The Real World of Discrimination

 

A typical caricature of the "eternal Jew." Always thinking, God forbid.

The image of Harvard’s black female president refusing to condemn calls for the genocide of Jews—and yet, everyone expects, able to retain her job, despite revelations that she plagiarized parts of her doctoral thesis-- is a neat visual representation of an important truth. Although we falsely conflate them, discrimination against Jews and discrimination against blacks (or women) are fundamentally opposite phenomena.

One never or rarely hears of anyone ever calling for the extermination of blacks or women. If anyone did, the outcry against them would be monumental. If there are occasional claims that someone somewhere once did, if traced back, they turn out to be false claims. The same could be said for aboriginals. If anyone ever called for their extermination, they would be hated more than Simon Legree. (And nobody apparently ever said “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.” That was a slander used against US General Sheridan precisely because it would destroy his reputation if believed.)

But one hears often of calls or sees actual attempts to wipe out Jews. Also, men, Irish, and East Asians. This is not just so in recent “woke” times, either. This is a historical constant.

Society as a whole readily sees fit to give blacks, or women, or aboriginals, special advantages: scholarships, affirmative action programs, easier sentencing in court, extra government benefits.

Society never considers giving Jews, men, Irish, or East Asians any such special advantages. The suggestion would be met with scorn or rage.

These two lists are not exhaustive; but "minority" groups always fall into one or the other decisively: the Jewish side, or the black side.

Antisemitism is fuelled by envy and malice: Jews are hated because they seem superior to the rest of us. So too, if to a lesser extent, men, East Asians, or the Irish. Discrimination “against” women, blacks, or indigenous people, in precise contrast, is almost always done out of good intentions, and is meant to be for their benefit. These groups are loved because they are looked down on as inferior. Nobody hates another for being less then they are; they hate for being better.

Not that this discrimination has ever been good for blacks or women or Indians. It is a deprivation of moral agency, and fosters passivity. People do not thrive as pets. But it also prompts them to complain the loudest about discrimination. Once one ha become accustomed to special treatment, one feels a deep injustice whenever it is not forthcoming. When, by contrast, one is accustomed to being discriminated against, one tends to learn to take it silently as one’s fate.

Opposite motives, opposite actions--and opposite results. The Jews manifestly do unusually well despite severe persecution; such as a widespread and systematic attempt to wipe every last one of them out within living memory. The Japanese have recovered from total defeat and Hiroshima within the same time period. The Irish have recovered from the holocaust of the Great Hunger a hundred and fifty years ago, civil war as recently as the 1990s, and are now the richest nation in Europe. Yet blacks are supposed to have never been able to recover from slavery a hundred and fifty years ago—a custodianship justified at the time as for their own benefit. Women cannot recover from a wolf whistle. And indigenous people have supposedly never recovered from the trauma of first contact.

We need to make the clear distinction between malicious persecution, and misguided charity.