From the blog Those Who Can See:
* We propose five categories of historical realtalk (some of which overlap in our quotes):
Banal my-group preference
The More Able remarking upon the Less Able
The Less Able remarking upon the More Able
Us remarking upon the otherness of Them
True bigotry
We focus on two out-groups with which ethnic Europeans have long been in contact: Sub-Saharan Africans and Jews.
I) They’re not us: In-group preference
‘Birds of a feather flock together.’ With the glaring exception of ethno-masochistic modern NW Euros, preferring to be with one’s own kind is the norm in all times and places. Even today, does anyone raise an eyebrow at Chinatown, Greektown, or Little Havana?
Harry Truman, while still a young man on the farm, often wrote letters to his sweetie. In one from 1911, he admits:
‘I think one man is just as good as another so long as he’s honest and decent and not a nigger or a Chinaman. Uncle Will says that the Lord made a white man from dust, a nigger from mud, then threw up what was left and it came down a Chinaman. He does hate Chinese and Japs. So do I. It is race prejudice I guess. But I am strongly of the opinion that negroes ought to be in Africa, yellow men in Asia, and white men in Europe and America.’
The evolution of this vignette is telling: It begins bigoted, with a slur against Blacks and Chinese; followed quickly by the avowal that this is lazy, ‘I-picked-it-up-from-my-uncle’ racism; then a more neutral ‘each to his own.’
Robert Schlesinger shares a tidbit about Dwight D. Eisenhower and his speechwriter:
During their summer 1956 [Civil Rights speech] drafting sessions, Eisenhower and Larson fought a tug-of-war about how to handle the issue of civil rights. … Ike explained that just as the Brown v. Board of Education case was based on the inner feelings of black children, so too must the inner feelings of southern whites also be considered. He wanted to make it clear that political and economic equality would not mean social equality—’or that a Negro should court my daughter.’
The idea that inter-racial romance just wasn’t done was common well into the civil rights era. No less than JFK held this view in private. From HBO’s Sinatra: All or Nothing At All documentary, quoting Nancy Sinatra:
‘The Kennedys had a very specific way of thinking and doing things. And at one point, dad’s friendship with Sammy Davis Jr., who was soon to marry May Britt, became a political rub for them. She was a beautiful white blonde actress and they didn’t like the idea of the inter-racial marriage. This is the Kennedys. You would have thought the reverse of them. Dad got a phone call and he was asked to dis-invite Sammy Davis to the inaugural gala. And he actually had to do it.’
A later anecdote about JFK from an interview with White House butler Gene Allen:
“In February 1963, Kennedy invited 800 blacks to the White House to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Louis Martin, a Democratic operative who helped plan the function, had placed the names of entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. and his wife, May Britt, on the guest list.
The White House scratched it off and Martin would put it back on. According to Martin, Kennedy was aghast when he saw the black and white couple stroll into the White House. His face reddened and he instructed photographers that no pictures of the interracial couple would be taken.”
Though it may ruffle our feathers today, we’d do well to remember that this type of in-group preference is hard-wired and universal–we (21st c. ethnic Anglo-Germanics) are the far-out oddities in this case, not any of the people cited above.
II) They’re Less Able than us
Ever since Herodotus traveled the known world scribbling down the habits of the diverse peoples he met, we’ve been hooked on difference. The Age of Discovery brought us into contact with peoples that to us (and we to them) may just as well have come from another planet.
If there is one thing discoverers of all races have agreed upon, it is the perplexingly low level of civilization attained by Sub-Saharan Africans.
Nevertheless, the ‘racist’ quotes so frequently dredged up by today’s Social Justice Warriors are often quite the opposite. While noting the low level of African progress, many learned men blamed the environment, and were hopeful that Blacks would soon break through and ‘join civilization’ as so many other groups had done.
The most learned men of their eras saw things this way. The 1911 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, for example, in its article on ‘The Negro,’ states:
‘Mentally the negro is inferior to the white. The remark of F. Manetta, made after a long study of the negro in America, may be taken as generally true of the whole race: “The negro children [in the South] were sharp, intelligent, and full of vivacity, but on approaching the adult period a gradual change set in. The intellect seems to become clouded…’
‘But though the mental inferiority of the negro to the white or yellow races is a fact, it has often been exaggerated; the negro is largely the creature of his environment, and it is not fair to judge of his mental capacity by tests taken directly from the environment of the white man, as for instance tests in mental arithmetic; skill in reckoning is necessary to the white race, and it has cultivated this faculty; but it is not necessary to the negro.’
