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From: cja@lzwi.UUCP (C.E.JACKSON)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish,net.motss,net.politics
Subject: Re: Potential invisibility
Message-ID: <127@lzwi.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 6-May-85 20:17:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: lzwi.127
Posted: Mon May  6 20:17:40 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 8-May-85 01:59:44 EDT
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> This might explain why outsiders to these groups are reluctant to
> associate with them in support, lest they be mistakenly take as members
> of these groups, with all associated stigmata and opprobrium.  This is
> why it is not rare to read or hear such sentences as: ``as a Gentile, I
> think...'' in support of Jews.  

Yes & no. I agree that some number of people *do* feel
uncomfortable being thought a member of the group that they're
defending. On the other hand, there is another reason for
saying that you're a Gentile when you take a pro-Jewish
position--you could be wanting to remind your reader that you
are not acting in your immediate self-interest, but simply in
the cause of fairness/justice/disinterestedness. In a recent 
net.politics article, for instance, I said that people other
than Jews could be incensed by the president going to Bitburg;
I was.

> This may also explain the reluctance some of the members of these
> groups to react openly to discrimination against their own group: they
> can hope to be unnoticed, to blend in the background, and delude
> themselves that *they* won't be the target, for nobody will notice
> *them*.  As to the Blacks -- they don't have that choice.

That's also partially correct, but it doesn't explain say, a
Phyllis Schlafly. Some people will always want to be on the
side of the powerful.

> Another possible reason for the interest in S.A. may be some glamour
> attached to it.  Or rather, a tiredness with other less exciting but
> very hard problems.  

Maybe this is not quite fair to those protesting S.A. The USA does not 
invest in the Soviet Union nor does it have the same influence with the
Soviet Union that it does & has with S. A. People are reacting
to the idea that our government and society tacitly supports
apartheid. Our government, however, could NOT be accused of
tacitly supporting the Soviet Union. Ironically, the emigration of
Soviet Jews has dropped ever since our inveterate Commie-hater
of a president came into office.
But it's true that people are not willing to do very much
that's meaningful vis a vis many issues, including apartheid.
For instance, the DeBeers company controls most of the diamond
market & has been in trouble recently because it has bought so
many diamonds that it cannot afford to keep the vast number
off the market. On the other hand, it doesn't want diamond
prices to sink, which is what would happen if it released much
of its stock. Instead, DeBeers has begun a series of diamond
ads designed to increase the demand--thus the diamonds for men
ads, the diamonds for turning sixteen ads, & the diamond
"eternity" rings [for when you decide you really do want to be
married to this person, after 10 years of marriage].
Are people willing to boycott diamonds? Are we willing to
dispense with the idea (which was also brought to you by the
folks at DeBeers) that diamonds are the only fit way to mark
an engagement? In the 19th century, if people had engagement
rings at all, they often had stones other than diamonds.
It was DeBeers that made the diamond engagement ring so
omnipresent.

>How many are concerned these days with the famine
> in Africa?  *That* problem won't be solved by rallies.

Nor by simply buying records, but it IS the proverbial quick
fix (at least for our consciences).

C. E. Jackson
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