Not That There's Anything Wrong With That...

So, I fully expect this essay or "blog posting" may offend some and confuse others, while causing still others to change their former view of me (for the worse, I'd imagine), but here goes:

I'm a Jew trapped in a black man's body.

To anyone who truly knows me, this is not startling news, but for those who only casually know me, it may sound like I prefer being Jewish to being black. That's not fully the case, though it is partially the case - but don't worry, it's not what it sounds like - of course I'll explain.

Apart from all the things one might stereotypically (or accurately) associate with Jewish people (overbearing & nagging mothers, social awkwardness, personal guilt, self-deprecating humor, over-the-top sensitivity to racism, reading billboards aloud, etc.), I actually feel a sort of kinship with the Jewish community. Despite the many setbacks and the historic oppression of the community, they have managed to create and maintain a system where the community still stands, powerful and active, with higher than average income and lower than average crime and poverty rates. As a whole, Jews are very influential in arts, culture and academics, as well as science and business. It has become almost canonical that they, as a community, are great at anything worth being great at.

I realize that their community is not perfect, as none are, but I've often said regarding perfection that, as a model, it's probably the closest thing the black community will ever have. And they've even offered it (their model) to us. Granted, one can always debate the nature of that offering, and many of those debates are valid, still, if you're a hungry man, does it really matter why bread is being offered? In the PERFECT world it should matter, but in the REAL world it doesn't matter.

The historic relationship between blacks and Jews in the United States though complicated, has generally been good. The strain of the past twenty years or so, though not at all unprecedented, has been something of an anomaly.

It's no secret that many of the people (besides other blacks) who supported an end to slavery and who looked to hire blacks after slavery, were Jews. Often, the wages were low and the hours were long, but it was something where nothing had existed before. By the turn of the 20th century, black men had coined a term for their Jewish supervisors at work - "Goldberg". It was a derogatory term that definitely heralded things to come, but there was no violent antipathy between the communities at that time (outside of the crime world).

Blacks and Jews developed jazz dance and music together, and often, the closest interracial friends in any given music grouping were the blacks and the Jews. Both suffered violent racism and antisemitism wherever they went, including the murder of one black man and two Jewish men traveling together in Mississippi in 1964, and together, blacks and Jews turned the tide of racial segregation through legislation.

By the time of the late 1970's, relations between blacks and Jews slowly began to devolve, until a full-on collapse throughout the 1980's and early 1990's. However, the Jewish community didn't simultaneously implode in the way the black community did. There were many factors involved in this. Jewish people were not still working primarily in low-wage and/or blue-collar fields at this time, so even though the black community had built and sustained a decent-sized middle-class by that time, when those jobs started disappearing, the black community was disproportionately affected. As well, the crack epidemic wasn't a major problem in the Jewish community. In addition to these, there are many institutional ways in which black people lose money that others don't. Loans to blacks have higher interest rates - both business and private, and blacks are denied more often than others - even when their credit rating is outstanding. Rents charged to black businesses are often higher, and mortgages for black home owners are often higher. This, of course, is rarely known to the black owners until they talk to someone else or do more research, and are forced to take legal action.

The Jewish community is nearly synonymous with the history of merchants; our history as merchants (in the European system of trade) is not nearly as lengthy, and that also contributes to a lack of respect from non-black merchants, clients, and associates.

All of this clearly makes it more difficult for us as a community to succeed - but difficult does not equal impossible. Blacks in the US have again reached a point (financially) where the Jewish (and Asian) models of community success in the US are models we can adopt and "put our spin on". The idea of opening our own businesses in our own communities and patronizing them is first and foremost. This has already started taking a strong foothold in communities from New York and Philadelphia to Atlanta, on the east coast, as well as many other cities throughout the country. Chicago, in the Midwest, is a wonderful example, and Cleveland is beginning a similar (albeit slow) reawakening.

Where we still have some distance to cover with Jewish people is the reverence for education and the balance between entertainment and general commerce. No one can deny that Jews are all about the entertainment industry. But for every one Jewish entertainer, you can find twenty Jewish Lawyers, Doctors, Professors, Politicians, Accountants, Physicists, Chefs, Contractors, Entrepreneurs, etc. There isn't an askance view of professions other than entertainment. The Jewish community values education and what it can provide. However, we are at a point where our youth - and many of those youths' parents - look only to sports or pop music as an outlet. We largely only look for quick money ways to success, and that is a problem. And of those that actually do achieve in those areas, only a select few actually try to help to build something from it. Most just buy expensive homes, cars, clothes and jewelry.

There are other areas too where we lag behind - political influence comes to mind. We largely support and endorse corrupt politicians, who actually hurt us. At least other corrupt politicians rarely hurt their own people - they use their corruption to steal from others. Our politicians keep us in poverty and crime. How many blacks actually supported former mayor Marion Barry for re-election after his crack scandal (one scandal among many)? Well, this much is accurate for sure:
1. He won re-election, and
2. It wasn't on the strength of non-black votes.

Another apt scandal (one of his many) was former mayor Sharpe James in Newark, New Jersey. James was convicted of abusing a program to revitalize Newark's South Ward. The project was intended to help rebuild poor inner-city neighborhoods by selling and granting property and money for redevelopment in a city that had become synonymous with poverty and joblessness. Instead, James sold city-owned property to a former girlfriend for approximately $46,000, which she then flipped for a profit of over $600,000. Few new jobs were created and minority-owned businesses did not get the support they expected and needed. Recently, another mayor Kwame Kilpatrick of Detroit was implicated in multiple scandals. This, in the midst of his city and his people falling apart around him. If you're going to do a disservice, don't. Period. But if you're going to do it anyway, don't do it to your own people.

Also, regarding political influence, we need to impress upon ourselves the importance of voting people in whom we trust, but voting people out in whom we don't. We need to stop marching and complaining, and take action. Voting is a powerful action. We need to get after our politicians the way other communities get after theirs - to keep our streets paved, our schools funded, and our hospitals operational. All this beyond fervent, rhetorical, sermon-esque speeches. And they should pay with their jobs if they don't. But if 70% (or more) of a community doesn't vote, no one listens to that community's complaints. Equally so, we need to take action when voting isn't working. When other communities want something that politics won't provide, they, as a community, pool their individual resources into it or seek wealthy members of their community to assist. Our wealthy black people just put their resources into in-ground pools - shaped like dollar signs.

So, it is in these senses that I wish to be Jewish - or at least have my community follow the Jewish model. Though the black community as a whole, over time, has misplaced a great many of its values, historically, we are very family-oriented, self-sufficient, and innovative. We need to reclaim these traits, cast aside "street-credibility" as something noble, and accede to the throne of respectability. And looking at the model of how the Jewish community has done so over the centuries could be a start. And there's nothing wrong with saying that.