Heard on TV

[Herb Stahlke]

When I was working in Nigeria in the mid-1960s the Igbos were referred
to as the "Jews of Nigeria."  Because this was shortly after
independence, I suspect the term was British-influenced.  In 1967 the
term "pogrom" was used almost immediately to describe the massacres
and the expulsion of Easterners, predominantly Igbo, from Northern
Nigeria.

Herb

On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 7:29 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Heard on TV
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> On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 3:14 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
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>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
>> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: Heard on TV
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>>
>> On Sep 5, 2011, at 9:05 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 10:56 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> There are some people who think--for whatever reason--that "Jew" is an
>>>> insult.
>>>
>>> Unfortunately, there are reasons for thinking that.
>>
>> A Jewish friend of mine had to tell me about four or five years ago that it was acceptable. (So I also asked him about Heeb.)
>>
>> And I had to be told that deaf, deafie and blind are all fine as well, though my  concern about deaf and blind were not as strong as for Jew and deafie.
>>
>> If you're not a part of a community or don't have close access to it, you simply do not have a way of knowing. Dictionaries are more helpful these days and we now have Wikipedia, but it is not possible to be aware of what each community considers to be acceptable.
>>
>> For goodness sake, I learned in school about the Lapps in Finland in the 1970s. It took a coincidental meeting with a Sami in a bar in San Jose in the 1990s to set me straight on that score, and there just aren't enough Sami in English-speaking countries to inform everyone!
>>
>> Aloha from Maui
>> Benjamin Barrett
>>
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>
> A friend of mine, ca.1973, allowed as how she felt that _Jew_ had
> become an epithet, so that she preferred "Jewish." I wasn't being
> taken to task or anything. She just happened to mention it to me out
> of the blue, as people often do, when something's been galling them
> for a while. IME and O, she's right to feel that way.
>
> A lot of goyim are under the impression that black Americans are just
> naturally as anti-Semitic as they are. Hence, they don't bother to
> pull any punches when talking to one of us about the "God-damned
> Jews.". And this has been the case since  long before anyone had ever
> heard of Minister Farrakhan.
>
> Once, a Japanese-American colleague said to me that the Chinese were
> "the Jews of the Orient" - this was back in '57, when _Orient(al)_ was
> still cool.  But it was unclear to me as to how he intended that
> remark, whether as compliment - good at business, etc. - or as insult
> - tight with money, etc. And, of course, there are the jocular
> references sometimes heard on TV:
>
> He's my Jew.
> I've got to call New York and get my Jews on this!
> I have to get my affairs in order. Hence, I must hie me to a Jew. (Get
> it? A real thigh-slapper!)
>
> Of course, youneverknow. F'rinstance, IMO, the recent brouhaha over
> the use of _tar-baby_ was nothing but a bullshit smokescreen to
> obscure real racism, such as claiming that the poor - overwhelming
> black - are only "poor". As far as I know, no one has felt any
> pressure to apologize for that.
>
> However, the mileage of other colored on this point may vary, the more
> is the pity.
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
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