Oops. Biden Apologizes for ‘Shylock’ Comment

[cali]

Vice President Joe Biden expressed regret on Wednesday for using the word “Shylocks” during a speech earlier this week. Many consider the term, which refers to the Jewish villain in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, to be offensive. Biden made the comment while talking to the Legal Services Corporation during a story about his son Beau. “People would come to him and talk about what was happening to them at home in terms of foreclosures, in terms of bad loans that were being — I mean, these Shylocks who took advantage of these women and men while overseas,” he said. On Wednesday, Biden said it was a “poor choice of words” and that it was “right” for Jewish groups like the Anti-Defamation League to call him out.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2014/09/17/biden-apologizes-for-shylock-comment.html

[YarnAddict]

1. I'm sure he probably meant "shyster"

Which as far as I know, has no ethnic connotations. Much ado about nothing.

[Nye Bevan]

3. I see what you did there (nt)

[YarnAddict]

4. :-) n/t

[joeybee12]

7. Actually, I'm sure he didn't...nt

[YarnAddict]

14. Please explain why

Do you really think the VP is an anti-semite?

[joeybee12]

16. He has a history of inappropriate comments...

Not that hard to understand...and shylock is too far removed from shyster to be credible.

[YarnAddict]

19. Malapropisms,

but never maliciousness.

[joeybee12]

24. Anyone who has ever read Shakespeare knows how controversial the character of

Shylock is and how anto-semitic a character he is...malicious or not, he knew what word he was using.

[cali]

30. +1

[mathematic]

44. Too far removed? They're practically the same word!

Shylock = shyster + anti-semitism. And they both start with "shy". They're so similar that when I was younger, I thought "shyster" was anti-semitic. And I have an excellent vocabulary. Your unwillingness to give Biden the benefit of the doubt is baffling.

[joeybee12]

51. Joe Biden is well-educated, he is well-versed in Shakespeare

He phucked up and apologized, no need for you to make excuses for him....they are not even close to the same word, three letters are the same, but spoken completely different.

[still_one]

29. Then he should have said so in the apology

[Nye Bevan]

2. Yep, that was pretty bad. Good that he apologized (nt)

[840high]

49. Yes.

[RobertEarl]

5. Bankers are Shylocks?

Who knew?

And is there any word we can use to describe bankers that everyone is happy with? How far do we go down this PC path?

[cali]

6. this is an unambiguous anti-semitic trope

do I think Biden did anything more than make a slip of the tongue- something he has been known to do? of course not,

he made a mistake. he was right to apologize.

No, bankers aren't shylocks. Want to call them crooks or shysters? Fine. It's not ok to use an anti-semitic slur to characterize them.

[RobertEarl]

9. I never knew it was

Learn something new everyday.

What Biden was talking about was bankers. END. Stop. Period.

So now this term is become anti-semitic and is verbotten? Who knew? I did not. Until now. Thanks for the education.

[cali]

10. It hasn't suddenly become anti-semitic. It is a very old, well known

anti-semitic slur. Biden erroneously used it. It's not a big deal. He apologized and people who weren't aware of the history of the use of the term, learned something.

[fadedrose]

48. I did not know

I never thought about the word, but before this thread, if I had, I would have thought it took in people like the Mafia with their exorbitant interest rates, or anyone that charged high interest, or a crooked lawyer who overcharged the Mafia....

[cali]

50. we can't all know everything.

but yeah, it's a pretty specific anti-semitic slur.

[frazzled]

20. Well, try substituting another literary term in casual conversation

So, suppose you want to talk about education policy for young African American children and "accidentally" refer to them as "Little Black Sambos."

Or you're discussing the Asian American community and refer to them as "Fu Manchus."

Get what the issue is now?

[RobertEarl]

28. Biden was talking about bankers

Last edited Wed Sep 17, 2014, 04:16 PM - Edit history (1)

I don't know what it is you are talking about. Did it make you feel good to type out those words? I would never venture to do what you have done. Nope. Just don't need to type such tripe. The words are not even in my vocabulary.

I wished I hadn't even seen such garbage on my screen.

[frazzled]

36. OMG, are you trying to appear dense?

Or do you just put Jews in a separate category immune to ethnic slurs?

[cali]

41. or something else. n/t

[cali]

38. maybe not, but what you're doing is far more pernicious.

and the poster made a direct, on point comparison. You're tolerating and minimizing an anti-semitic slur; saying that it's just pc gone overboard. It's been explained to you that this far pre-dates political correctness and that it's long been known as an anti-semitic slur. You just keep doubling down.

pretty shameful, robert old boy.

