Given open antisemitism is mainstream again in the US

[james_davis_nicoll]

Should I start including Jewish creators in with POCs in my month end stats?

Comments

[alexseanchai]

I vote yes, but I should observe I'm neither Jewish nor a person of color.

[rydra_wong]

As a white demi-Jew, I think it's not helpful to conflate white Jews with POC, anti-Semitism and racism being two separate (though frequently related) axes. However, could be worth keeping stats on percentages of Jewish creators.

... OTOH, saying that, I am aware of the risk of them being used to show that there are Too Many Jews in SF/F, that we have secretly infiltrated and are controlling etc. etc. etc.

(Or, alternatively, "Look, we can't be racist, we have Jewish authors!")

This could be a tricky one.

[thnidu]

I'm Jewish (and white and male), and I was feeling waffly about these issues when I saw your post. Then I clicked to see the comments and saw that Rydra had expressed them already. Hence the icon.

[bibliofile]

What if the stats tracked all religions, or at least the major groups? E.g., Buddhist, Christian, etc.? So many othering opportunities there.

[coffeeandink]

As a white Jew, this idea makes me really uncomfortable. Given the accelerating Anti-Semitism, maybe I'll feel differently in a month, but for now I think that collapsing Anti-Semitism into racism erases some important power differentials and experiences.

[rosefox]

Agreed.

[jwgh]

One man's opinion: Antisemitism has been a problem on both the left and the right for quite some time, so I would say yes. The fact that we're right around the beginning of the 'war on christmas' season also makes it seem somehow particularly appropriate.

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

I'd say no, because people can choose to stop being a white Jew but can't choose to stop being a poc and Black Jews are treated differently to white Jews, but you could keep a separate tally of Jewish and Muslim authors (ETA to clarify: especially because some Muslims are white people).

[jwgh]

I don't think people like Bannon are interested in whether or not someone has 'chosen' to stop being Jewish.

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

I assume James means ethnic Jews, who are still considered Jews by white supremacists even if they don't practice Judaism. Black Jews are POC no matter what, and white Europeans who convert to Judaism ... well, I doubt Ivanka's facing any antisemitism except through proxy.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Actually, people can't stop being 'white Jews'. There is a distinct cast of features that is considered ethnic Jewish, and it is used in some parts of the US to discriminate. Is it the same as discrimination against black people in the US? No. But it is quite real in some locales. The antisemites will talk about Tay Sachs, e.g.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

A lot of people were murdered within living memory after believing until it was too late that they could "stop being white Jews". Whatever you personally believe, people who murder Jews think it's an indelible ethnicity not a belief system.

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

Interestingly, that would make Heinlein the only straight white male in the Big Three.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

The three-way with Hubbard does not disqualify him?

[nicole wyatt (from livejournal.com)]

I'd do a separate tally myself.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Did I inadvertently delete a comment? If so, I am not sure how.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Anti-Jewish prejudice is anti-semitism.

Anti-Roma prejudice is anti-ziganism.

Is there a word for anti-Muslim prejudice? I am tired of racists being able to say "Muslim isn't a RACE" and thereby de-rail efforts to point out their prejudice.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

"Islamophobia" but the usual response is either "it's rational to fear and hate Muslims because they're all murdering raping scum who want to kill us all" or "you're trying to smear legitimate critique of a religion as something analogous to racism".

[percysowner.livejournal.com]

I go with yes, add to the tally.

[carbonel]

My gut reaction (as a Jewish woman) is to say no, because I don't think there are the same barriers in publishing for Jewish creators as there are for POCs. I'm not sure why, but the idea makes me vaguely uncomfortable.

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

Also, another reason not to include white Jewish people in a "People of Colour" category, as so many commentors here have more than amply demonstrated, is that as soon as you include white people in POC then white people's issues (including hypothetical future issues) immediately dominated and drown POC's issues until the POC are rendered invisible again. And if, like me, POC won't settle for being invisible then your many racist Nice White Liberal commentors will target us as enthusiastically for their hate as any Trump supporter would target us. QED.

[vschanoes.livejournal.com]

I see less hypothetical future issues and more "these issues happened in living memory and we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking they won't happen again."

I thought pale-skinned Ashkenazi Jews were white in the US until this election, but a) I've always lived in NYC, so that may have skewed my experiences, and b) I'm rapidly revising that opinion at this point.

[avram]

It seems to me that Jews have generally been well-represented within SFF/F writing and publishing.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I assume, he said without actually checking because that worked out so well last time, they are reasonably well represented in my reviews. Getting back to why I track POC, it's because unless I do, I overlook their books.

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

FWIW I agree with the comments here that suggest including American Jews in one big PoC category only confuses the issue. White supremacists might not be interested in granular differences in what they consider Other, but that doesn't mean we have to play along. And, as someone also pointed out, the history of opportunities available to Jewish-Americans in publishing is different than for African-Americans—and that's only one aspect of different ethnic experiences. For that matter I'd suppose you can break Jewish experiences in America into those of Ashkenazi background and those of Sephardic background.

In other words, you'd have to break non-white into different categories, and while that would be interesting I'd think it's too late to go back and do that now to your entire reviewing history.

[vschanoes.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, I agree that the publishing opportunities available to Jews and black people have been vastly different. On the other, I suspect there are significant relevant differences in various opportunities among the groups already in the category of PoC, so I'm not sure that's a solid argument.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Jews are still considered mostly-white, but you might want to prepare for the next 6 months or so.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

It didn't even occur to me at first that by "with POCs" you meant as POCs. I thought you meant tracking Jews in their own category, which I still think makes more sense.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Or an "ethnic/religious minority" category.

Latino is actually an ethnic group. Muslim is religious. Jewish could be either or both.

[gohover.livejournal.com]

Instead of considering whether an author is Jewish (How would you know? Sometimes they aren't too sure themselves), I think you should consider whether the reviewed story itself is Jewish, using Lenny Bruce's famous easy-to-learn metric: https://books.google.com/books?id=3jjNW-_TnusC&lpg=PP1&dq=isbn%3A0671760890&pg=PA63

[vschanoes.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I don't know. I've been turning this over in my head.

Well, what is whiteness? Whiteness is, to my mind, being considered white by other already-confirmed-white people. In my experience, I've been treated as white all my life.

However.

There have been times of acceptance for Jews before, and they have ended. I fear we are at a potential turning point in the US. So I'd say hold off on a definitive answer for another few months and see what happens.