Reply to Is the refernece "he/she looks very Jewish" benign or an insult?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am not Jewish. I am black. I say that to say I can't speak for exactly how a Jewish person would feel about the statement. I can only speak for how I feel when someone says something similar to me.

I would ask the speaker "What do you mean by that?" and see what comes next. My guess is that it won't be something good.

When I've encountered similar statements, it is usually meant to be derogatory. If your Jewish friend has confided in you that he/she finds it insulting, you should be the brave and bold white person who is willing to take a position that will bring you discomfort for the good of all. The weight of addressing discriminatory/hurtful statements always falls on the person being singled out and they are left having to navigate addressing the disrespect, their hurt feelings and self esteem and then having to defend against a typical white person who will rudely push back if they are called out on their bigoted behavior.  It will be all about that person's feelings on being called a bigot instead of the person they actually offended.

Please, stand up for your Jewish friend and call the other person out on their unacceptable comments. Right now, you can hide and ignore the rude comments because they don't affect you. By the way, if you've ever wondered what white privilege is and if you have it, this is one of those situations. [/quote]
This is interesting because, as a black person, I find it insulting when white people describe a black person but never reference that they are black.  I think that comes from a place of trying “not to see color” but it always comes off to me like you think being black is so bad that it cannot even be mentioned.  [/quote]

As a Jewish person, I agree. If I'm wearing something that strongly indicates I'm Jewish--a star of David necklace or a yarmulke (if I were a man)--there isn't anything wrong with using that to identify me. It's likely to be something that distinguishes me from a crowd, so it's an easy way of referring to me.

If you try to engage in verbal gymnastics to avoid using that identifier, I find that insulting. [/quote]

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