs of making his country suffer and he still thumbs his nose. You are believing that they are fearful or reasonable.</p>
<p>You are also taking a big leap that McCain will start a war.</p>
<p>Finally, when was the last time you invited someone to your house that stated vile things about your family? Would you host a party for someone who said your sister in law should die due to her religious beliefs? Would you invite someone who absolutely believes that there are no gay people? Would you invite someone who believes that a woman’s place is to be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen? Or would you not lower yourself to that level of ignorance?</p>
<p>I am not sending any invites to my house to ignorant jerks! Reality is they are no harm no foul…Iran is never going to become a super power, nor is Cuba it is easier just to let them stomp their feet like a little kid, b/c it is very hard to rationalize anything with a little child.</p>
<p>You may choose to sing songs and hold hands…I just happen to believe that there is no rationing with these people, thus I won’t waste my time listening to their idiotic rants</p>
<p>Just for historical accuracy, I want to note that Israel wasn’t given to the Jews a few years ago. Judea has been the Israeli homeland forever. And I am sure Africans feel the same way about their continent.</p>
<p>The trick to understanding the Farrakhans, Dukes, and other hate mongers is to realize they do it largely for shock value. When the White Supremacists or Nazis marched on Skokie years ago, I lived very close. There was quite an uproar, they marched, and it was over. If there had been no uproar, the result would have been the same. These are people to be pitied, not ones to incite you to inhumane behavior. You allow them to control you.</p>
<p>Farrahkhan is ancient history to me, was never anyone I paid much attention to when he was more prominent and vocal, and that is how I see him today.</p>
<p>There are many in my Jewish community who think like Mini’s Israeli reference. Not everyone feels combat is the way to deal with tyrants.</p>
<p>And don’t quote me There was no one left when they came for me.</p>
<p>Right now, Israel is engaged in quiet diplomacy with Syria, its mortal enemy, trying to separate Syria from Iranian influence and weaponry used to attack Israel from the Golan Heights. </p>
<p>Needless to say, the Iranians are very upset! Talks are occurring…perhaps there will be peace next between Syria and Israel. </p>
<p>Jewish readiness for diplomacy goes way back. Classics lovers, buckle your seatbelts: At the time of Alexander the Great, as he took over one city after another, he went around Jerusalem and spared it. </p>
<p>Why? He was met at the gates of the city by the Jew, called Simon the Just. They spoke of philosophy and music. Simon offered to pay taxes any way Alexander wanted (they were all outside oppressors, Greeks, Syrians, who cares…) as long as he’d have his soldiers march around, not into, Jerusalem. It worked.</p>
<p>That’s why so many Jewish kids are named “Alex.” In fact, for an entire year after Alexander passed around Jerusalem, EVERY Jewish boy was named Alexander. It’s still a venerated name among Jews…after a Greek general!</p>
<p>Sometimes it works to talk to one’s enemies, after all.</p>
<p>Bullet, why do you say Israel came “quickly” to the Jews, when we were exiled 2,000 years (from Roman destruction of the temple in 70 AD until a handful of Europeans returned in the late l9th century, culminating in the establsihment of the modern State of Israel in l948)?</p>
<p>Perhaps by “quickly” means you mean the 3 years between l945 (liberation of the concentration camps, you know all those pictures and how they looked) until l948? Or l00 years since Europeans like Herzl came back as “pioneers” to Palestine in the late l800’s? Or 2,000 years since Rome sacked the Temple in Jersalem, and we hadn’t had a country (or army) in all those years of diaspora? </p>
<p>Personally,I’m not interested in the competition between African Americans and Jews over who had it worse. I notice we’re top-of-the-list when the KKK wants to make trouble, and I don’t want either of us – or anyone else!-- on their radar screen.</p>
<p>Jews and AA’s have had it terrible in different ways, but same enough to understand each other. The difference is that on American soil, Jewish experience has been embracing while for AA’s it was their most devastating
land.</p>
<p>Jewish historic memory of 2,000 years of diaspora encompasses the years we were raped by Crusaders, forced into flight or false conversion under the Spanish Inquisition, ransacked in Russia by pogroms under the Tsars. And THEN came the Nazi Holocaust, worst of all. We teach all of that history in Sunday School, even.
American was safe haven for Jewish immigrants, the opposite for the African slaves. But for the Jewish people, these last 300 years are a mere blip on the history timeline. So we can relate to suffering, oppression, marginalization. </p>
<p>Even though we might talk about a manicure Bloomingdale’s today, we know it’s just a diversion. We know we’re vulnerable, even in the US which embraced us and continues to do so. Hence our allegience to two democratic governments: the U.S. and Israel. Neither perfect, but both founded with deep commitment to human rights. You can count missteps in both countries, but basically, these are two democracies and there are few in the world where our safety is sure.</p>
<p>Jews and blacks were each others’ first and best allies during the American Civil Rights Movement in the l960’s. My dad was a volunteer civil rights lawyer, kidnapped by white thugs with a gun to his head for an hour while told to drive. (We’re Jewish.) Think: Goodman, Schwerner, Cheney. Need I say more?</p>
<p>Look at the MLK museum and find the Torah scroll that was given to him in Washington, D.C. at the Religious Action Center (near Dupont Circle) that he took back to his congregation in Birmingham. Understand that the meetings for the drafting of the Fair Housing Act took place in that same building, where Dr. King and his leadership could meet in safety and peace to draft the bill. (Jewish staff cleared out of the boardroom.) </p>
<p>I am not talking about suburban Jewish employers who were kindly to black domestic helpers in the suburb, or anyone’s M-I-L. I’m talking about an era of top-level leadership when American Jews and AA’s were on the same page.</p>
<p>I think we deeply understand each others’ past histories, but aren’t well educated any more (in either direction) to appreciate it fully.</p>
<p>Everyone on this forum could give genuine anecdotes of new black anti-Semitism post-Farrakhan, or old Jewish racial prejudice/fear against blacks from an urban experience mid-20th century, alla Century Village in Florida nursing homes. </p>
<p>What I’d embrace is renewed dialogue between leaderships in both communities, which I believe would trickle down to the level of churches and synagogues. I think that would be very positive.</p>
<p>crossposted with p3t, and not intended to contradict any of her previous post.</p>