I'm taking bets: although the BBC suddenly feels it needs to have a more diverse reporting staff, one that understands the culture from which it is reporting, there will never be a Hebrew speaking Jew reporting from Israel for them.
Then again, it was once a British colony. Perhaps they feel that they are already all experts.
Added 8/13/06: What I don't get is why the left (the BBC in this case) sees everything only in terms of race. After all, you'd think that perhaps having someone who grew up rich report on inner city crime would miss the point just as much. Rich people are certainly asking the wrong questions there. Then there is language. Lord knows that someone who doesn't speak French reporting on France, in france, is really missing a lot.
And religion is also pretty relevant. Having interracted with many people who are not Jewish, I am certain that they generally don't get it. They miss the point, make the wrong assumptions, and are fairly insensitive to Jewish concerns. There is an assumption of this "Judeo-Christian" affinity, that is a misnomer. "Judeo-Christian" refers to the fact that two religions sort of share one book in their respective religious corpra. It does not mean that the religions have anything in common.
People (like the British) see Jews, and they see white people like themselves. The BBC then makes a rather racist assumption that racial affinity is good enough to allow for mutual cultural understanding. I'm white, the're white. Thus we are all the same. Bad argument. Real differences are not skin deep. They are linguistic, ideological, social, cultural, and poilitical. The BBC is making the wrong kind of assumption. It is racist. They are racist.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
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2 comments:
At least we are exporting something useful accross the pond. We know how great Affirmative Action works in the USA... I hope it works just as well for the BBC.
It is interesting to note that Hebrew is not listed as any of their languages (ironic since much of the news is out of Israel) and the most popular langauge is Persian... http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/languages/ ... go figure...
Yes, the British are just that, racist. They have been so for centuries.
I would also venture to say that the basic "if they look alike they must be alike" probably has some roots or another in Ancient Greece or something, similar to the whole "Beauty is Truth" strain that runs in Western culture, the assumption that people who are beautiful, rich, etc., must be better than others and deserve special treatent, etc.
However, Jews should speak up more and point out that yes they are different from other white people in public instead of essentially allowing the wider non-Jewish world to believe that they are white people like all others, but of a different religion. "Oh, Jews go to Church on Saturday" people say. I strongly suspect, however, that this would fly in the face of 200 years of Jewish attempts at assimilation and therefore would never happen, at least not anytime soon.
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