The greatest scientific minds were in agreement. Legendary historian Arnold Toynbee in his 12-volume Study of History, analyzed every civilization then known to man, declaring:
‘It will be seen that when we classify mankind by color, the only one of the primary races, given by this classification, which has not made a creative contribution to any one of our twenty-one civilizations is the Black Race.’ (Vol. I)
Even so, it being 1934, Toynbee feels the need to follow this observation with several pages of apologetics for Africans, explaining that they’re bound to create modern civilizations any day now…
Kenyan archaeologist L.S.B. Leakey, mentor to legends Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey and coiner of the species homo habilis, wrote in 1963:
‘As a social anthropologist, I naturally accept and even stress the fact that there are major differences, both mental and psychological, which separate the different races of mankind. Indeed, I would be inclined to suggest that however great may be the physical differences between such races as the European and the Negro, the mental and psychological differences are greater still.’
Lewis Terman
Psychometric pioneer, president of the American Psychological Association and of the National Academy for Sciences Lewis Terman devoted his life to studying intelligence in children.
His innovative wide-scale IQ testing exposed him to diverse groups of test-takers. Administering the tests to Spanish-speakers and unschooled African-Americans from the Southwest, he concluded in 1916:
‘High-grade or border-line deficiency… is very, very common among Spanish-Indian and Mexican families of the Southwest and also among negroes. Their dullness seems to be racial, or at least inherent in the family stocks from which they come… Children of this group should be segregated into separate classes… They cannot master abstractions but they can often be made into efficient workers… ‘
James Watson
None of these men took any special joy in pointing out inferiority; they merely considered it part and parcel of their scientific work. Some ethnies could jump higher, live longer, were taller or shorter, and yes, exhibited higher or lower intelligence. Nobel winner James Watson, giant of 20th century genetics and co-discoverer of DNA’s double helix, did not seem to realize times had changed when he said in 2006,
‘[I’m] inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa’ because ‘all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really.’
Pointing out such banalities was a commonplace in all times before our own. Watson forgot it was 2006, though, and thus saw himself stripped of posts and privileges and labeled a pariah…
Jewish over-achievement, for example, has been complained about for centuries. They were reputed to be extremely energetic, enterprising, smart, organized, ruthless towards out-groups, and champs at ethnic networking (in many ways the opposite of the African.)
Because of these traits, and their diaspora status, comments on their seeming to ‘take over’ were common.
1) In finance and business
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Russian literary giant Dostoevsky, in Diary of a Writer, 1877:
‘. . . I know that in the whole world there is certainly no other people who would be complaining as much about their lot, incessantly, after each step and word of theirs — about their humiliation, their suffering, their martyrdom. One might think it is not they who are reigning in Europe, who are directing there at least the stock exchanges and, therefore, politics, domestic affairs, the morality of the states.’
Mark Twain
Beloved American satirist Mark Twain comments on same (1899):
‘The Jew is being legislated out of Russia. The reason is not concealed. The movement was instituted because the Christian peasant and villager stood no chance against his commercial abilities. He was always ready to lend money on a crop, and sell vodka and other necessaries of life on credit while the crop was growing. When settlement day came he owned the crop; and next year or year after he owned the farm, like Joseph.’
‘In the dull and ignorant England of John’s time everybody got into debt to the Jew. He gathered all lucrative enterprises into his hands; he was the king of commerce; he was ready to be helpful in all profitable ways; he even financed crusades for the rescue of the Sepulchre. To wipe out his account with the nation and restore business to its natural and incompetent channels he had to be banished from the realm.’
George Sand
French novelist George Sand, in an 1857 letter to her friend the journalist Victor Borie:
‘I saw in “the wandering Jew” the personification of the Jewish people, exiled in the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, they are once again extremely rich, owing to their unfailing rude greediness and their indefatigable activity. … they are at the point of making themselves kings of the world. This people can thank its obstinacy that France will be Judaized within fifty years. Already some wise Jews prophesy this frankly.’
Ulysses S. Grant
Union general Ulysses S. Grant, vexed by their commercial prowess, tried to ban them from Civil War army camps in the South. While in Oxford, Mississippi, with the 13th Army Corps in 1862:
‘I have long since believed that in spite of all the vigilance that can be infused into post commanders, the special regulations of the Treasury Department have been violated, and that mostly by Jews and other unprincipled traders. So well satisfied have I been of this that I instructed the commanding officers at Columbus to refuse all permits to Jews to come South, and I have frequently had them expelled from the department, but they come in with their carpet-sacks in spite of all that can be done to prevent it.’
‘The Jews seem to be a privileged class that can travel anywhere. They will land at any woodyard on the river and make their way through the country. If not permitted to buy cotton themselves, they will act as agents for someone else, who will be at military post with a Treasury permit to receive cotton and pay for it in Treasury notes which the Jew will buy up at an agreed rate, paying gold.’
