Have spent some of the afternoon link-hopping among self-proclaimed blogs of the right.  Now I know that there must be clear-thinking and well-meaning folks on the other side of that aisle but frankly I am having a hard time finding them.

Following some of those links I found this "humorous" reflection on the topic of the day, reparations.  I know it's a bit tongue and cheek, but what depresses me is that a post like this reveals how deeply and essentially different the way we understand the universe can be.  

Too cranky and bummed to say anything more...

7:47:10 PM    

Andrew Sullivan points us to this bit by British editor Richard Ingrams of the Guardian:

I have developed a habit when confronted by letters to the editor in support of the Israeli government to look at the signature to see if the writer has a Jewish name. If so, I tend not to read it. [emphasis mine, Ibyx]

Too few people in this modern world are prepared to declare an interest when it comes to this kind of thing. It would be enormously helpful, for example, if those clerics and journalists who have been defending Canon Jeffrey John, the so-called gay bishop, were to tell us whether they themselves are gay. Some do, but more don't.

The issue arises partly because, in both cases, these people are often accusing the other side of being prejudiced and biased - we are either homophobes or anti-Semites.

The other day, for example, the Canadian journalist Barbara Amiel wrote a long denunciation of the BBC in the Daily Telegraph, accusing the Corporation of being anti-Israel in its Middle East coverage.

Many readers of the Daily Telegraph may have been impressed by her arguments, assuming her to be just another journalist or even, as she was recently described in another newspaper, an 'international-affairs commentator'.

They might have been less impressed if the paper had told them that Barbara Amiel is not only Jewish but that her husband's company, in which she has an interest, owns not only the Daily Telegraph but the Jerusalem Post .

In other words, when it comes to accusing people of bias on the Middle East, she is not ideally qualified for the role.

I do of course see that he could have been making a more benign point here: that folks who are commenting on an issue might better serve their audience if they reveal whether they have any kind of bias or stake in the issue.  I think this point is debatable on its own, but at least it's relatively benign.  But Ingram gives us a nasty glimpse of the underside of his rock with his opening paragraph.  He does not assert that he takes opinions of folks with "Jewish names" with a grain of salt.   He says he, "tend[s] not to read it."  This is astonishingly brazen admission of prejudice for sure and antisemitism in particular.  Can you get uglier?  First: generalizing about names that sound Jewish.  Two: assuming that all Jews have the same kind of biases when it comes to any issue.  Worse: assuming that there is a Jewish position and then admitting that he dismisses or ignores it!

YEEEEEUUUUCCCKKKK.

3:29:41 PM    

Prometheus, who I check in with several times a day, began an interesting conversation yesterday about reparations to Black Americans.  This is an issue that I have heard discussed every year or so on NPR but never outside that.  In the last year I have become more overt and conscious in my reflection and learning on issues of race and so I am really interested to engage and learn on this topic now.  [By the way, I really appreciate that Prometheus_6 is a place where folks can talk about these issues and learn.]

Anyway, the conversation starts here and continues here .  It's already shifted how I am thinking about it.

I want to add that in addition to my general desire to learn about issues of race in the US, I have also been thinking in the last year that Israel has a lot to learn from how other countries heal these kinds of traumas.  When the occupation finally ends, two peoples who have inflicted incredible pain on one another will be living side by side.  And something will have to be done. 

3:19:15 PM