Yesterday Amy Walters of NPR did a story about two fashion moguls. She introduced them in this manner (boldface mine):
Let me start by introducing you to Dov Charney, founder and CEO of American Apparel…. Charney is 44, Canadian-American, and he has a reputation for near-naked models , harassment suits – sexual and otherwise – and some serious trouble with Immigration and Customs Enforcement that pushed him to lay off over a third of his staff…
Do Won Chang, founder and CEO of Forever 21, is Korean-American, 58 and devoutly Christian. Chang also has his share of legal trouble, though – years of worker disputes over labor conditions and charges of design theft.
If NPR is going to identify people by religion, then it ought to tell us that Charney is Jewish (indeed, Jewishness, including family connections to the Middle East and the Holocaust, are very important to him, per his autobio). A small oversight, but revealing, I think: Walters’s reticence on this point reflects an inhibition on the part of journalists to identify Jewish business/cultural figures as Jewish because doing so would reveal the extent of our inclusion. Back when we were outsiders, it was fine to describe people as Jewish because it was a wholly different kind of signifier.
“A small oversight, but revealilng, I think: Walters’s reticence on this point reflects an inhibition on the part of journalists to identify Jewish business/cultural figures as Jewish because doing so would reveal how included we are. Back when we were outsiders, it was fine to describe people as Jewish because it was a wholly different kind of signifier. “…Phil
I’m guessing that’s not really it……not showing how included Jews are….Jews are pretty much everywhere on NPR and featured all the time on NPR and everywhere in the media for that matter.
My guess would be it was just the way the script crumbled and not a deliberate omission of him being Jewish …or if Walters is a member or fan of the tribe she might have deliberately omitted it because Jewish and sexual harassment and etc isn’t exactly favorable PR for Jewish…you know– might incite a holocaust or something. lol
Although Dov I think is pretty much recongized as a common Jewish name isn’t it?
“[A]n inhibition on the part of journalists to identify Jewish business/cultural figures as Jewish” ? Well, perhaps, I’ll take your word for it. But THIS Jew is connected to 0– shocking — nakedness and harrassment suits, and we wouldn’t want to tell the NPR public that (euch!) Jews did such things.
OTOH, how exactly was “devoutly Christian” pertinent to the story? Run that by me again?
To be fair to the NPR piece, American Apparel doesn’t feature biblical verses printed on the plastic bags. Dov Charney may be Jewish and his religion might be important to him but he doesn’t bring his religion into his business the way Forever 21 does (also In and Out Burger has the bible verses as well)
funny that piece, which i heard in between jobs in the car. maybe a bit of anxiety also in there about the fading jewish superiority in matters financial. if i remember, the NPR story teller also made a point of comparing the relative success of the companies, mr. chang coming out on top by far.
similarly, an asian professor from NWUniversity was on the local NPR affiliate the other day being interviewed as part of an hour long program on allegations of prejudice against asian-americans in the college admissions process at the ivies. she referred to ‘the jews’ several times when comparing the jewish experience in the early 20th century to that of asian-americans in the late 20th, early 21st centuriesand although she did quantify the jewish bias in current admissions, she didn’t expressly attribute that bias to ‘kinship networks’ or whatever other euphemism weiss has for jewish prejudice. ironically the (asian) former admissions advisor who was defending the current system, which he acknowledged incorporates parents’ donor status, ‘legacies’, etc. was perfectly comfortable with the current de-emphasis of grades and admissions testing, while ignoring the fact that jewish critics of the earlier discimination argued precisely that the lack of emphasis on grades and WASPish inclusion of intangibles such as ‘leadership skills’ or even ‘manliness’ was an opaque, prejudicial formula meant to favor the peabodys and lowells of the world over the epsteins and weiss’s.
“If NPR is going to identify people by religion, then it ought to tell us that Charney is Jewish”
So telling that you would say this. Forever 21 prints John 3:16 on the bottom of every bag. It’s therefore relevant to mention his Christianity. The owner of American Apparel may be Jewish, but it has little to do with his business or his merchandising. Chang performs missionary work, gives a tremendous amount of money to churches through his foundation and cites the Bible as his book. He wears his religion on his sleeve, no pun intended.
Maybe you research things like this before you make some grand conjecture about how journalists are afraid to mention the Jewishness of business or cultural figures because it would “reveal the extent of our inclusion.”
As if it was a big secret to anyone that Jews are successful in American society.