antw. The Jewish "Nigger"

[lorentzen-nicklaus]

Bandwraith at aol.com schrieb:

> Apparently Gershom's bondage is a property of his negritude, and not
> his judaism. Although there were blacks who owned slaves, and jews who
> owned slaves during this period of colonial america, I don't recall hearing
> about any blacks who owned jews.

> Gershom is certainly given "the run of the house" by pynchon's parody
> of GW, which begs the question: is the fictional character "Gershom" given 
> more
> freedom than might be expected, i.e., given deferential treatment, because
> of his jewishness? Does Gershom's secular jewishness, and the way he expresses
> it, somehow have an effect on Washington that wins for gersh special 
> treatment?

> Or does Pynchon have something else in mind by making Gershom a jew?


 if g&w do really allegorically represent the dialectics of master & slave in 
 the hegelian sense, pynchon - by making gershom a jew - perhaps wants to hint 
 at the enormous polycultural possibilities ("without elect, without preterite, 
 without even nationality to fuck it up...." gr:556) an ANARCHICAL american   
 revolution might offer ... in this context the close black-jewish     
 cooperation around the middle of the last century, which cornel west's essay   
 "on black-jewish relations" [1993] calls "inspiring" and "a major pillar of   
 american progressive politics", may be something pynchon had in mind, too.

 "black anti-semitism and jewish antiblack racism are real, and both are as 
 profoundly american as cherry pie. there was no golden age in which blacks and 
 jews were free of tension and friction. yet there was a better age when the 
 common histories of oppression and degradation of both groups served as a 
 springboard for genuine empathy and principled alliances. since the late 
 sixties, black-jewish relations have reached a nadir. (...)

 ["jesse, you say 'common ground', does this include the p.l.o?" sang lou reed 
 in "good evening, mr. waldheim" in 1989 ... kfl]

 the period of genuine empathy and principled alliances between jews and blacks 
 (1910-67) constitutes a major pillar of american progressive politics in this 
 century. these supportive links begin with w.e.d. dubois's 'the crisis' and 
 abraham cahan's 'jewish daily forward' and are seen clearly between jewish 
 leftists and a. philip randolph's numerous organizations, between elliot 
 cohen's 'commentary' and the early carreer of james baldwin, between prophets 
 like abraham joshua heschel and martin luther king, jr., or between the 
 disproportionately jewish students for a democratic society (sds)and the 
 student non-violent coordinating commitee (sncc). presently, this inspiring 
 period of black-jewish cooperation is often downplayed by blacks and 
 romanticized by jews. it is downplayed by blacks because they focus on the 
 astonishingly rapid entree of most jews into the middle and upper middle 
 classes during this brief period --- an entree that has spawned both and 
 intense conflict with the more slowly growing black middle class and a social 
 resentment from a quickly growing black impoverished class. jews, on the other 
 hand, tend to romanticize this period because their present status as upper 
 middle dogs and some top dogs in american society unsettles their historic 
 self-image as progressives with a compassion for the underdog."

   --- cornel west: race matters (vintage edition, pp. 104, 106f) --- 


kfl