I have been thinking about prejudice today.
I was talking with a co-worker today about why everytime someone speaks out against Isreal they get labelled an anti-Semitic. I posed this question in response to the news frenzy around the Anti-Racism Summit and the response to the President of Iran’s speech.
My co-worker laughed and said, “Ya but Ahmadinejad is definitely an anti-Semite.” It occurred to me that the Jewish faith puts people in a sort of racist limbo. I mean, really if you hate Jews are you being racist? What if you hate Christians? Neither is really a race, right? It’s faith so perhaps you are being a faithist.
But, you can’t talk about the Jews without thinking of the Jewish stereo types because it is more than just a religion, it is also more than just a race of people. And so the state of Isreal is forever intertwined with the Jewish faith. It is one of the defining characteristics of the country. And therefore it is hard to talk about one without it impacting or reflecting on the other.
Gays however are not so lucky. We don’t get our own country. If we could I would vote for Turkey. It has the warm Mediterranean in the South, the brooding Black Sea in the North. It has a little bit of Asia, and a little bit of Europe. It’s got a little bit of the old mixed in with the new. And it has this: http://www.turkishwrestling.com/ Large, greased up men rolling around together. Which brings a whole new meaning to the term “Bear Wrestling”
What got me on this whole prejudice thought-stream is this:
Which is absolute shit and some of the most bigotted crap I have ever seen. It has however developed a positive side, the spin-off ads. Here are some great responses:
Stephen Colbert weighs in:
All in all pretty hilarious.
Sidenote: It occured to me later one thing that may muddle the whole race/religion thing. Christians and Muslim proselytize, Jews don’t. If you’re not born into the faith, they actually discourage joining. I know this because my friend wanted to marry an Orthodox Jew and she had to go through classes etc.