Indeed, Jews take more sh**t than any religious group in the US.
Because that's obviously what I said in my post
Shockingly enough, it's actually possible for multiple minority groups in a country to face discrimination and have reason to be fearful of bigotry directed against them at the same time.
Of course, you have things like Cruz winning the Iowa Caucus in part due to his blatant Jew-baiting, Trump's campaign actively using anti-Semitic dog whistles (sometimes being almost embarassingly obvious about it), Steve Bannon – an anti-Semitic, racist fire-breather with close ties to the so-called alt-right (i.e. Nazis, white supremacists, etc who've tried to "re-brand" themselves; it's not too different from when some internet-troll misogynists started calling themselves "men's rights activists"), Anti-Semitism is very much on the rise in Europe (of course, they've always had major problems with that), and the Anti-Semitic elements of the American right are steadily gaining power in the Republican Party. On top of that, you have the DNC quite possibly being on the verge of selecting a soft-Anti-Semite as chairman.
That said, let's remove politics from the equation for a moment. The South has a pretty long history of Anti-Semitism as do a number of other parts of the country, but I'm not from the South; I'm from the Midwest. I'll speak from my own experience growing up in a fairly affluent suburb of Columbus. I encountered quite a bit of anti-Semitism starting around middle school (I went to a public school for middle school). I distinctly remember one girl in my seventh grade math class telling me that my parents should've been "gassed by Hitler." One kid – who in fairness, was a complete idiot and came from a rough home situation, IIRC his Dad was in jail for selling cocaine and he was living with his grandmother as a result – once got caught rummaging through my locker b/c (I sh!t you not) he was convinced that all Jews carry money with them everywhere and that I'd hidden mine in my locker because...well...to this day, I'm not really sure what his thought process was there.
I also (as I mentioned on the forum once a while back) got in a fight (well...not much of a fight since he went down pretty quick
) with a kid because he wouldn't stop calling me a "kike" for like a week. One kid whose locker was next to mine until the school moved him (or maybe he got expelled, I forget; either way I never saw him again after I told the Principal about what he said) – and was pretty big for his age even accounting for the fact he'd been held back a year – threatened to stab me to death for being "a Christ-killer" (I got called that quite often in middle school). Incidentally, someone had already tried to stab me in the neck with a pair of scissors in elementary school, but that kid had mental problems and I'm pretty sure the incident was unrelated to my religious beliefs
In high school (my parents moved me to a private school, thank God), I encountered quite a bit of soft anti-Semitism and every once in a while some idiot would use a term like "the Jewish race," "you people," etc when talking to me, but even that kinda stopped after my freshman year of high school. In college, I'd sometimes hear people express views that may've been tinged with anti-Semitism, but that wasn't too common. Honestly, the only think that happened often in college – which was really just mildly annoying since the people who did it probably didn't know any better – was that people would sometimes ask after learning I was Jewish "Do you speak Jewish?"
Anyway, it is quite possible – maybe even probable – that my encounters with anti-Semitism in middle school were unusual in both their frequency and intensity for a Jewish-American attending a midwestern public school. Even if that is the case, however, hopefully you can at least understand why those experiences would 1) lead me to have a pretty strong reaction to things like the alleged incident (which thankfully turned out not to have actually occurred this time), 2) have quite a bit of contempt for people like EnglishPete who blithely dismiss Jewish fears about anti-Semitism in the U.S. as essentially a bunch of whining, and 3) tend to feel pretty damn uneasy when anti-Semites like Steve Bannon are put in positions of real power in my country.
I highly doubt Jews would be first on the chopping block if things took a turn in that direction (not that I think they will), but as someone who encountered quite a bit of anti-Semitism growing up, I do tend to worry that there is quite a bit of hard anti-Semitism floating around just beneath the surface because that was my experience growing up. Maybe if I went to another school for middle school, I'd feel differently, but the way we perceive the world is often heavily shaped by our own experiences. Mine was that there are some pretty anti-Semitic folks floating around and that some of them may well have simply learned that it's not socially acceptable to be blatantly anti-Semitic. But what happens if Bannon, Trump, etc create an environment where such people feel it is socially acceptable? That's what worries me.
Indeed, Jews take more sh**t than any religious group in the US.
Speaking as a Jew, I would say that Muslims have it far worse.
Obviously, but again it's not like both groups can't face discrimination at the same time. I'm really not sure how Dead0man's post had anything to do with what anyone else had been saying, tbh.
