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The Wages of Separatism
| Article
# : |
19886 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1992 |
4,313 Words |
| Author
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Charles Sykes
Charles Sykes' latest book, A Nation of Victims, will be
published in September by St. Martin's Press. He is the
author of Profscam: Professors and the Demise of Higher
Education and The Hollow Men: Politics and Corruption in
Higher Education. |
A cartoon published after an outbreak of Jewish-black violence in New York reflects the politics of what Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., calls the "the fragmentation, resegregation, and tribalization of American life." A black man and a Hasidic Jew are shown walking a long-side one another. Their dialogue begins by revealing how each is a mirror image of the other. The Jewish man says: "I am a minority in this neighborhood."
Responds the black man: "I am a minority in this neighborhood. And I am a Victim."
"I am a Victim," echoes the Jewish man, "...and because of my religion I am viewed differently."
"Because of my race," answers the black man, "I am viewed differently…." But then he continues: "And you don't know what it's like to be me."
Answers the Jewish man: "You don't know what it's like to be me…. So you have nothing in common with me."
"And you have nothing in common with me," responds the black, "which is why I have you."
"And," the Jew retorts, "I hate you."
The poignancy of the cartoon derives from the recognition that their shared experience as outsiders should be a basis for making common cause; instead, it becomes the source of their shared isolation. Their insistence on the irreducible quality of their victimhood becomes the denial of mutual interests, and ultimately, of a shared humanity.
In August 1991, a car driven by a Hasidic man killed a black child and seriously injured another in New York's Crown Heights neighborhood. Within hours, a group of black teenagers stabbed a young Hasidic student to death in retaliation. Remarked the New York Times: "For both groups, the circumstances surrounding the accident became a metaphor for victimization."
Although they shared the same Brooklyn streets, the same challenges of urban life, the similar barriers to full participation in society, the Jews and blacks alike found themselves locked into a confrontation of mutual distrust, misunderstanding, and hatred. Unconscious of the historical tragedy they were reliving, black youths reportedly shouted "Heil Hitler" at Jews, who saw the
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