BrianW
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- 6 Mar 2006
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I have a friend who happens to be Jewish.
She sometimes recounts the anti-Semitism she encounters. (She is in Australia, not here.) Very occasionally, I think she's a bit OTT, and what she is describing is not really anti-Semitic in intent.
But then I think - it's OK for me to believe that but I'm not Jewish and haven't lived her life. She is really a lot better placed to judge than I am. And if she feels hurt, it's real.
This is a very difficult and very sensitive area. But I think the key point is that it's quite easy to offend without the least intention of offending, and if the particular person is sensitive to what he or she perceives as racism, it may not take much. The nearest I can get as a white, working-class Anglo-Saxon bloke is that if I went to a gathering of upper-class types I would be a bit sensitive to anyone who started to take the piss out of my accent, my origins or whatever. And yeah, I know it ain't the same. But I might be a tad on the defensive.
(For the record, all the upper-class people I have met in my life have been really nice, but then I haven't met that many and at the end of the day, I'm white.)
She sometimes recounts the anti-Semitism she encounters. (She is in Australia, not here.) Very occasionally, I think she's a bit OTT, and what she is describing is not really anti-Semitic in intent.
But then I think - it's OK for me to believe that but I'm not Jewish and haven't lived her life. She is really a lot better placed to judge than I am. And if she feels hurt, it's real.
This is a very difficult and very sensitive area. But I think the key point is that it's quite easy to offend without the least intention of offending, and if the particular person is sensitive to what he or she perceives as racism, it may not take much. The nearest I can get as a white, working-class Anglo-Saxon bloke is that if I went to a gathering of upper-class types I would be a bit sensitive to anyone who started to take the piss out of my accent, my origins or whatever. And yeah, I know it ain't the same. But I might be a tad on the defensive.
(For the record, all the upper-class people I have met in my life have been really nice, but then I haven't met that many and at the end of the day, I'm white.)