A Little More On Expectations

Gawker on the Blumenthal video:

Blumenthal, an American documentary film director and writer, is certainly right, the video is shocking, but not so much for what is said, though it's all definitely quite jarring to hear, but more for who is saying it. You just don't expect (At least we don't!) young, educated Israelis and American Jews to be saying things on camera like "white power, fuck the niggers" and "anyone who wants to take away my gun rights is an asshole and deserves to get shot" and "he's a Muslim for sure, he's like a terrorist." You'd expect them to be a bit more enlightened, but we suppose that this certainly proves that ignorance truly knows no borders, for what follows in this probably worse than any of the Youtube videos of red state right-wingers spouting ignorance to emerge during the election last year or after any of the recent tax day tea parties held around the country.

I think believing that white bigotry is generally confined to undereducated enclaves of Kentucky and Mississippi is a luxury, which most black people can ill-afford. It's the kind of perspective that, (as my mother would say) will lead you to getting your feelings hurt. Among other things.

It's true that you may expect certain classes of people to be less direct, but you don't have to say "nigger" to make a man feel like one. You don't have to say "white power" to exercise it. We don't need videos to tell us this. It's all out there.