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.

[rainstorm.livejournal.com]

about a year ago i was walking in eidnburgh and saw that someone had painted a swastika and some slogan (i can't remember it exactly but it was along the lines of "fuck off asylum seekers".)

it scared me. i can't remember wher eit was, i just remember seeing it,

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

I don't mean to be rude or offensive, but many of those cartoons seem to me to be more criticizingIsraeli politics than anti-Semitic, don't they? I've seen cartoons just as vicious about other governments. In fact, these cartoons seem to lampoon America nearly as badly, including decidedly non-Jewish Americans (like Powell) being nothing but puppets, and Uncle Sam being just as "dirty" and "hook-nosed" as the figure representing the state of Israel.

I only comment at all, because I think it's important to draw a line between criticism of Israel as a nation and anti-Semitism. It seems that sometimes, that line is (purposely or not) blurred in order to detract from that criticism.