[still_one]

32. Agreed, and the apology was necessary

[frazzled]

8. How about "crooks"?

You don't have to go very far down the PC path to find the term "Shylock" inherently offensive. It would suggest all the bankers are Jews.

There are plenty of "equal opportunity" adjectives to use for bankers.

[RobertEarl]

11. Looked it up in dictionary

It did mention Shakespeare, but was focused upon "ruthless usurpers".

Did not know it was anti-semitic.

Right about shylock in the dictionary is the word shyster.

And the PCwars rage!

[cali]

12. this isn't about PC. Shylock references have been seen as anti-semitic since long before

the term PC was coined. way long before.

[RobertEarl]

15. You can educate me even more

What exactly does anti-semite mean?

And was Shakespeare anti-semitic?

Dictionary says Semites are Arabs and Jewish.

[cali]

23. sure. Shakespeare likely held many of the common views of his day

it's kind of anachronistic to label Shakespeare in that manner. Unlikely he knew any Jews as very few were in England during lifetime. Jews were expelled from England in the 13th century. In any case, Shylock is a multi-faceted character, and more than just a stock villain, but anyhoo...

Anti-semite is a term coined by one Wilhelm Marr in the 19th century to express antipathy toward jews. Although Arabs are obviously semites, the term word anti-semitic refers only to Jews. Check any dictionary.

Happy to educate you.

[RobertEarl]

33. OK

So, bankers, in Shakespeare's experience, were not Jewish?

[cali]

37. I don't know that he had any experience with bankers.

but that's so far off the mark; entirely irrelevant. the point is that for a very long time, calling Jewish bankers shylocks, has been an anti-semitic slur, part of the web of economic anti-semitism.

here, more "educmacation", just for you- because you clearly need all you can get:

<snip>

The character Shylock in William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice is a Jewish moneylender who is portrayed in unscrupulous and avaricious. Derek Penslar asserts that Shylock is a metaphor for the Jewish "otherness" and that he represents the "inseparability of Jewish religious, social, and economic distinctiveness".[141] Gerald Krefetz calls Shylock a "classic image" which has haunted Jews ever since it first appeared, since it made Jews a scapegoat.[139]

Historian Richard Hofstadter writes that Shylock was used as the basis for "crankery" by Charles Coughlin and Ezra Pound.[142]

John Gross states that Shylock represented "the sinister international financier" on both sides of the Atlantic.[143]

Abraham Foxman contends that Shylock may have contributed to antisemitism in Japan, becauseThe Merchant of Venice is translated into Japanese more than any other play of Shakespeare.[144]

<snip>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_antisemitism#Shylock

[RobertEarl]

45. Edumacation?

There ya go. Using a nasty term to make a personal remark at me.

Take Biden's example and make your own apology.

Why do you devolve into personal attacks like this? You are not being PC at all.

[cali]

46. you're the one that should apologize. your nastiness in this thread has been

noted by several people. It has taken the form of denying that an obviously anti-semitic slur is.. anti-semitic. I have been quite patient with you and that hardly constitutes an attack.

[reorg]

53. When I first watched the play

I had a very different impression. That different impression was reinforced with each additional performance I watched, the movie with Al Pacino being an outstanding example. The play reacts to and deals with anti-Semitic prejudices, but is far from being anti-Semitic itself. You don't fucking know Shakespeare at all if you claim otherwise. As to the Shylock character, it is just that, a character, and a complex one to boot, not reduced to being a pathetic caricature of being "avaricious" or "unscrupulous", and only a simple-minded anti-Semite could see him as representing "the sinister international financier".

"Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian
wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by
Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you
teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction." (3.1.6)

Here Shylock insists on the fact that Jews and Christians share a common humanity. He also exposes the hypocrisy of the Christian characters who are always talking about love and mercy but then go out of their way to alienate Shylock because he is Jewish and different.

Yet as powerful as this speech is, elsewhere in the play Shylock tends to emphasize the differences between Jews and Christians. When Bassanio invites him to dinner, Shylock mutters "I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following, but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you" (1.3.8) Is Shylock just being hateful, or is his disdain justifiable? We know Shylock has been abused in the past (he's been trash-talked, spit upon, called a dog, and worse), and it seems like there's not a scene that goes by in which some character isn't hurling anti-Semitic insults.

http://www.shmoop.com/merchant-of-venice/shylock.html

[cali]

54. Here's what I said:

Shylock is a multi-faceted character, and more than just a stock villain

Got that? so yeah, I do fucking know Shakespeare and that play. Wrote an essay about how Portia is the real villain of the play in many ways and and how fucked up her "quality of mercy" speech is.

