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Friday April 20, 2007

Imus: Same old anti-Semitism, repackaged

by james d. besser

Radio shock jock Don Imus didn’t get fired last week for saying crude things about Jews— this time it was black women.

Although Imus is known as an equal opportunity spewer, the affair casts a harsh spotlight on how a key goal of Jewish organizations that fight anti-Semitism is being undermined.

And the lack of response from Jewish groups to the Imus affair suggests something else: Jewish leaders, increasingly focused on a “new” anti-Semitism based on hatred of Israel, are turning inward and forgetting strategies that have worked over the decades.

For many years, a broad coalition of civil rights groups worked with remarkable success to banish overt expressions of bigotry from socially acceptable discourse. Bigotry still runs deep in American society, but these groups helped create new norms of conduct that started the more difficult process of changing attitudes.

A stellar cast of Jewish organizations were leaders in that effort because they believed anti-Semitism could be curbed only by fighting every last expression of bigotry and attempt to legitimize it.

Anti-Semitism was seen as a particularly pernicious symptom of a broader social affliction. Fighting anti-Semitism was not just about the Jews, Jewish “defense” agencies believed

But the gains achieved through those efforts are threatened by a media-driven culture that sees artfully packaged bigotry as a profitable commodity. More and more, it is becoming kosher to express the most explicit bigotry, as long as it’s framed as “entertainment” or talk-show “discourse.”

That’s the stock and trade of shock jocks like Imus, who was dismissed last week not because CBS was outraged by his bigoted statement about the Rutgers women’s basketball team but because nervous sponsors threatened to hurt its financial bottom line.

The legitimization of bigotry is particularly evident in public discourse over some of today’s hottest public policy issues.

Let’s start with the issue of gay marriage. Jewish religious groups, with different views of the morality of homosexuality, hardly speak with one voice on this complex issue.

But it’s hard to ignore that many advocates of the “family values” agenda are driven more by a fear and hatred of homosexuals than by concerns about the endangered American family — or that others, although not personally bigots, are perfectly willing to use, manipulate and fuel such hatred to boost their political and religious agendas.

This may be one hallmark of the new bigotry: the uniting of interests among traditional haters, modern ideologues determined to pursue their various causes and entertainers and hucksters getting rich off their tsunamis of bile.

Don’t believe it? Just pick a syndicated talk radio show at random and listen for a few minutes.

In the gay marriage debate, the hatred is cloaked in a veneer of piety rather than the combative language of the Ku Klux Klan — which may make it more insidious.

The same thing is happening on the question of illegal immigration.

Legitimate concerns about a dysfunctional immigration system have been exploited by those with a political agenda and without scruples and by foaming-at-the-mouth talk-show hosts who make an extravagant show of indignation, especially when the targets are mostly defenseless.

That, in turn, provides a new legitimacy for classic nativists and xenophobes whose views have been marginalized over the years but who now see their vicious stereotypes echoed by popular culture icons. Thus the proliferating Web sites and radio talkers who rant about illegal aliens as murderers, subversives and disease spreaders.

The growing legitimization of bigotry runs counter to a century of Jewish activism — but few Jewish groups have spoken out.

Only the Anti-Defamation League condemned Imus and drew connections to the broader problem of legitimized hate speech. Other outrages have generated comment from only a tiny handful of Jewish groups.

The traditional strategy of fighting anti-Semitism by fighting all forms of bigotry has been deemphasized by many Jewish leaders as the issue gets caught up in the politics of supporting Israel and concerns about a “new” anti-Semitism.

Today many leaders focus more on debating exactly when criticism of Israel becomes anti-Semitism, and chastising fellow Jews by accusing them of boosting this new variant of the old social virus of anti-Semitism.

To a degree, they’re right.

There is little question that some critics of Israel have resorted to classical anti-Semitic canards — or that old-fashioned anti-Semitic groups have tried to legitimize their hatred by wrapping it up in contrived sympathy of the Palestinians.

But many Jewish leaders now seem to regard anti-Semitism as unique and separate from other forms of bigotry.

In the age of Imus, this kind of shift — by a community that has been so critical in the fight against bigotry — could speed our national regression to a time when racism, xenophobia, homophobia and anti-Semitism were as American as apple pie.

James David Besser is a Washington correspondent for Jewish newspapers across the country.

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