Brodkin post

Ricky Woodie
Ethics
Brodkin post
22 October 2007


Post

In the article “How Jews Became White” Brodkin’s thesis is that Jews and other races are viewed inferior until American “whitened” them. The article says that America was racist to a lot of races, but after Word War II that changed and a majority of them were viewed as middle class citizens. He says that Word War II brought about the biggest affirmative action program. He then goes on to talk about how inferior and superior groups form Europe, began with the Irish. They said that real whites came from Northwest Europe. This brought about the closing of immigration door to other races. In schools Jews according to Brodkin, had the best education, so this led to them facing racism. He talks about how his father wanted to become a teacher, and almost could not teach because he did not speak proper English. He said speech tests were given to keep ethnics out of teaching. The author then goes on to talk about the GI Bill, saying it was affirmative action because it mostly helped certain Europeans, but didn’t help Blacks or women. Blacks could not get employed as much or could not get into white schools. Neighborhoods were racially segregated as well.
The question here is, are only certain Europeans classed as white? The author uses evidence to back this up, but he also seems to use a lot of opinions that do not really prove his case. For instance he says that Jews are the smartest hardworking people. This could be true, but that is not a fact. He does use some facts when he talks about the percents of Jews with college education and when he mentions the GI bill.
In my opinion, I do agree with the author that only some races from Europe were classed as whites, and that other races, such as the Jews and the blacks were treated unfairly. It is said that people are viewed differently, when were are all the same, but the past put us in this situation, and will are still trying to fix it today.