Onion calls Redskins owner "kike"

Were the Onion’s anti-Semitic slurs “fair game”?

The New Republic's Marc Tracy says the Onion's piece about Redskins owner Dan Snyder had value as satire

By Prachi GuptaThe Onion divided readers yesterday with a controversial story that used racial slurs to mock Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder, who is Jewish. The Onion described Snyder, who refuses to change the racist Washington Redskins name, as a “hook-nosed kike” and “shifty-eyed hebe”:“The Redskins represent 81 years of great history and tradition, and it’s a source of pride for our fans,” said the hook-nosed kike, stressing that the team’s insulting moniker is “absolutely not a racial slur by any means.”While the Onion has been spot on so many times this year, the satirical news organization has also thrown out some jokes of questionable taste in the past few months. This particular story walked a fine line between promoting stereotypes and making fun of those who promote stereotypes—so much so that journalists still don’t know how to react.

Though the first reaction for many (including myself) was shock, it seemed that some self-identified Jewish journalists didn’t seem to mind. In fact, they actually enjoyed it:

The New Republic’s Marc Tracy, who has written extensively about Judaism and is a Washington Redskins fan (though he refuses to say their full name, because he agrees that it is racist), told Salon there are two major reasons the Onion’s story is polarizing—the first being the obvious use of stereotypes. “Obviously it’s done to make a point,” Tracy explained via email, “but you don’t have to get into litigating the relative nastiness of ‘redskin’ versus ‘kike’ (or ‘wearing feathers’ versus ‘shifty-eyed,’ for that matter) to realize that this is a hazardous thing.”

But the other and “much more interesting” reason, according to Tracy, is that “the article plays on a Jewish/philo-Semitic tension”:…Due to their own history of persecution and stereotyping, Jews ought to be much more sensitive to the persecution and stereotyping of other marginalized groups. And the thing is, by and large, Jews are much more sensitive, and are justifiably proud, for example, that they were instrumental non-black allies of black civil rights leaders (look at Rabbi Heschel in this picture!). In fact, there is an extent to which this is what we mean by “Chosen People”–there is a religious and even theological justification for Jews’ own feelings for Jewish exceptionalism. So among Jews I think there’s an extra sense of disappointment that Snyder would not be sensitive to the problem with the name–not only as an owner and a human being, but as a Jew.

But there is a potentially dark side to this, which is that when you start saying Jews “should” be like this or “shouldn’t” be like that, it can easily slip into philo-Semitism’s closely related opposite. It’s a thin line. Maybe somebody smarter than I has codified this into a formal rule, but I try just to call it as I see it. I think The Onion piece stayed on the right side of this line.Comment:  This posting made me uneasy too. Even though I've done similar things in my blog.

Perhaps it was the big bold headline on a major website. It would be easy to misunderstand if you glanced at the headline and didn't notice the Onion tag.

I guess I prefer the "Blackskins" approach. The made-up word and image make the same point without (potentially) offending anyone.