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Old August 17th, 2005 #7
lawrence dennis
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Default Part 2 of Steven Silbiger interview

Wall St. and Business Wednesdays: Exclusive Q & A With Steven Silbiger, Author Of The Jewish Phenomenon (Part II)
Quote:
... Cedric Muhammad: Steven, one of the most fascinating parts of the book for me is what you wrote about sports....

Steven Silbiger: It's all about percentages and where you want to end up. And if it was by design or what have you...There are about 5,000 highly-paid professional athletes in this country. So, if your community is focused on getting your boys and girls to be one of those 5,000 - there are very few slots. When the musical chairs end, mostly everybody is not in a chair. In the Jewish community the probability of becoming a successful doctor, lawyer or businessperson is not like one one-eighth of one percent. It is much, much higher. So the outcome for a lot more people in life, by being highly educated and being a professional or entrepreneur, is creating a wider array of opportunity that is much greater for Jewish people than the African-American community. So if you said, 'oh would you like a chance at the lotto or would you like a chance picking out of this fishbowl with twenty tickets', I would like to be dealing with the twenty tickets as opposed to the lottery. And that is the economic outcome. It is just the facts. Jewish people, at the turn of the century, when they were in New York, a lot of them were in professional sports, in baseball, in boxing and what have you. But obviously, as other people pursued it in greater numbers it became less important for the Jewish community. For the Jewish community sports is a great pastime to watch and to own the teams! But not to go send your kids to go do this stuff....

Steven Silbiger: But the greatest appreciation revolves around whether or not you are highly educated; are you well-prepared to take advantage of opportunity or create your own today? Are you a contributor to your community? The celebrity stuff is good and there are celebrity Jewish people. I mean, the four major television networks were started, founded and owned by Jewish people. If you go into the radio areas - wherever you go in the media there are Jewish celebrities but when it gets down to who owns the means of getting to the people, it is going to be Jewish people. Yes, there are going to be Jewish comedians and a lot of actors but that's a very small slice of it! The list of Jewish comedians pales when compared to the number of Jewish scientists or Jewish entrepreneurs. Certainly in terms of what is celebrated within the community and family. So when I wrote the book it wasn't like I was going looking for a little pocket of Jewish success. It didn't matter where I turned, in whatever walk of life, lawyers, businesspersons, scientists, musicians, creative people, there were Jewish people because they were allowed to pursue their dreams to the nth degree and it was ok to be different, and to stand out. And that is where real wealth is created....

Steven Silbiger: Right, it is in violation. And a lot of people think it is "innate intelligence" - no. That doesn't account for this at all. And there have been people who have been thinking that I.Q. has something to do with this. But it really does not. These principles can be lived and led by anybody. And a lot of the people who have been extremely successful have only been at the right place, at the right time with the right education pursuing their dreams and possibilities....

Steven Silbiger:...but you've got to remember the major banks are not Jewish at all. You have J.P. Morgan and Chase. These are all very Christian banks that kept these people (the Jews in the securities business) out of the banking business. So when it comes to Salomon Brothers and Goldman Sachs these are investment bankers all started by entrepreneurs. Now we look at them as huge! And these investment banking firms dwarf the traditional banks today because of all of the deregulation....

Steven Silbiger: Yeah, creating a market. This is true regardless to the industry or niche whether in the garment industry as I have already spoken to it, or the whole diet industry - Weight Watchers, Nutri-Systems, Jenny Craig. Who would have thunk it? These are all Jewish businesses. The ice cream market. The major businesses in that area are Jewish. The jewelry market. Diamond-cutting is a Jewish industry. There are different areas where there is this consumer need and they saw it before other people and pursued it. But that is where the genius of America is. Where people talk about Americans being progressive and being inventive and what have you. That is where the values and the rules that make America great, are the same values that American Jews hold dear in their community as well. And because they are both alike that is why there has been such great success. Has there been great Jewish success in the Soviet Union? No. [So much for the breadth of Silbiger's 'education'--L.D.] Why? Because the government and the rules there did not allow the Jews to conform to allow for success there. Deliberately so. So here in the United States for the first time, those rules are present and the capital sources have been wide open and they have taken advantage of it....

...and here in America, where there were opportunities; even when there were not the best opportunities, Jews pursued what they could of other opportunities. And that has been the Jewish experience throughout the ages. When one door is closed, the other one is open. So when Jewish lawyers couldn't join the large firms; Jewish lawyers, accountants and others created their own. If you keep them out, guess what? They will build their own. You can't get accepted to Harvard because there is a quota preventing more Jews from going there? Well, we will create our own colleges. And that is the way it is. And fortunately, in the United States, the opportunity, after a door has been shut, has been here. We have been able to go the other way.

Cedric Muhammad: Well next to banking, the most controversial sphere of influence that Jews have had has been precious metals, diamonds etc...This is a sensitive subject as it relates to Africa. What is the summary or the genesis of that relationship or that area of expertise and do you think it in any way was exploitative or set the stage for such, today on the continent of Africa...

Steven Silbiger: Well, I am not familiar that the diamond trade in Africa today is Jewish - the production of diamonds is not a Jewish business...

Cedric Muhammad: ...what I am saying is that there is a perception that there is exploitation in those industries today. I am asking you do you think that the manner in which the diamond industry developed set the stage for what is happening today, or is there no connection in your view?

