Thread by @Delafina777

Oh boy, let’s talk about some white supremacist assumptions about Jews that SOUND like they’re positive but actually, of course, are not:

The idea that Jews are genetically “smart” (or, more often, “cunning”).

https://twitter.com/DontTreadOnJew/status/1384197402693750784

I don’t really know the origins of this one, but I can tell you how it’s played out in the modern era.

So, the Victorians liked to divide humanity up into broad racial groups, which supposedly were “scientific” and were supposed to have various genetic attributes. (Phrenology was a big part of this.)

And that, of course, has carried over into today’s racisms.

So for white supremacists, for most of the 20th century, the world was supposed to be divided into superior white people and inferior non-white people.

But right away, they ran into some problems because all of these non-white cultures had accomplished stuff that white Europeans hadn’t. (It’s not a coincidence that this anxiety showed up around the same time as Europe was getting super into archaeology.)

And it got another boost of energy as the civil rights movement and other social change started to make white people have to grapple with the idea of treating people of color as equals.

So racists had a conceptual problem: if non-white people could match or exceed the achievements of white people, even when they didn’t have equal opportunity and potentially a lot more when they did, how could they be inherently inferior?

So rather than maybe re-examine their racism, they decided this had to be the work of a third group, bent on destroying western civilization by promoting non-white people beyond their “natural” place.

And guess who that was.

This idea of a shadowy third group beyond the binary of white/not-white tied very neatly into several other white supremacist fears, like the idea of blood pollution, and the fear of an Other that you can't identify visually.

That's always been a big part of the ways hatred of Jews get conceptualized--the fear that we're infiltrating, that we're sneaking in to spaces that are supposed to be racially "pure." You can't always tell by looks, by names, etc. whether someone is Jewish.

But in order to play that shadowy bogeyman in white supremacist fantasies, Jews couldn't be *as* inferior as non-white people, because we had to be running a sophisticated worldwide conspiracy to destroy western civilization by orchestrating a takeover by non-white people.

But of course Jews couldn't actually be the *equals* of Truly White People. So you get the idea that Jews are super-smart, but you usually hear it described as "low cunning," as opposed to true, noble, WASP intelligence.

See also, the stereotypes of Jews as good negotiators, good with money, scheming but effective Jewish lawyers, etc.

And in America, ironically, both the antisemitic idea of Jews as somehow orchestrating a non-white takeover, and the acceptance of Jews as white, have their roots in anti-Black racism.

Which is why I really wish Jewish communities would get our shit together on being antiracist

The truth of the matter, of course, is that the high representation of Jews among scientists, lawyers, doctors, and other professions we consider to be "smart people" isn't because of some genetic superior intelligence.

It's *cultural.*

Given that for thousands of years, Jewish communities had to deal with constantly being kicked out of their homes, having their property confiscated, etc.

European Jews tended to develop a preference for highly *portable* occupations.

They couldn't take what was in your head.

There's also always been a religiously grounded focus on literacy. It's a culture that prizes debate and study.

That aligns pretty nicely with a lot of professions today that require literacy and study.

It's not because of some genetic predisposition.

It's because of very old, very established cultural infrastructure that supports it.

And the depressing thing is I run into a lot of *Jews* who want to believe in Jewish genetic intelligence, and that drives me NUTS.

Genetics are something you have no control over.

Culture is. You can be proud of traditions, see value in them and *choose* to pass them on.

And the idea that Jews are genetically smart (or cunning) is yet another thing that literally gets us killed, because of that belief that we're orchestrating conspiracies.

The man who did the Tree of Life massacre believed that Jews were promoting a non-white takeover of America through HIAS, a Jewish org that helps refugees.

cnn.com/2018/10/29/us/…

It's not a compliment.

Also for the 900th time, anyone who thinks Jews are running some sort of sophisticated worldwide conspiracy should be forced to attend a temple board meeting.