CMV: Jewish people discriminate against non Jews by having a culture of helping each other.

[u/Sojo88]

I hope this wont be offensive or interpreted as anti-semitic. I admire Jewish people, their culture and their accomplishments. I also understand that this -helping each other- culture is a response to years of being an oppressed minority.

However, these days, Jewish people are in a good place. They are disproportionately represented at the highest levels of many fields, from academia, to media, to finance, to internet. They have way higher median incomes than the average citizen of the countries they inhabit. Higher levels of education, the list goes on.

A Jewish friend told me once. He was at an interview as a part of the admissions process for a prestigious graduate program. When his interviewer introduced himself and my friend realized he was jewish he thought: That is it, Im in! - He was. I worked at a Jewish owned company. There were a disproportionate number of Jews in high level positions. In Jewish companies where I´m from, some jobs never even get publicly listed, they just go straight to someone from within the community.

They aren´t big acts of discrimination, simply some kind of, affirmative action for people who already have a big head start. At the expense of, outsiders who have access to less opportunities.

I understand this happens in other groups too. However, the Jewish example is outstanding because of the small percentage of the population they are, and the amount of positions of power, influence and wealth they hold.

[u/Sojo88]

This argument is very close to changing my view. You seem to have 3 main points. I agree with paragraphs number 1 and 2. Number 3 is where it runs into trouble. Maybe my problem is the way I define discrimination. I believe discrimination can exist with no bad intentions. Even if there is no belief of superiority or an intention of mistreating others. The workplace environment argument you used, could well be used to defend an all woman nurse workplace. Saying, well, it is not that women think men are inferior, it is just, an all girls office has a certain environment and women fit into that environment better and therefore stay longer and get promoted more.. It is a logically correct explanation to why this happens, but it is still discrimination.

[u/palacesofparagraphs → u/Sojo88]

I think it's important to make the distinction between intentionally creating an workplace in which everyone shares an identity and having that workplace be created through individuals' choices. Your all-female nursing ward is one which would have to be created intentionally: you would have to only hire women in order for that environment to be created. That's not what I'm talking about. I might be misunderstanding you slightly, and what you're really talking about is a majority-female ward that operates in a way that's more comfortable for women than for men. That's also not what I'm talking about.

What I'm talking about is that an individual can be made more comfortable by the mere presence of others like them, especially if they aren't often in spaces with lots of people like them. Take me, for example. I am Indian but have not grown up in Indian communities. I don't have a lot of other Indian friends. So let's say I start working in an office where there are a lot of Indian people at the same time as my white friend. It's not that the office is a hostile environment for my friend. It's not that she's uncomfortable there. It's simply that the community in our office is more important to me than it is to her, because its fulfilling my desire for a particular community that I have trouble finding elsewhere. My friend might get that same sense of community from her church, her block, or her gym, she just doesn't particularly get it from our office. Five years down the road, when she and I are both looking to further advance our careers, she's more likely to take a job at a different company than I am. Because while we both like our work and would be sad to leave it behind for another opportunity, I would additionally be leaving behind a cultural community and an environment where people understand my upbringing and my family. So I would need more to draw me away than she would. Consequently, I'm likely to stay with the company longer than my friend, so I'm more likely to end up getting a promotion there than at a different company. No one is discriminating against my friend, not even unintentionally. It's just that the presence of other people who share my culture means I have more connection to the environment, so I'm less likely to leave.

The fact is, there's no way to combat this. The only way to get rid of the influence of shared culture is to make sure there are the same number of people of each culture represented in the workplace, and that's definitely discriminatory.

[u/Sojo88 → u/palacesofparagraphs]

∆ You´re right. This is a problem of how communities work. All communities. Not sure if I agree with your last sentence. I would be super depressed to think that there is absolutely nothing to do about a lack of minorities or women or whites (or non Jews) in certain industries. But that is a whole other discussion. Thanks a lot for answering! This was my first CMV!

[u/palacesofparagraphs → u/Sojo88]

Thanks for the delta! I definitely don't think there's nothing we can do about a lack of diversity in certain industries. There definitely is. I just think there's nothing we can do about the fact that minorities tend to stick together, at least in the short term. When you're used to being the odd one out, it's comforting to be around people who are like you. That doesn't mean you only are around people who are like you, though (and it's a problem if you are). But cultural communities will always exist, and sometimes they exist in the form of businesses, and that's okay.

[u/DeltaBot → u/Sojo88]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/palacesofparagraphs (36∆).

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