The budding smear campaign against Bernie Sanders

[BumRushDaShow]

89. The unspoken thing here

is that Sanders is Jewish. And historically, in many urban areas (particularly in neighborhoods that were segregated and became almost 100% black), often the only "white" person folks had day to day contact with happened to be of Jewish heritage/religion, who often owned a little store in the neighborhood and interacted freely with the neighborhood customers without the racial animus that the community was accustomed to. The inter-cultural dynamic during the '50s and '60s, became symbiotic, as Jews were under vicious attack along with blacks, so there was a mutual oppressive experience going on with both groups and their relationships offered a level of "protection" for each other. My mother would tell me stories about what was going on during the WWII era when she was in high school where a number of European Jews had immigrated here to Philly and some were attending her high school. And at that time, she said that the the other white girls (back then there were essentially only 2 black girls per grade at that school) would beat up the Jewish girls and the black girls would come to their defense. Thus a number of Jews joined blacks in the Civil Rights movement at the time, in order to bring about equality for all - regardless of race or religion.

But as we moved forward in time, the relationship between the communities became more and more estranged as the European Jews began to assimilate into the larger white population and moved out to the suburbs, while blacks were left behind, unable to live in those suburbs by law or stipulation of the development's owner - and this notably included famous developments owned by families like the Levitts, who refused to sell homes to blacks -

Hopes Dissipated For Black Americans

Another paradox was that although Levittown was built for World War II veterans, who had fought tyranny and racism, its doors were opened to at least one former German U-boat sailor, while black American soldiers were turned away.

''Because Levittown promised affordable housing, with no down payment, it offered hope to the African-American working class when no other community did -- but that hope was quashed,'' said Dr. Barbara M. Kelly, Hofstra University's director of Long Island Studies. ''After the war, blacks thought things had changed, but they hadn't, and Levittown became a microcosm of that frustration.''

The role of the developer, the late William J. Levitt, is debated. He defended his actions as following the social customs of the era.

''The Negroes in America are trying to do in 400 years what the Jews in the world have not wholly accomplished in 600 years,'' he once wrote. ''As a Jew, I have no room in my mind or heart for racial prejudice. But I have come to know that if we sell one house to a Negro family, then 90 or 95 percent of our white customers will not buy into the community. This is their attitude, not ours. As a company, our position is simply this: We can solve a housing problem, or we can try to solve a racial problem, but we cannot combine the two.''

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/28/nyregion/at-50-levittown-contends-with-its-legacy-of-bias.html

The estrangement often tipped into paternalism when interactions did occur, although generally, the two groups still shared and continue to share, many similar experiences and frustrations. But I think the underlying dynamic cannot be dismissed as it will impact on how our community views the candidates. In essence, each group focuses on what is needed for their own survival under this system of oppression and in our case, the worldviews, as well as the means and methods for solutions, diverge considerably.

The idea that any "focus on blacks" means effectively "driving whites away" from <fill in the blank>, is a multi-century issue and a disgrace that this nation continues to refuse to address. And until this is addressed somehow, very little change will happen. And many of us in the black community are almost always left with supporting the "lesser of evils".