Legendary poet Ezra Pound made radio broadcasts from Italy during WWII, pointing out Jewish financial power. Like Charles Lindergh, he wanted the U.S. to stay out of the war:
‘I do not want my compatriots from the ages of 20 to 40 to go get slaughtered to keep up the [Jewish magnate] Sassoon and other British Jew rackets in Singapore and in Shanghai. That is not my idea of American patriotism.’
He spoke directly to the British, telling them Jews’ financial acumen was hurting them:
‘You let in the Jew and the Jew rotted your empire, … you stand for nothing but usury. And above metal usury; you have built up bank usury, 60% against 30 and 40%, and by that you will not be saved. … You have for years had cheap goods DUMPED in from Russia. … Your Jews have ruined your home manufactures.’
‘Loans from the city of London, loans to the Orient, interest paid in cheap cotton goods, loans to the South American countries, interest paid in beef from the Argentine, and ruin of English grazing. … there is only one start you can make. And that is a start toward being England. A refusal to be a province of Israel, or an outpost of Yankee-Judaea.’
2) In culture
Charles Lindbergh
Iconic pilot Charles Lindbergh in his famous 1941 Des Moines speech urging the U.S. to stay out of the war, said
‘The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration. … Their greatest danger to this country lies in [Jews’] large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.’
Upton Sinclair
Hollywood was widely seen as Jewish-controlled. Socialist novelist Upton Sinclair:
‘In olden times,’ Upton Sinclair once remarked, ‘Jewish traders sold Christian girls into concubinage and into prostitution, and even today they display the same activity in the same field in southern California where I live.’ Or as F. Scott Fitzgerald summed up the Hollywood scene of his era — ‘a Jewish holiday, a Gentile tragedy’.
Truman Capote
Their power was felt in the literary world as well. Novelist Truman Capote, in a 1968 Playboy interview:
‘Well, it has brought about the rise of what I call the Jewish Mafia in American letters. This is a clique of New York-oriented writers and critics who control much of the literary scene through the influence of the quarterlies and intellectual magazines.’
‘Bernard Malamud and Saul Bellow and Philip Roth and Isaac Bashevis Singer and Norman Mailer are all fine writers, but they’re not the only writers in the country, as the Jewish literary Mafia would have us believe.
‘I could give you a list of excellent writers, such as John Knowles and Vance Bourjaily and James Purdy and Donald Windham and Reynolds Price and James Leo Herlihy and Calder Willingham and John Hawkes and William Goyen; the odds are you haven’t heard of most of them, for the simple reason that the Jewish Mafia has systematically frozen them out of the literary scene.’
3) In political movements
Winston Churchill
The Bolshevik movement was widely seen as being fomented by powerful Jews. Winston Churchill, in a 1920 editorial, Zionism versus Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People:
‘There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creating of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistic Jews. It is certainly the very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews.
‘Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders . . . In the Soviet institutions the predominance of Jews is even more astounding. And the prominent if not the principal part in the system of terrorism applied by the extraordinary Commissions for combating Counter Revolution has been take by Jews, and in some notable cases by Jewesses.’
Kaiser Wilhelm
Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm, in a 1922 editorial in the Chicago Tribune, shared the same view:
‘A Jew cannot be a true patriot. He is something different, like a bad insect. He must be kept apart, out of a place where he can do mischief – even by pogroms, if necessary. The Jews are responsible for Bolshevism in Russia, and Germany too. I was far too indulgent with them during my reign, and I bitterly regret the favors I showed the prominent Jewish bankers.’
Just as with the Chinese in Malaysia or the Indians in Uganda, an over-performing out-group will not go unnoticed– or un-criticized. There may be a bit of envy or resentment in the above remarks, but we still do not qualify them as bigotry…
Complaints about Jews’ refusal to assimilate were common among leaders.
Richard Nixon
Nixon, quoted earlier, said this in a 1973 phone call with Henry Kissinger on an upcoming US-Soviet summit:
‘Let me say, Henry, it’s gonna be the worst thing that happened to Jews in American history,’ Nixon said. ‘If they torpedo this summit — and it might go down for other reasons — I’m gonna put the blame on them, and I’m going to do it publicly at 9 o’clock at night before 80 million people,’ he vowed. ‘I won’t mind one goddamn but to have a little anti-Semitism if it’s on that issue,’ adding: ‘They put the Jewish interest above America’s interest and it’s about goddamn time that the Jew in America realizes he’s an American first and a Jew second.’
..Truman too resented them pushing their own group interests. Henry Wallace, Sec. of Commerce, in his memoirs on 1946 negotiations over the new Jewish state:
Truman was ‘exasperated’ over Jewish pressure that he support Zionist rule over Palestine. Wallace added ‘Pres. Truman expressed himself as being very much ‘put out’ with the Jews. He said that ‘Jesus Christ couldn’t please them when he was here on Earth, so how could anyone expect that I would have any luck?’ Pres. Truman said he had no use for them and didn’t care what happened to them.
