[Ads-l] _Sleepy Eyes_

[Andy Bach]

> > https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-is-trump-s-
sleepy-eyes-nickname-for-chuck-todd-anti-semitic-1.6026628

> like so many things these days, apparently behind a paywall.

Drat! I just googled "sleepy eyes" and that link came up
Is 'Sleepy Eyes' anti-Semitic? Trump's nickname for 'Meet the Press ...
<https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-is-trump-s-sleepy-eyes-nickname-for-chuck-todd-anti-semitic-1.6026628>
https://www.haaretz.com › U.S. News


4 hours ago - It is a distressing sign of the times that this is a question
even worth dwelling on. But on Sunday, shortly after Trump again denigrated
the host of NBC's “Meet the Press,” Chuck Todd, with his designated
nickname “*Sleepy Eyes*,” angry charges of hate speech began to fly across
social media – even though ...

but I see they embedded tracking info in the link, so I had to reject
signing up for a $1/mo sub I was able to read the article. You could try
just googling the phrase and see if it works; it's an interesting story in
that he's been calling Todd that since 2011(?) and just now it's become
a(nother) sign of his racism/use of racist dog-whistle terms.  Apparently
not a "true" Nazi slight but a neo-Nazi take on a list of "ways to
recognize a Jew" phrases that some sites now list.

"The only direct “sleepy eyes” reference is on the racist website “Gentile
Nation.” This offers instructions on “How to recognize and identify a Jew”
<https://www.gentilenation.com/uploads/3/1/0/2/31022531/how_to_recognize_and_identify_a_jew_-_part_1.pdf>
through physical features, and bearing the creative byline “John Doe Goy.”

There is also a mention of “sleepy eyes” on an anti-Semitic forum called
Stormfront, which claims to be for the “embattled white minority.”

But searches in both English and German fail to uncover hard proof that
would back up the numerous assertions on Twitter that “sleepy eyes” was
common in Nazi propaganda as one of the criteria included in Nazi
instructions for the German secret police to identify Jews, and the
accompanying partisan clamor.
The closest reference is a description of Jewish eyes by a Nazi-trained
child contained in a story in an anti-Semitic children’s book published by
Julius Streicher
<http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/story3.htm>, the
founder of Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer
“The eyelids are mostly thicker and more fleshy than ours. The Jewish look
is wary and piercing. One can tell from his eyes that he is a deceitful
person,” it states.

One left-wing blog outlined three possible explanations
<https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2018/4/22/1759169/-Knowingly-or-not-Trump-s-Attacked-Chuck-Todd-with-Sleepy-Eyes-an-Anti-Semitic-slur>


https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2018/4/22/1759169/-Knowingly-or-not-Trump-s-Attacked-Chuck-Todd-with-Sleepy-Eyes-an-Anti-Semitic-slur

for the “Sleepy Eyes” nickname:

“1. It’s a complete coincidence

2. Trump used it knowingly (because there are “good people on both sides”).

3. Trump unknowingly integrated it into his vocabulary from e.g., his
father, his son, [Steve] Bannon, [Sebastian] Gorka or other anti-Semites he
hung out with.”
As in many recent partisan Twitter wars, some of the most impassioned
arguments come from highly dubious accounts – leaving one to wonder who
benefits from creating bots that argue over Trump and anti-Semitism.

On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 5:14 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu>
wrote:

> > On Apr 23, 2018, at 2:19 PM, Andy Bach <afbach at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > Nice overview of whether it's an actual anti-Semitic slur or just more
> > schoolyard stupidity, er, humor from the POTUS
> >
> > https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-is-trump-s-
> sleepy-eyes-nickname-for-chuck-todd-anti-semitic-1.6026628
>
> like so many things these days, apparently behind a paywall.
>
> arnold
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 

a

Andy Bach,
afbach at gmail.com
608 658-1890 cell
608 261-5738 wk

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org