The Latest (And Not So Greatest) On Bedford Avenue

You can be Jewish ethnically, without a belief in G-d. In fact Judaism doesn’t technically require a belief in G-d, but living by its laws. You aren’t condemned or exalted by whether you believe but by your good or evil deeds. Indeed the lines between defining race and ethnicity have blurred but the genetic diversity across peoples who are Jews is huge. You can be born into a Jewish family but there is no Jewish gene.

1:45- Considering that many Muslims live in the neighborhood, as well as Blacks and Jews, I hardly think you aroused as much interest as you think. And if making people uncomfortable is your goal in life, it isn’t much of one.In truth, the closest you’ve been to Crown Heights is NJ. Crossing Eastern Parkway still puts you in a mixed neighborhood, not an exclusively Jewish one. In fact many of my Black friends who live on the other side of EP would be quite offended to know they don’t live there.

That last building’s not so bad.

I found this in a PBS piece entitled “Race, the Power of Illusion”. Thought it added a different element to the discourse here:

While race and ethnicity share an ideology of common ancestry, they differ in several ways. First of all, race is primarily unitary. You can only have one race, while you can claim multiple ethnic affiliations. You can identify ethnically as Irish and Polish, but you have to be essentially either black or white. The fundamental difference is that race is socially imposed and hierarchical. There is an inequality built into the system. Furthermore, you have no control over your race; it’s how you’re perceived by others. For example, I have a friend who was born in Korea to Korean parents, but as an infant, she was adopted by an Italian family in Italy. Ethnically, she feels Italian: she eats Italian food, she speaks Italian, she knows Italian history and culture. She knows nothing about Korean history and culture. But when she comes to the United States, she’s treated racially as Asian.

I think most people associate race with biology and ethnicity with culture. It’s important to stress the culture and language part of it. Ethnicity isn’t just a question of affiliation; it’s also a question of choice. It’s also a question of group membership. And it’s usually associated with a geographic region. It’s also often confused or conflated with nationality, but that’s not the same thing. Today people identify with ethnicity positively because they see themselves as being part of that group. People can’t just simply say, “Well, I want to become a member of that race.” You either are or are not a member of that race. Whereas, if you wanted to look at ethnicity based on culture, you could learn a language, you can learn customs – there are things that you can learn so that you could belong to that group.

I think the most powerful argument about the differentiation between race and ethnicity is that race becomes institutionalized in a way that has profound social consequences on the members of different groups.

biff = micropenis