H.G. Wells
Author H.G. Wells pointed out the same:
‘Zionism is an expression of Jewish refusal to assimilate. If the Jews have suffered, it is because they have regarded themselves as a chosen people.’
‘A careful study of anti-Semitism prejudice and accusations might be of great value to many Jews, who do not adequately realize the irritations they inflict.’
Roald Dahl
Beloved writer Roald Dahl (of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fame) said in a New Statesman interview:
‘There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean, there’s always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.’
3) Dishonesty with Out-groups
Jews have long been criticized for their perceived dishonesty towards out-groups.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Dostoevsky, cited above in Diary of a Writer (1877), also says:
‘And, in truth, the whole activity of the Jews in these border regions of ours consisted of rendering the native population as much as possible inescapably dependent on them, taking advantage of the local laws. ….
‘In this respect the Jew preserves all his originality as compared with other Russian aliens, and of course, the reason therefore is that status of his, that spirit of which specifically breathes pitilessness for everything that is not Jew, with disrespect for any people and tribe, for every human creature who is not a Jew.’
Mark Twain
Twain, whom we cited earlier, mounted a spirited defense of the Jew as a fine upstanding citizen and good businessman, yet still conceded that:
‘He has a reputation for various small forms of cheating, and for practising oppressive usury, and for burning himself out to get the insurance, and for arranging cunning contracts which leave him an exit but lock the other man in, and for smart evasions which find him safe and comfortable just within the strict letter of the law, when court and jury know very well that he has violated the spirit of it.’
Napoleon
No less than Napoleon accused them of exploiting outsiders. From an 1806 speech before the Council of State:
‘The Jews have practiced usury since the time of Moses, and oppressed the other peoples. Meanwhile, the Christians were only rarely usurers, falling into disgrace when they did so. We ought to ban the Jews from commerce because they abuse it . . . The evils of the Jews do not stem from individuals but from the fundamental nature of this people.’
Emmanuel Kant
Philosopher Emmanuel Kant, from an anthropology lecture he gave throughout the latter 1700s:
The Palestinians [Jews] living among us have, for the most part, earned a not unfounded reputation for being cheaters, because of their spirit of usury since their exile. Certainly, it seems strange to conceive of a nation of cheaters; but it is just as odd to think of a nation of merchants, the great majority of whom, bound by an ancient superstition that is recognized by the State they live in, seek no civil dignity and try to make up for this loss by the advantage of duping the people among whom they find refuge, and even one another.
Voltaire
French Enlightenment hero Voltaire made similar observations, worded somewhat more harshly:
‘We find in them only an ignorant and barbarous people, who have long united the most sordid avarice with the most detestable superstition and the most invincible hatred for every people by whom they are tolerated and enriched.’
4) Lacking Character
Outside observers often felt Jews showed a lack of character.
H.L. Mencken
Writer H.L. Mencken found them vain and cowardly:
‘The Jews could be put down very plausibly as the most unpleasant race ever heard of. As commonly encountered they lack any of the qualities that mark the civilized man: courage, dignity, incorruptibility, ease, confidence. They have vanity without pride, voluptuousness without taste, and learning without wisdom. Their fortitude, such as it is, is wasted upon puerile objects, and their charity is mainly a form of display.’
T.S. Eliot
Poet T.S. Eliot, in a 1925 personal letter, found them envious:
‘I am always inclined to suspect the racial envy and jealousy which makes that people [Jews] inclined to bolshevism in some form (not always political).’ Later, in a 1933 lecture, he talked about the importance of ‘unity of religious background…. Reasons of race and religion combine to make any large number of free-thinking Jews undesirable.’
Karl Marx
Karl Marx, himself of Jewish descent, accused his own group of being money-hungry:
‘What is the object of the Jew’s worship in this world? Usury. What is his worldly god? Money. . . . What is the foundation of the Jew in this world? Practical necessity, private advantage. . . . The bill of exchange is the Jew’s real God. His God is the illusory bill of exchange.’
Auguste Renoir
Auguste Renoir, in an 1898 conversation with Manet’s daughter Julie, described them as cowardly and money-hungry:
‘[The Jews] come to France to earn money, but if there is any fighting to be done they hide behind a tree… There are a lot of them in the army, because the Jew likes to walk about wearing a uniform.’ During the same discussion, Julie notes that Renoir also ‘let fly on the subject of Pissarro, ‘a Jew’, ‘whose sons are natives of no country and who do their military service nowhere.’
Differences in character– in future orientation, in out-group attitude, in patriotism– tend to kill multiculturalist dreams in the egg. Ethnic groups with vastly different characters simply do not live comfortably side-by-side. Our forebears, we now see, were not so squeamish about these prickly truths as we are.
