How Jews Became White Folks

Karen Brodkin is the author of How Jews Became White Folks. She writes from a different point of view which is very confusing. She tries to portray that Jews “became” white through a series of events.

Karen says how anti-Semitism was at the peak when her parents were growing up and that they got through this tough struggle by “pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps.” Karen goes on later to describe that there were many Europeans already in America but the ones who came after 1880 came in too big of a group and drew a focus to themselves in a negative way. The real Americans started to close the immigrations doors on anyone who was not of Northern European decent. Since Karen’s parents came to America after this time they had to struggle for work, jobs, education, and for the “right” to be an American/white. Since, they made it through this hardship of discrimination not in a black racist way, but a less harsh down-graded white version than they were successful. She states that Whites discriminated against the Jews in a less demeaning fashion, but still it happened for reasons she described that were ended by affirmative actions programs. These programs brought about a new view to American society. A view that all European decent people whether they were Jewish, Italian, or whatever were more “white” and helpful middle-class workers, than African Americans, Native Americans, or Asians.

Was there an extreme segregation of Whites versus Jews? When people think of segregations they think of black and white; they don’t think about whites and Jews. Maybe some Americans said some hateful things or fought occasionally with Jewish people. Those small instances compare nothing to the pure hatred the Whites had towards blacks. There are many more instances where blacks were beaten and treated unfairly because of their skin color than Jews. Jews don’t really have a skin tone difference.

What I got through the reading she says that the Jews were seen as White before they were discriminated against. So, the riots that occurred because a Jew went were he wasn’t supposed to or sat where he wasn’t suppose to almost has no relevance when we are talking about segregation in history. Jews can’t become “White” if they already were seen as that. They can be viewed as different maybe because of their heritage or accent, but not because of their skin color. That’s why I think this article is coming at this situation all wrong.