Spring Break
Panelists explore black/Jewish relations
by Anya Bergman
News | 10/21/08
Posted online at 4:05 AM EST on 10/21/08
Prof. Peniel Joseph (AAAS), Wall Street Journal editor Jonathan Kaufman and Harvard Law School Prof. Randall Kennedy agreed on Sen. Barack Obama's success in attracting a large number of Jewish supporters and debated the impact his presidency could have on black/Jewish relations and on race policy in the United States during a panel discussion last Thursday.
Prof. Ibrahim Sundiata (HIST) moderated the event, "Blacks, Jews, and Obama: Can Obama's Candidacy Restore the Old Liberal Alliance?," which featured panelists Joseph, who has worked as a political commentator for the Public Broadcasting Station, and Kaufman and Kennedy, who have written respectively about Black/Jewish relations and race and the law.
Joseph and Kaufman explained that Obama's large circle of Jewish supporters and advisers gives him a lot of power to restore black/Jewish relations that grew tense during the last few decades of the 20th century.
Joseph explained that Jews and African Americans in the 20th century were both in "pursuit of small-deed democracy," a democratic society free of any kind of discrimination in light of their own experiences.
He and Kaufman cited Jewish involvement in causes such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the Civil Rights Movement; however, Kaufman cautioned that there were some unequal power relations and that African Americans felt that the wealthy Jews sometimes treated them "as the little brother in suffering" because of the Jews' long history with discrimination.
Joseph explained that divisions between the groups ensued after events such as Jesse Jackson's reference to New York as "himey town," using a derogatory term for Jews, during his 1984 presidential bid. Urban rioting in New York in the 1990s, which stemmed from a car accident that killed a black man and the subsequent killing of an innocent Jewish person, also contributed to a division, he said.
Kaufman expressed optimism that an Obama presidency could re-energize the black/Jewish relationship rather than keep it as the flat line, with no positive growth, that it has been during President Bush's administration.
Prof. Ibrahim Sundiata (HIST) moderated the event, "Blacks, Jews, and Obama: Can Obama's Candidacy Restore the Old Liberal Alliance?," which featured panelists Joseph, who has worked as a political commentator for the Public Broadcasting Station, and Kaufman and Kennedy, who have written respectively about Black/Jewish relations and race and the law.
Joseph and Kaufman explained that Obama's large circle of Jewish supporters and advisers gives him a lot of power to restore black/Jewish relations that grew tense during the last few decades of the 20th century.
Joseph explained that Jews and African Americans in the 20th century were both in "pursuit of small-deed democracy," a democratic society free of any kind of discrimination in light of their own experiences.
He and Kaufman cited Jewish involvement in causes such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the Civil Rights Movement; however, Kaufman cautioned that there were some unequal power relations and that African Americans felt that the wealthy Jews sometimes treated them "as the little brother in suffering" because of the Jews' long history with discrimination.
Joseph explained that divisions between the groups ensued after events such as Jesse Jackson's reference to New York as "himey town," using a derogatory term for Jews, during his 1984 presidential bid. Urban rioting in New York in the 1990s, which stemmed from a car accident that killed a black man and the subsequent killing of an innocent Jewish person, also contributed to a division, he said.
Kaufman expressed optimism that an Obama presidency could re-energize the black/Jewish relationship rather than keep it as the flat line, with no positive growth, that it has been during President Bush's administration.
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