Actual racism

[andrewducker]

Cheers fo Mr Grossberg for pointing out these anti-semitic cartoons.

Despite knowing about this kind of thing in a general sense, seeing examples of it is still rather disturbing.

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

The scariest example of anti-semitism was something I saw about 5 years ago on the mailing list for the RPG Nephilim. This game was originally French (although Chaosium put out a far superior version in the mid 90s) and several of the people on the list were French. One of these people posted a Nephilim scenario that completely appalled me (and several other people on the list). It featured Jewish Kabbalists as the (truly horrific) villains, which is not in and of itself bad. However, the descriptions of their appearance, behavior, and personalities were clearly based upon some of the worst of the 19th and early 20th century anti-semitic stereotypes. About the only thing that was not included was the old medieval blood libel, and in thinking back on it, I not absolutely certain that this wasn't there in some version or other.

The most disturbing part was that the writer clearly had no idea that he had created an RPG scenario that would be beloved by Neo-Nazis everywhere, he just wanted to create scary villains and so that's what came to mind. I was vividly reminded of watching the old South African film The Gods Must Be Crazy, where people who were obviously moderates, if not mild liberals (by SA standards) made what was to me a deeply offensive film, largely because they could not see what was so offensive. That sort of unconscious racism is IMHO the scariest form of racism. For me, seeing highly bigoted statements and images created by people who actually hate or fear a group of people is unsettling but not unexpected, seeing the same images from people who do not hold any deliberate negative feelings toward that group is far more disturbing.

[andrewducker]

I agree, because it means the attitudes have become pervasive.

Still, it's better than 200 years ago, when nearly everyone felt that way...