NYT today has an article saying that ethnic solidarity across nations is problematic. The piece is about Ireland’s support for the Breezy Point neighborhood of Queens, which is heavily Irish-American and was socked by Sandy. But that’s not altogether a good thing:
But complicating the current embrace from abroad is the gated community’s extreme insularity. Breezy Point is the whitest neighborhood in the city, a demographic makeup that critics say illustrates the enclave’s entrenched xenophobia, a dark flip side, perhaps, to all that ethnic pride. The consul general of Ireland, Noel Kilkenny, said he and others had made special efforts to avoid the impression of “the Irish looking after their own.”..
[Breezy Point’s] ethnic and racial makeup has also been a source of controversy. It was once called an “an apartheid village” by the Rev. Al Sharpton during a protest. Steve Greenberg, the former chairman of the Breezy Point cooperative’s board, said that to his knowledge, no black family had ever held a share in the private community.
The author of the piece is Sarah Maslin Nir. She surely knows about the problems of ethnic solidarity. Her father went from being an Israeli to being American. As we reported a couple years ago:
Nir’s father Yehuda served in the Israeli Defense Forces in 1948 and after moving on to the U.S., sought to rejoin the Israeli army in ’67 and ’73. “I had to fight our enemies and rejoin the Israeli army,” he writes of the second war in his autobiography. Huh; I wonder how Sarah Maslin Nir feels about Israel…
I bet Sarah Maslin Nir knows a lot about the xenophobia of ethnic pride, the racism inherent in trans-national ethnic claims. Maybe one day she’ll write about the American Jewish relationship to Israel.
Fantastic!
Who knew the Irish were a tribe.
Since we are now a nation of tribes I think I’ll join the Irish one, they have the best whiskey.
Oh, Phil! The (foolish) desire for consistency (from the NYT in particular) is the hobgoblin of small minds.
The NYT, of course, has higher adn better things to do than being consistent. It has the duty to protect “my mother, drunk or sober, my country, right or wrong.”
No, sorry, you guessed wrong, didn’t you? “My country” is not the USA (bless her twisted governance), but little, beleaguered Israel (which live in a a dangerous neighborhood — true — the most dangerous element of which is — ta da! — Israel).
Exactly my thoughts.
I was thinking even before I clicked the link; “Oh, I know what kind of ethnocentrism is bad. European gentile ethnocentrism. Actually I think European gentile ethnocentrism is bad too. But the difference is that I think that all kinds of ethnocentrisms are bad”.
I opened the piece and voilá. I also chuckled to myself while thinking, would the NYT run a piece on the problematic nature of Jewish ethnocentrism? No, it celebrates it.
There’s still an inconsistency among liberals. But I’m an optimist. I think in due time, these kinks will be ironed out. But they won’t until someone broaches the topic, and I think we’ll all know what kinds of excuses we will hear why their ethnocentrism is problematic, but not ours, you see.
Well, go ask any Palestinian about that. You might get another answer. Oh, I forgot. They aren’t allowed into the debate, even by the ‘liberal’ J Street. Wrong bloodline.
This is our intellectual culture.
Open, shameless, lying.
The NYT, with an Israeli author whose father was a soldier in the 48′ war and eager to fight again and again, talks about Irish identity politics and Irish people doing whats best for Irish people.
Yet, the NYT won’t dare say the same, in the same investigative tone, for Jews and Jewish identity politics/Israel Firsters/tribal politics.
Tribalism for me but not for thee, I suppose, is the attitude.
How about no one be tribal? Even of the inner-circles-of-caring model in which one doesn’t actually hateothers . . . one just loves one’s own ethnicity a wee little bit more.