My point is simply that shylock is a long time anti-semitic term.

[reorg]

55. I'm glad we agree

Last edited Wed Sep 17, 2014, 06:57 PM - Edit history (1)

all the more puzzling is to me why you would bring up these stupid quotes about Shylock representing "the sinister international financier" and the like.

As to whether the term is anti-Semitic, I cannot possibly have an informed opinion. Heard it first in one of my favorite movies, Get Shorty, by Barry Sonnenfeld and Elmore Leonard. My impression was that it is a term used for usurious money-lenders in the context of organized crime, the criminal rackets that have developed for about a century in the inner cities of large urban conglomerates in the US. Mostly for thugs with Italian roots, I believe. Probably that's what Biden had in mind when he was using the term, but what do I know. Gotta watch the latest episode of Boardwalk Empire now, bye.

[cali]

57. I simply posted a snip from a site

The descriptions of who shylock is; the subtleties of the character as written by Shakespeare, are clearly missed by those people, but the point that for a very long time, it's been used as an anti-semitic slur, is accurate. This isn't news. it's been recognized as such for centuries. yes centuries.

[YarnAddict]

25. The term

probably originated with Shakespeare, as the name of a character, and became an anti-semitic slur as a result of the actions of the character. Maybe.

[frazzled]

31. The dictionary also defines anti-Semitism

an·ti–Sem·i·tism noun \ˌan-tē-ˈse-mə-ˌti-zəm, ˌan-ˌtī-\
: hatred of Jewish people

Full Definition of ANTI-SEMITISM

: hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group


anti-Semitism is a specific term that has nothing to do with the definition of "Semites." You're just digging yourself a deeper hole all the time. I suggest you stop here and just accept that the term VP Biden used was offensive. That's why he had to apologize.

[cali]

34. I'm not going to hold my breath.

[LanternWaste]

22. It's a tough old world when we're called on our disrespect and intolerance

"And the PCwars rage!"

It's a tough old world when we're called out on our disrespect and intolerance for even those we dislike. The horror... the horror.

[RobertEarl]

40. I like PCwars

The outcome of these wars results not in hurt, but rather that our discussions are better because we end up using terms that do not hurt.

Education, I have found, is a good thing, and PCwars are educational.

Myself,
Sticks and stones
May hurt my bones
But words are like butterflies.

But then that's just me. YMMV.

[cali]

42. right. words never hurt. and you insist on misusing the term pc in this context. cute.

[TexasProgresive]

18. I posted this list of possibles in an earlier thread

Loan sharks
Usurers
Gombeen men (Irish usurers who lent money at high rates during the great famine)
Hornswogglers
Bunco artists

[cali]

26. love hornswogglers. never heard of bunco artists. no to gombeen men.

[TexasProgresive]

47. P.D.s used to call the group that investigated scams the Bunco squad.

The name comes from some kind of game of chance.

[Scootaloo]

13. And that's how you apologize

None of that "I'm sorry if anyone was offended..." shit.

[cali]

35. It is indeed a gracious apology and a good template.

[ZombieHorde]

17. Jewish bankers seem to be a theme of anti-Semites.

"Shylock" is an anti-Semitic term.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt is difficult here.

[cali]

27. I have no problem giving him the benefit of the doubt.

he kinda does make a lot of slip of the tongue goofs.

[ZombieHorde]

39. That is a pretty specific slip of the tongue.

If he was a Republican, there is no way people here would be defending him.

[cali]

43. but he's not a republican and he a long and honorable record as anything but a bigot.

[Recursion]

21. Ouch

I love Uncle Joe, but that one was not OK...

[JI7]

52. good to see him admit he was wrong

And none of that "if I offended" stuff

[bigwillq]

56. The GM did it again!

GM=Gaffe Master.

[elias7]

58. Interesting how the source of the misspeak draws variable reaction

Or perhaps a gracious heartfelt apology goes a long way. For some, like Biden, we "know what he means" and it cuts him some slack, as i suppose it should. I took no offense to the comment, though I could have. For others, you just get the sense that there is an underlying sentiment that makes the comment more inappropriate.

Similar to his use of the term "Orient", which until the 70's or 80's was in common, non-pejorative use for most of the now older generations. Sometimes those non-PC things slip out in an innocuous way, esp for Biden.

Like you say in the OP, with Biden, it's more of an oops, with someone else of more nefarious intent, maybe not.

[betsuni]

60. The "Orient" comment was simply an Occidental slip of the tongue. n/t

[Behind the Aegis]

59. To Cali:

Thank you.