Saturday, October 2, 2010

Cuban-American journalist fired by CNN after ethnic clash with Jewish-American satirist

This is an interesting story, I understand, on the status and perceptions of both Hispanics (the largest US minority) and Jews (a very small but powerful minority) in US society. 

Rick Sánchez
The story, in short, is that CNN fired its token Hispanic news anchor, Rick Sánchez, for accusing a Comedy Central showman, Jon Stewart, of being a bigot, after this one mocked Sánchez repeatedly. When he was pointed that Stewart was also member of a minority as Jewish, Sánchez replied:
I'm telling you that everyone who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish, are an oppressed minority? I can't see someone not getting a job these days because they're Jewish.
They seem pretty much self-evident comments for me. When I am told that Jews are an oppressed minority, I try to figure out which country they may be talking about and I cannot find where that may be the case. 

Of course in the past they were oppressed intermittently, with the Nazi Holocaust being no doubt the macabre culmination of such prejudices. But today? In the USA or Europe or Latin America or even in Muslim countries like Morocco or Iran? Sorry but I do not see any single case of such oppression, at least it is not something apparent anywhere. 

Of course I am, in broad sense, Hispanic. I'd be surely described as such in the USA. And last time I was there, two decades ago, I did indeed move a lot and found hospitality among Hispanics. But not only, I was also fine with white people (some of them probably Jews) and I enjoyed a lot demonstrating and celebrating with Haitians and other black people in front of the UN building demanding the return of legitimate president Bertrand Aristide and restoration of democracy to the Caribbean nation.

What I mean is that "we Hispanics" do not see Jews in the USA (of all places) as an oppressed minority in any way. Surely Black people does not either, nor probably any other minority. They are more like Mormons or the like, a special white group but pretty much privileged, not oppressed at all. 

And Jewish social and political networks are definitively very powerful. It can well be argued that they are as powerful nowadays as WASPs, maybe even more. But when you make a criticism of WASPs as community you do not get the kind of reactions you get when you make a criticism of Jews, as community as well.

It's pretty annoying and clearly undeserved when that happens. 

Yes, for me Jews in the USA can only be compared today with WASPs. I totally agree with Sánchez that they cannot be easily described as an oppressed minority. Like WASPs, Jews come in all variants (I know first hand and I really appreciate Jews that are not your usual Zionist mafioso, specially because they seem to be quite rare - and rare is precious) and, sure, they have been oppressed in the past (when my elderly mother was not yet born), but that doesn't excuse blanking their community from all kind of criticism, often deserved.

Jon Stewart
For what I have been able to gather (see sources below), Stewart made fun often at his show of Sánchez' accent and "imperfect" English. So the accusations of bigotry seem pretty much well founded. 

And questioning that Jews are an oppressed minority in today's USA is totally in the line. However it is a taboo, not so much in US society at large, that it is too, but within the oligarchic circles who are largely Jewish (WASP and Jewish essentially). 

And these can get you fired, so you better not speak too loud about this issue, yes or yes?

In this sense Sánchez, foretellingly, said also of Stewart: He's not just a comedian... he can make and break careers.

Note: I am 99.9% sure that some moron will show up and comment accusing me of either generic racism, classical but wasted antisemitism or the more in term: Judeophobia. Don't bother: you are wrong, very wrong.

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