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Hate Speech Unbound: Susan Goldberg & Bruce Newman

To: William Dean Singleton

Vice Chairman & CEO

MediaNews Group

From: Stanley Womack, Executive Secretary
http://www.ResistingDefamation.org

On: February 2, 2007

Re: Hate Speech Unbound: Susan Goldberg & Bruce Newman

Susan Goldberg, executive editor of the San Jose Mercury News, and movie critic Bruce Newman struck a blow for the most loathsome kind of hate speech on page 1E in the Mercury News today, 2/2/07, by promoting two hate labels, “shiksa” and “WASP.”

We request that you terminate the employment of both Goldberg and Newman for cause, namely, spreading hatred toward an identifiable section of our community.

SHIKSA

The well-known and widely-recognized hate term shiksa was used in the following way in the second paragraph of the article:

She (Diane Keaton) won an Oscar as the ultimate shiksa (italicized in text)
in “Annie Hall,” so it’s a little unsettling now to see her trying to play the
most aggressive yente (italicized in text) the movies have produced since
“Fiddler On the Roof.”

By linking shiksa to yente and “Fiddler On the Roof,” Susan Goldberg and Bruce Newman explicitly declared the Jewish nature of shiksa which, we are told by Israel Shahak in “Jewish History, Jewish Religion” on page 26, is defined by the “Megiddo Modern Hebrew-English Dictionary,” published in Israel, as “unclean animal; loathsome creature, abomination.” It also has a colloquial meaning in America and Europe as “Christian whore.”

Somehow the director, Michael Lehmann, was spared any criticism for this film at all. We can only wonder why the director was spared when the female star was pilloried with racist terms.

Resisting Defamation, however, finds shiksa to be repugnant because it is a name for European American women that they did not choose for themselves. Its use is a claim to name all European American women by someone outside the class of people named which, in turn, requires that it be based on a claim to supremacy. That is, Goldberg and Newman openly lay claim to supremacy over (and the right to name) all European American women. We explicitly condemn their racist claim, and denounce them for claiming supremacy over all European American women.

In addition, the term shiksa is used to demonstrate contempt (it’s not funny on any level) and to smother the diversity of those so-named. Its use in AD 2007 on the pages of the Mercury News is a shocking commentary on the bigotry that lies in the hearts and minds of Executive Editor Susan Goldberg and movie critic Bruce Newman.

We are not claiming that shiksa is “insensitive” or that its use is “offensive” to us. We are simply examining the minds and hearts of Goldberg and Newman, and asking that their employment be terminated.

WASP

The hate term WASP was used in the following way in the third paragraph of the article:

Of course, there’s nothing in the Talmud that says a WASP

can’t be just as meddling a matchmaker as Molly Picon…

We don’t know why Susan Goldberg and Bruce Newman explicitly linked WASP with the Talmud, but they clearly identified the term as a Jewish hate term this way. So let us look at WASP from a Jewish point of view. The Jewish analog is WEJ, a well known term of abuse for Jews which means White European Jew. Not having seen Newman, we don’t know what color he is, but Goldberg certainly qualifies as a WEJ, and we trust she won’t mind our tagging her with it in the same way she worked with Newman to tag European American women with WASP.

None of the Goldberg/Newman criticism of the film in question denigrates the director, Michael Lehmann. Could it be that he is spared name-calling because his last name isn’t Keaton? Readers want to know.

Resisting Defamation, however, finds the use of WASP to be repulsive because it is a name for European American men and women that they did not chose for themselves. Its use is a claim to have a supremacy power, the power to name those not in ones’ own group. We explicitly condemn Goldberg’s and Newman’s open claim to supremacy over (and the right to name) all European Americans.

WASP is used to demonstrate contempt and to smother the diversity of all European Americans. It is a “three-fer” in the world of hate speech by denigrating a skin color (white), an ethnicity (Anglo-Saxon), and a religion (Protestant Christians). Its use in AD 2007 on the pages of the Mercury News is just more commentary on the bigotry that lives in the minds and hearts of Executive Editor Susan Goldberg and movie critic Bruce Newman.

We are not claiming that use of WASP is “insensitive” or “offensive.” To see the entire hateful article go to one of these Internet addresses:

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/16605377.htm

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/16605377.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp