Jimmy Carter: Wilson comments 'based on racism'

[Sheilbh]

Here's another example of what I mean by something that could be defended.

The Spectator's blog has a post about the brothers Miliband, who are both cabinet ministers and hyped future Labour Party leaders.

The first comment says that the majority of the electorate won't identify with them and that the parties need someone who is 'Middle England not middle Europe' and that they'd be damaged by constant details about their family.

Now this to me seems like thinly veiled anti-semitism - given that they're Jewish.  But if I said that this guy could turn around and say he meant that their father was an Eastern European Marxist intellectual (never terribly popular) and that I'm just being politically correct.  He didn't mean anything about them being Jewish and if he had he'd have mentioned.  He could say, quite plausibly, that he never meant anything about their Jewish background and that it hadn't entered his head.  In short, I'm the one bringing up their ethnic and religious background.

And I think he'd be right.  But what makes it sound anti-semitic to me is that in discourse about Jews they've always been attacked as alien and as of no fixed nationality.  So the cosmopolitan vagueness of 'middle Europe' seems to me an anti-semitic attack, while it could equally be that he just doesn't know where their dad comes from and it was general German Eastern Europe, the heart of pre-war Mitteleuropa.  That and that the vast majority of the electorate can't identify with them because there's something so different about them - I think he means their Jewishness.

But I don't know, does anyone else think that what was said was anti-semitic?

[citizen k]

But I don't know, does anyone else think that what was said was anti-semitic?

It's getting to where you can't comment on anyone without a knee-jerk defensiveness that begins seeking ulterior motives rather than the stated criticisms.

[Eddie Teach]

Is non-Englishness not sufficient an insult, they have to be Jews in the bargain?

[Brazen]

But I don't know, does anyone else think that what was said was anti-semitic?

No, the comment was meant to be anti a pro-Europe stance, if you ask me.

[dps]

There was absolutely nothing wrong with Scoop Jackson. You take that back, dammit.

Yeah, he was one of the best Democrats of national prominence since the Truman administration.

[MadImmortalMan]

Not seeing the anti-semitism there, no.

[Berkut]

Even if there was antisemitism there, that doesn't mean that there is racism elsewhere.

Merely noting that it is possible to couch racist remarks in "defensible" wording is inadequate to prove that it is actually happening in some other particular case, especially when the "defensible" wording is as vague as generic political commentary that doesn't even address the individual at all, like "I think Obama health care plan sucks!"

[Sheilbh]

Merely noting that it is possible to couch racist remarks in "defensible" wording is inadequate to prove that it is actually happening in some other particular case, especially when the "defensible" wording is as vague as generic political commentary that doesn't even address the individual at all, like "I think Obama health care plan sucks!"

I agree.  I've only used two examples from American politics which I think were racist.  I don't think much opposition to Obama is anything to do with racism, but I think we should still be alive to the ambiguities of language.  I don't think racism is really worth moaning about because racists speak ambiguously and so it's never them who are bringing race into the conversation.  But also I agree with John McWhorter:
http://www.tnr.com/article/color-bind

No, the comment was meant to be anti a pro-Europe stance, if you ask me.

Then why mention their family background or use the phrase 'Middle Europe'?

[dps]

Here's another example of what I mean by something that could be defended.

The Spectator's blog has a post about the brothers Miliband, who are both cabinet ministers and hyped future Labour Party leaders.

The first comment says that the majority of the electorate won't identify with them and that the parties need someone who is 'Middle England not middle Europe' and that they'd be damaged by constant details about their family.

Now this to me seems like thinly veiled anti-semitism - given that they're Jewish.  But if I said that this guy could turn around and say he meant that their father was an Eastern European Marxist intellectual (never terribly popular) and that I'm just being politically correct.  He didn't mean anything about them being Jewish and if he had he'd have mentioned.  He could say, quite plausibly, that he never meant anything about their Jewish background and that it hadn't entered his head.  In short, I'm the one bringing up their ethnic and religious background.

And I think he'd be right.  But what makes it sound anti-semitic to me is that in discourse about Jews they've always been attacked as alien and as of no fixed nationality.  So the cosmopolitan vagueness of 'middle Europe' seems to me an anti-semitic attack, while it could equally be that he just doesn't know where their dad comes from and it was general German Eastern Europe, the heart of pre-war Mitteleuropa.  That and that the vast majority of the electorate can't identify with them because there's something so different about them - I think he means their Jewishness.

But I don't know, does anyone else think that what was said was anti-semitic?

I don't see it as anti-semitic, but then again, it was written for a British audience rather than an American one, so if "middle Europe" is intended as a code for "Jewish" then it may just be that Americans wouldn't be expected to pick up on it.  To me, it simply sounds like the writer was calling the brothers eggheads.