#ethnicity

ethnicity = shared cultural characteristics including but not limited to language, food, music, dance, religion, and shared ancestry; learned through cultural transmission; can be changed throughout one's life provided that the ethnic community one is trying to join accepts them

race = a bullshit system of human categorization based solely upon looks; literally invented by europeans trying to sort humans like we are all different species; can also change over the course of someone's life if the necessary conditions are met (see: my great-great-grandparents being marked as non-white "Hebrew" immigrants in 1904 and then passing away right as Eastern Ashkenazi Jewish people began to fully assimilate into whiteness, eg the post-war period; also see the treatment of SWANA Muslims before and after 9/11); also a legal system in the US wherein those deemed "white" receive certain privileges denied to others based upon race science

nationality = one's country of origin and where they hold citizenship; those are sometimes the same and sometimes not; see for example a naturalized US citizen whose nationality might be both Dominican and American

now. why would someone get race and ethnicity, in particular, confused? you see, from the 16th to the 19th centuries, the word "race" both referred to the bullshit system and also to ethnic groups. additionally, in the post-colonial context, some ethnicities are based upon the system of race that was imposed upon settler colonies (for example, Black Americans, who were forcibly removed from their original ethnic communities and, in a show of remarkable resilience, created new and beautiful cultures). this has led to a lasting confusion on the two concepts.

you may be wondering: tzipi, why are you posting this?

because i need you to know that ethnoreligious groups are real. and i need you to know that jewish people are an ethnoreligious group with subethnicities (like Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Mizrahim, Persian Jews, Ethiopian Jews, etc). but that none of these groups are the "real Jews." and that we do, in fact, meet the definition of a distinct ethnic group with some similarities and differences across the many subethnicities that are contained within our ethnicity. we accept converts, who then become ethnically jewish, because ethnicity is not all about blood ties. AND ALSO. someone can be ethnically jewish without being religiously jewish, because they may share in the cultural practices that jewish people do and (usually, in this case,) have jewish heritage. such a person does not need to be Israeli to be ethnically jewish. "Israeli" is a nationality, not an ethnicity, at least right now.

Obviously a lot of people's ethnicity is broader than one specific country/region; there's not enough room in a tumblr poll to represent every possible nuance, so vote for whichever option feels closest.

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Working Hypothesis: @jewish-hot-takes exists for non-Jewish cosplayers to launder their most nonsensical, baseless criticisms of #jumblr.

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"Jews aren't white" is a claim about whether Jews sit safely inside the white category from the outside.

"There's no racism in Jewish spaces" is a claim about prejudice inside Jewish communities that I've never seen or heard a Jew make.

Those are two different sentences about two different subjects, Anon.

Two things can be true at the same time:

1. Ashkenazim being racialized as white is recent, conditional, and gets revoked the second it's convenient for attacking them.

AND

2. Some Jewish communities and some members of Jewish communities express real colorism, anti-Black racism, or shitty attitudes towards Mizrahim or Ethiopian Jews.

There's no contradiction to expose here except the one Anon invented.

Anon clearly revealed the assumptions about race and Jews needed devise this strawman "contradiction"

The majority of Israel's ~7 million Jews are not Ashkenaz. Anon actually conceded this in their first sentence, saying it's "more complex than just white Jews," and then spent every following sentence using "Jews" to mean "white Western Ashkenazim."

Anon's framing hides erases all the Jews who can't be racialized as "white" (including Mizrahim, Sephardim, Beta Israel Ethiopian Jews, Indian Jews, Chinese Jews, and very olive-colored Ashkenaz like my mother) because the accusation only seems plausible to its intended bigoted audience if Anon quietly deletes them first.

Why does Anon need to delete them first?

Anon thinks white = guilty oppressor and non-white = innocent victim, so "Jews aren't white" sounds to Anon like "Jews are claiming innocence."

(Remarkably, Anon thinks their position opposes racism.)

Antisemitism, meanwhile, adapts. Right wing antisemites can call Jews non-white in contexts where whiteness is good, and antisemites like Anon can call Jews white in contexts where whiteness is bad. Either way, both approaches to Jew hatred almost always insist Jews are all-powerful, alien, supremacists, and secretly in charge.

Jews don't fit the false binary of oppressor vs oppressed, and instead of asking questions about that blatantly absurd false binary, Anon finds it simpler to believe that Jews must be cheating.

Membership in a group identity (whether it not that group is persecuted) never comes with a fucking halo - and it is only the extremist ideologues on either end of the horseshoe who fail to grasp this fundamental truth:

There are bigots in all populations and in all spaces.*

"Jews aren't white" ≠ "no Jew is ever racist"

Any person of any group identity can be racist.

Carpenters, Africans, Hindus, Socialists, and left-handed AuDHD transfemmes - all can be bigots. No group identity is an innoculation against the holding racist ideas. No group identity is a Get Out of Jail Free card excusing the expression of racist ideas.

Only ideological extremists on either end of the horseshoe believe their group association comes with a halo.

Nobody's stated position is "racism doesn't exist in Jewish spaces. " Anon invented that strawman, then performatively slapped it around.

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I have listened to Mizrahim, Sephardim, Beta Israel, and Jews of many hues from all over the world who nobody would call "white." I believe them when they talk about incidents of colorism among Ashkenazim, and I'm grateful they point out when they are erased in the assumption that "Jewish" = "Ashkenaz."

That's not what Anon did here.

Anon just sloppily fashioned a strawman from a non-existant contradiction and threw it, without any support, as an accusation against a community of Jews.

To @jewish-hot-takes, who posted this Ask with no comment or pushback:

We're already overwhelmed by enormous amounts of spectacularly stupid antisemitism here. I'd be grateful if you implemented an editorial policy to prevent amplifying and validating even more of it. This isn't "edgy" or "controversial," it's just fucking trash written by a non-Jewish cosplayer - and you post a lot of this sort of trash.

You're not serving the Jewish community, you're hurting it by validating stupid, bigoted remarks about Jews and allowing those who share them to do so anonymously behind the shield of pretending to be Jews.

I implore you to reconsider your choices.

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