W. W. P. G. D.?

So I'm sittin' in my office today, eatin' my chili & watchin' an A-Team episode as one does while eating lunch. It was the one where the coalition of bad guys hire an A-Team like group to destroy the A-Team. of course, systematically, Hannibal & the boys take them out & prevail. I was about 10 minutes into it when an old student stopped by to chat. We were talking about old TV shows since I was watching 1 & it turned out she was pretty fluent in classic TV & film. I was a bit surprised that I didn't know this already, but the conversation was going nicely. We started talking about newer shows like Pawn Stars & Storage Wars. I said that we'd been watching a lot of American pickers lately. She responded w/ "I don't like that show; they're always trying to Jew people."

Ummmmmm was about all I could get out. Who did she think she was? Professor Grif? I haven't heard someone use that phrase in almost 20 years. I have canned responses for "retarded" or "gay," but "Jewing poeple?" come on! it was a major teaching moment, but I failed. I wish I could say we had a long talk about the history of that idea, but we didn't. I reworded what she said, but didn't actually confront her about it. I replaced "Jew" w/ "screw," but I was shocked. The worst part is that it clearly didn't phase her at all. Who are these people who are teaching their kids that this is an acceptable way to go through life? On the other hand, when people start replacing these terms w/ coded euphemisms, it may be worse. At least when people are saying what they mean, we know who they are. On the other, other hand, I'm sure she didn't mean it the way it came across. That isn't to say that I can tolerate that kind of talk, but I can't single out one young woman for acting on an age-old stereotype.

It got me thinking about these racist terms & the reversal that is occurring. Saying that getting screwed over is equivalent to "getting Jewed" is a type of revisionist history. Who was it that spent the last 1,500 years getting screwed over in Europe? It's like the term "Indian Giver." Giving things & then taking them back is the way Native Americans give things? It's obviously the other way around. By constructing these terms, we enter into revisionist history as we convince ourselves that the way we've been treating people is actually the way we've been treated by those very people. That's not to say that those very people might not have been treating someone else like that, but in the end, it's just another way for white people to act like victims while rampaging across the globe. No wonder douchebags like Glenn Beck get so popular... they have revisionist historians, (presumably like this student's parents) as captive audiences who are already partaking in their little roll-reversal games. I bet Dwight Schultz would be happy w/ this situation, but H. M. Murdock would never have stood for it.