Ghetto Book Notes: How Jews Became White Folks by Karen Brodkin

See also:


• The NAACP and their Jewish Friends

How Jews Became White Folks--This book is a good account of Jewish-black relations in the USA. The basic argument is that Jews, as marginal white people, moved up the social economic ladder by standing on and walking over black Americans who were systematically denied access to US government-sponsored wealth creation schemes that were suddenly cast open to Jews. This allowed Jews to move into the ranks of the white middle class that was just beginning to burgeon. Black americans, on the other hand, were, as i call it, bottom stuck.

So how, you might ask, is this different from how other immigrant groups have benefitted from black American oppression? What is distinctive about the social history of Jewish American/African American relations is the high degree of social and political intimacy between Jews and Blacks in US history. 


For example, the NAACP was not a black organization. It did not have a black president until the 1970s. Prior to that time the NAACP was headed by Jews, the Spingarns. Joel Spingarn, former Jewish head of the NAACP, doubled as a spy for US Army intelligence--I believe he held the rank of Major. He spied on black people for white people. Can you imagine the Jewish Defense League (JDL) having an African American president? Can you imagine the JDL having an African American bending their policy toward black interests?

tags: jews, race, immigration