The God Blog

Email | Print | Text - Text +

March 16, 2009 | 2:48 pm

Jackie Mason calls Obama the dark word

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Photo

Come again ...

Jackie Mason can get away with calling Sarah Silverman a “sick yenta.” She is a sick yenta, but it wasn’t because, as he said in October, of her suggestion that Jews who didn’t vote for Barack Obama didn’t like black people. Her comedy is just a bit blue.

It appears now that Mason may have been hinting at his own insecurities. Working a New York audience over the weekend, the legendary Jewish comedian called President Obama a “schvartze.” That’s Yiddish for black, but its translation is more along the lines of “darkie” and its connotation is wholly pejorative. (Rabbi Shmuley Boteach wrote last year that Jews should never use this word.)

Mason didn’t deny saying the sch-word. He just defended its use:

“I’m an old Jew. I was raised in a Jewish family where ‘schvartze’ was used,“ Mason told TMZ. “It’s not a demeaning word and I’m not going to defend myself.“

Yeah, and I have some friends who were raised white in the south and have Confederate sympathies. They still know better than to use the n-word.

16 Comments — Leave your comment

Share this post: del.icio.us Favicondel.icio.us Digg FaviconDigg Facebook FaviconFacebook Google FaviconGoogle Reddit FaviconReddit StumbleUpon FaviconStumbleUpon Technorati FaviconTechnorati YahooMyWeb FaviconYahooMyWeb

COMMENTS

We welcome your feedback. Comments may not exceed 700 characters.

Privacy Policy

Your information will not be shared or sold without your consent. Get all the details.

Terms of Service

JewishJournal.com has rules for its commenting community.Get all the details.

Mason is so completely out of touch with the Jewish community that watching his act is to laugh AT him, not with him.  Mason still appears to believe that American Jews still say “oy oy oy” and go to the Catskills every summer.  The effects of the 1960s, the Holocaust, the creation of the State of Israel, or any other significant reshaping of the Jewish American self-image can be seen in Mason’s comedy.  This is only the latest manifestation of that.

Comment by Guy Handelman on 3/16/09 at 7:27 pm

Why is the media trashing Mason? He certainly has not said ANYTHING like Chris Rock or Richard Pryor. Why is it OK for blacks to call whites “whitey”, “honky” or “cracker” but it’ not permissable to call them “nigger?” Go to Youtube and type in Chris Rock+racism and listen to him say “I love black people but I hate nigga’s.” Why the double standard? I for one will NOT tolerate it any longer! How about the rest of you spineless white people?

Comment by bob on 3/16/09 at 11:00 pm

well, bob, i’m not much a fan of chris rock, but chapelle is pretty funny.

Comment by Proton Soup on 3/17/09 at 1:21 am

Let’s admit that you probably consider Sarah Silverman young and cool and attractive, and Jackie Mason old and uncool and unattractive. That may be, but once you get past that Sarah Silverman is a sick yenta because when she said to get your ‘Zaydes and Bubbes’ to vote for Obama she was not literally referring to ‘grandparents’ but clearly to ‘befuddled old fools that can be coldly manipulated and exploited’.

On the other hand, Boteach or no Boteach it is just artificial to say that ‘shvartze’s “translation is more along the lines of “darkie” and its connotation is wholly pejorative”. Not as long as people request a black cup of coffee in Yiddish which happens every day. Even when the speaker is being mildly patronizing, it does not rise to the level of Michael Jackson’s “Jew me/Sue me/Everybody do me/Kick me/Kike me” etc. Now there is the equivalent to the n-word.

This to me is just the same as that rabbi who advocated getting rid of the Hebrew word ‘goy’, which is in the Torah, used by God Himself, and is never going away either.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 3/17/09 at 1:27 am

I’m an old Jew too and “Schwartze” is an endearing term Jews have for our Black Brothers…
If Jackie called President Oybama a “Nappy Headed” Schwartze I would then have a problem with his words.

Comment by smitty on 3/17/09 at 6:19 am

What is the Yiddish for black?? ((also German - As in Arnold Schwartenegger). Scwartz
It is a legitimate word.
A white person is called a “vayse”!!!!!!!!

Comment by Morris B on 3/17/09 at 11:51 am

Facts are facts - Obama is a schvartze, as he is as black as the ace of spades.

Comment by Jon on 3/17/09 at 4:20 pm

See what Black Political Strategist Angela McGlowan has to say (you may be surprised): http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c7c_1237255066&c=1

Comment by PAUL JESER on 3/17/09 at 5:28 pm

Kid Rock??? LOL!!!

Comment by Guy Handelman on 3/17/09 at 9:37 pm

smitty, the reason you find schvartze an endearing term is because you are probably an endearing fellow yourself. The reason that some think schvartze means ‘darkie’ (not used since Stephan Foster days) and its connotation is wholly pejorative is because they are habituated to ridiculing Yids and using Yiddish in a self-conscious way which mostly includes Jews who don’t really speak Yiddish.

My point (and Jackie Mason’s) is that it is a neutral term, and its accurate translation with regard to people is ‘black person’ or in this case ‘black guy’. If you say ‘a wonderful shvartze saved me from being mugged’ it is endearing; if you say ‘I was mugged by an effing shvartze’ it is pejorative.

(Tech Tip: Ahnold’s last name means ‘blackneck’ which is the Austrian equivalent of redneck, or laborers who get dark working in the sun. In Austria it describes a class of course and not a race.)

Comment by Ben Plonie on 3/18/09 at 5:57 am

This faygalá mamzur will go down with madoff as our worst enemy.

Comment by Gedalia on 3/18/09 at 10:15 pm

Jackie Mason was #63 on the ‘Comedy Central 100 Greatest Standups of all Time’. Neither Madoff nor Silverman made the list. This after Mason wandered in the wilderness for 40 years after being banned from Ed Sullivan on suspicion of giving Sullivan the finger. There is no modern example of anyone as huge as Ed Sullivan was in his day, nor of how huge giving him the finger was. My instinct is that Silverman does not have the beytzim to do anything like that.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 3/18/09 at 10:41 pm

Some of yous guys are missing the point - to always be politcally correct is NOT FUNNY.  I love our new President (and don’t think is as black as the Ace of Spades like somebody a few comments up just said) but schwartze or schvartze is funny.  Gee, people don’t have any sense of humor anymore and I’m not OLD!!!!!!

Comment by Meshuga on 3/20/09 at 4:05 pm

Immanuel,axelrod,the teleprompter énabler behind the screen should bé outed by jackie as being the haman mumzurs they are.

Comment by Gedalia on 3/20/09 at 7:30 pm

I’m a big fan of Jackie’s so he can pretty much say anything.

Comment by used cargo vans for sale on 3/25/09 at 8:17 pm

I can vaguely remember what it was like before we were so pc. It was refreshing.

Comment by laptop replacement screens on 6/27/09 at 5:48 pm

Post a Comment

Name:  
Email:  

Type the word you see below:

Comment:


About this Blog

Blog Home
About the Blogger(s)
Contact

RSS


Blog Archive






Newspaper

Serving a community of 600,000, The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles is the largest Jewish weekly outside New York City. Our award-winning paper reaches over 150,000 educated, involved and affluent readers each week. Subscribe here.

© Copyright 2012 Tribe Media Corp.
All rights reserved. JewishJournal.com is hosted by Nexcess.net. Homepage design by Koret Communications.
Widgets by Mijits. Site construction by Hop Studios.

counter fake hit page