Steven Silbiger: I don't see the connection. The diamond mining industry isn't a Jewish industry. The diamond cutting industry is a Jewish industry. Jewelry is, because as Jews developed those skills internally and that expertise, they carried it from country to country wherever they were forced to leave. And here in the United States, they have not only been involved in the cutting of the diamonds, the trading of raw diamonds and then the retailing and the making of jewelry.

Cedric Muhammad: But in the Congo there is still a significant Jewish presence, and there are pockets of it throughout Africa...

Steven Silbiger: Right...

Cedric Muhammad: But there is a view that here you had Africans all over the continent. They were sitting on top of something. And to one degree or another they weren't making an industry out of it and here came these foreigners. Do you think there is anything wrong with one group of people getting their sustenance or an enormous amount of wealth from the land of another group of people who weren't exercising the law of use. Or, is it, in your view, just survival of the fittest?

Steven Silbiger: ... No, I don't think it was right but the whole idea is that at the time the resources weren't developed by Africans and they were sitting on top of them. But the problems are internal too. Even today a lot of the wealth that is created in Africa through oil drilling has been siphoned off by despots and hasn't benefited the community at all or their countries. So, there are a lot of internal issues in Africa that transcend even modern times. The (trans-Atlantic) slave trade itself was aided by other tribes of competing Africans who sold other competing tribes to White people, which is horrendous. They were so disunited. So that whole idea of being a community and united is a theme that has benefited the Jewish community...

Cedric Muhammad: So you are saying that what happens in the way of exploitation is a byproduct of the disunity of a community...

Steven Silbiger: Disunity brings a problem! And it certainly isn't just happening in one group. I have outlined in this book that there were great divides between people of Jewish-American descent or Eastern Europe descent or Spanish descent. But when the community was attacked from the outside by others the community came together not only morally but financially. Like for instance, you can look at Jews from Argentina and Russian Jews who are fleeing from problems. These Jews that came from Russia were not even practicing Jews. They just happened to be Jewish people by birth but guess what? When they came here they were supported by the federations, the Jewish temples, and what have you because they were Jews. So, if they needed a car to get to work or they needed an education, they were given that because it was important.

Cedric Muhammad: And there is nothing stopping people of African descent from doing the same...

Steven Silbiger: Nothing at all…

Cedric Muhammad: Let's go into this section that you deal with dealing with Jews and African-Americans in your book. And I want to stay as economically-focused as possible. We will conduct another interview that will deal with this relationship from a more political angle.

Steven Silbiger: Right...

Cedric Muhammad: Essentially there has been a tension because of this physical labor to intellectual capital ratio that has existed between the two communities all revolving around financial capital. If you are a Black professional athlete you frequently have a Jewish accountant, a Jewish lawyer and the controlling entity - in terms of the chief employer or owner of the team, business or company is much, much more likely to be Jewish than Black. This has been the case in sports and in music and in drama... ... you have one community that so visibly exercises its physical attributes – "labor", and another community that disproportionately exercises its intellectual attributes - "capital", when historically dealing with one another in the United States? Do you think it is ok the way it is now or do you think that there is opportunity...

Steven Silbiger: ... the same success that African-Americans have had in sports or in music or other areas can be enjoyed in other areas. In America it is the dollar that really talks so you have to focus on people like Oprah - a great example. She is a talented individual and she has a great show. But she is not just the figurehead - she owns her own production company. If it was Bill Cosby, he owned his areas. He owned a piece of the action. So while he was sleeping he was earning money. And that is the idea of deriving your income and your capital, not by your physical efforts but by the force of your ideas.

Cedric Muhammad: ... I think that sense of alienation that some Blacks feel derives partly from a recognition of Jews that goes like, 'you knew what was good for you, but you didn't necessarily give it to us'. Steven, we didn't get this book from Michael Eisner, or you can go back to the history of Jews over the centuries and those in America. Jewish leaders often preached or supported integration and government activism for us. And not the principles that made them successful. We didn't get this book that you wrote in the 20th century during the height of the civil rights movement; we get the book from you in the 21st century...

Steven Silbiger: Sure...

Cedric Muhammad: In that light, is it appropriate for, say, as an example, a Hollywood Jewish house, or a director to cast a Black person in the role of a buffoon? Because that Black person wants to play the role of a court jester or a comedian; is that the free-market at work or is that one community not exercising its self-enlightened interest while another community does and exploits the ignorance of another?

Steven Silbiger: I would say...that's a tough question. Is what is portrayed in Hollywood a reflection of the community or is it Hollywood creating the community that is watching the show? Uh, like Spike Lee had the movie, Bamboozeled which was excellent. It just shows you how things can be twisted.... But I think it is how you want to look at your self and what type of self-esteem you have and that is where that whole idea of being an individual, to be educated is important. So that no matter what somebody is portraying about you or what somebody is telling you, you know different. You know what's going on....

Cedric Muhammad: Anything you would like to say in closing Steven?

Steven Silbiger: The Jewish Phenomenon is a book that anybody can read. It is written to be read and enjoyed. It is not academic, there are jokes in the book that are funny. There are anecdotes about Jewish-ness. There is a whole area in the back of the book that is an appendix of Yiddish and Hebrew terms. So if you hear some jokes or you hear Jewish-Americans talking you can translate that and know what they are talking about and some of the things you might see. And I think the book gives a better understanding of a community that has been exceptionally misunderstood in the Black community. That is what I think this book really contributes, and it is a good read....
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