Friday, November 18, 2005

Semitic Race Slurs

Part IV of my continuing series on Anti-Semitism: What follows is a listing of racial slurs used against Jewish people by English speakers. This list is a combination of three racial slur databases available on the web.

It must be stated that our worst, nastiest and cruelest slurs have been reserved for the blacks, probably because they were created when blacks had no political, economic or social power to fight them. Comparatively, most of these are pretty tame, some are wierd, but some are just horrid.

Many of the slurs on the lists are rude ways of describing appearance:
Big Nose, hook-nose, Nickle-nose, Six-nose, Snazzo, Mosquito and Toucan Sam for large noses.

Beanie, Cap-head and Yid-Lid for wearing Yarmulkes.

Wierd Beard, Curl Merchant, Frummer (from Yidd. Frum "devout) and Kosher Clansmen for Hasidic Jews. Curlie can refer to Hasidic Jews or the fact that Curley Howard of the 3 Stooges was Jewish.

Koshie, Matzoh Gobbler, Porky and Bagel Dog to refer to dietary restrictions.

Jewbacca, from Chewbacca for a Jew with lots of hair.

Half-dick, Clip-tip, Snip-Cock (Henry Ford's favorite) and 10% off, refer to circumcision.

Other slams show up the stereotypes we have for Jewish people:
Slot Machine, Yiddiot, Penny Pincher, Jewpidity, Palm Beacher or Snowbirds (now used for any retiree who goes south for the winter) and "famous" jews: Seinfeld, Goldberg, Shylock, Hannah, Horvitz, Burger (from names ending Berg). Benny (from Benjamin or Jack Benny), Stein and Lewinsky. Hymie from the name Chaim was used by Jesse Jackson. He called New York Hymie-town.

One of the really wierd ones is Gargamel, from the Smurfs cartoon show, intended to show greed and bad disposition I guess.

Some are just not-so-flattering terms: Jewess, Jewlet and J.A.P. for a spoiled teenage girl or young woman, jewblings for jewish children, Hebe and Brew for Hebrew, Crikey which is derived from Christ Killer, Zionazis, for the Israeli treatment of Palestinians, Jew jew Bee, from the candy, Ickey-Mo from Isaac-Moses.

Kike, which will get you punched out, is surprisingly benign in meaning. Its from the yiddish work Keikl meaning "Circle". The story is that illiterate Jewish immigrants would sign their name with a circle instead of the "X".

Another wierd one is "Interesting" a sort of short-hand used by upper class WASP women when discussing men "oh my god, he is soo gorgeous. Go over there and talk to him." "I don't know . . he looks . . Interesting". To the other extreme Matzo-Baller is a non-Jewish person who preferrs Jewish sex partners.

Mixes of Jewish with other people produce such gems as Chashew(Jew/Catholic), Hebro or Jewgaboo(Jew/Black or Jew who acts black), Jewrab, Juban, Jewxican, Jewbu (Jewish convert to Buddhism), Jewmaican (Jew/Jamaican or a Jew who acts Rastafarian), Jewford (Jew/Buford a stupid southern Jew), Jewop (Jew/Italian) and Marrano (Jew who converts to Catholicism or marries a Catholic for social or political reasons).

Racists who don't prefer the above use terms like Jesus Killer, Culture Destroyer (Nazi term) Vampire (for the drinking of the blood of white children), Gatemaster (as in Gates of Hell), The Self-chosen, and David Irvings "delightful" acronym A.S.S.H.O.L or Association of Spurious Survivors of the Holocaust and other Liars.

The real nasty ugly slurs though are the World War II "jokes"
Hickory-Smoked, German candle, German oven mitt, Firewood, Matchstick, Oven-baked, Pizza, Popular Science, Hot Pocket, Campers, Bones, Snowflakes (as in "ashes like"), Lampshade, Dial (as in the soap), AMF ("Arbeit Macht Frei" work brings freedom, over the gate at Auschwitz) and Mockey, a favorite with Andrew Dice Clay, a NYC-ese for "Markie" referring to the numbers tatooed on concentration camp survivor's arms. Brrrr.

My favorite one from the list, as heard in the movie The Life of Brian is Red-Sea Pedestrian. Not too offensive.

Finally, just for a bit of balance, what they call us: Goyim (from the Hebrew for nation, a derogatory word for Gentiles), Meeshkite, used for ugly women, Shiksa a non-Jewish woman and Shaggy , a non-Jewish youth, may be from Scooby Doo.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I resent such stereo types, of any race or creed. It is a manner of speaking reffered to those who are short on grey matter.

I also resent the politically correct versions of such names, and others, defaming fat people, the handicapped, and the elderly.

Name calling reveals a level of hatred towards one's fellow man.

However, I will attach labels such as conservative, liberal, or others, because politics has no bounds regarding race, creed, or physical defectiveness. THAT deals with idealogy. One can not change the color of their skin, but they can change their minds.

The Moody Minstrel said...

In fact, politicians tend to change their minds concerning their political beliefs all the time...or at least whenever it might help them at the polls.

During my first job here in Japan, as a participant in the JET Program, the "idealistic crusade du jour" among my fellow participants was a very whiny campaign against the Japanese use of the word "gaijin" (literally translated as "outsider") to refer to non-Asian foreigners.

After one such sob session at one of our bi-monthly block meetings, I asked what word the Japanese should use instead. When I got a reply of, "They should just call us human beings like everyone else," I replied by asking, "Then why are you referring to them as 'Japanese'?" I then went on to say that human beings will always categorize each other, and we are in a very obvious category, so it's only natural that they have a special term to refer to us.

Me, oh my, I thought they were going to lynch me. The most vacuous liberal in the group immediately went into a frothing screaming fit,
and the more vacuous conservatives told me angrily after the meeting that the Japanese had better learn to refer to them by their specific nationality "or else". (Um...how does one distinguish a Canuck from a Yank or an Ozzie or a Brit or a Kiwi or whatever just from a glance?)

I really had to wonder how many of those anti-"gaijin" whiners in the crowd referred to Inuit as "Eskimos", First Nation Americans as "Indians", and women in general as "bitches". A lot of them did. I brought that point up with a few of them after the meeting and was cut off with a curt, "I agree with what [the vacuous liberal] said, and I don't want to discuss it."

It's nice to know that hypocrisy is alive and well in internationalization.

favkn - Probably should be my nickname.