Saturday, October 2, 2010

Yes, Rich, Jews were oppressed

Wow - it's been a while since I blogged! I felt the need to comment on this though. And I hope it does not come out as trying to defend Rich Sanchez. Sanchez was fired from CNN after calling Jon Stewart a bigot, saying he was part of the liberal northeast elite, and when it was pointed out that Stewart is Jewish, that:
I'm telling you that everyone who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish, are an oppressed minority? I can't see someone not getting a job these days because they're Jewish.
Like I said, I don't mean to defend Sanchez, but maybe he just doesn't know? I'm an educated woman, and it wasn't until I was in my early twenties that I found out Jews had been discriminated against in America (and that was because of a movie!). I grew up with discrimination being black and white. As far as I knew, there was no other kind. It wasn't until college that I learned the KKK had at one point been anti-Catholic. Looking back, it really makes me wonder - why was I never taught this in school? Was it because there were comparatively few Jews where I lived, so it was considered unimportant? Or was it because there were so many people of African descent that all other discrimination was crowded out? But from some of Sanchez's comments, I think he may simply be ignorant of the past.

2 comments:

cosmo22 said...

hey, im tamsyn rich, i googled my name and came to this! its amazing how little tamsyns there are in the world, we have free to right complete names on our email accounts! as to the jews oppressed stuff... of course they are, how did you not know that, they are oppressed and ridiculed as all minorities are... i explained to my son the other day that i grew up on irish jokes.. and that all of those jokes; women, jewish, african americans, irish,blondes even! those jokes have been handed down through generations, to breed hatred...those jokes are intended to keep us all seeing others as inferior and unworthy, as though if we can teach generations to laugh without knowledge we can slyly pass on our bigotted views and noone will be the wiser... and you know what.. it works.. thats whats so sad.. we continue to laugh and act like jokes and language mean nothing, that they are part of our culture.. but they are not.. words are powerful.. words change perceptions, and most of us seem to have no idea and no care to commit to changing them.

TamsynX said...

Good to hear from you! (Love the name!)

I think I just grew up in a very non-Jewish area, so I wasn't exposed to anti-Judaism. Although I did hear a bunch of Polish jokes. And when you're a kid, you don't realize how bigoted it is. I remember hearing a joke about Italians when I was in high school (using a certain word for Italians) and my friends and I had no idea what that word meant. Until a teacher who had Italian ancestry told us. Then we were really upset because we didn't mean to be prejudiced.