Christina Patterson is an utter prick but it’s not because she’s a goy
If you get the Independent you might have read Christina Patterson’s invective against her Orthodox Jewish neighbours in Stamford Hill. In an article entitled “The Limits of Multi-Culturalism” Patterson pours out all her gripes against the community. She would like, she tells us, “to teach my neighbours some manners”:
I would like, for example, to say to the man who drove the wrong way up a one-way street on Sunday night, while chatting away on his mobile phone, and to the man who nearly backed into me yesterday, while also chatting on his mobile phone… that while they clearly enjoy the art of conversation, it’s one that doesn’t combine brilliantly with driving.
I would like to say to the man from whom I bought some paper cups, and who handled my money as if it had been dipped in anthrax, that it wouldn’t kill him to say “please” or “thank you”.
I would like to say to all these people that I don’t care if they wear frock-coats, and funny suits and hats covered in plastic bags, and insist on wearing their hair in ringlets (if they’re male) or covered up by wigs (if they’re female), but I do think they could treat their neighbours with a bit more courtesy and just a little bit more respect.
When I moved to Stamford Hill, 12 years ago, I didn’t realise that goyim were about as welcome in the Hasidic Jewish shops as Martin Luther King at a Klu Klux Klan convention. I didn’t realise… that road signs, and parking restrictions, were for people who hadn’t been chosen by God
Comparing a whole bunch of shopkeepers who happen to be of a particular religious persuasion to a group of murderous Neo-Nazis is a bit strong to say the least. Equally, connecting somebody’s failure to observe parking restrictions with their jewishness, via the old “chosen people” chestnut, suggests an iron determination to frame bad behaviour as Jewish behaviour.
I would be tempted to write this off as a stupidly written, slightly bigoted article, but there is acutally something darker and more pernicious about the way in which she others the local hasidic community. That she frames so many very mundane human failings – from inconsiderate driving, to rudeness on the bus, to not saying thankyou – as an outgrowth of her neighbours’ Judaism, suggests that she is not capable of engaging with them as human beings who happen to follow a certain faith; rather their orthodox judaism is the essence, the beiginning and the end, of who they are and what they do.
In the same way she appears to percieve each particular hasidic Jew, not as an individual but as a mere specimen of their clan. Thus in her list of gripes against the hasidic community she tells us of “the fishmonger who asked my (black) friend whether he really wanted to buy some fish from his shop”. This single example of anti-black racism during her 12 years in Stamford Hill (judging by the tone of her article she would almost certainly not be keeping any more up her sleeve) hardly marks the local community out as atypical in England. Neither is such an occurrence unimaginable in the WASPier parts of Surrey. Yet the sins of this one bad fishmonger are projected onto the entire community. In short, this is dehumanising.
Further on in the article Christina flows on to female circumcisions and bad Muslims before showing her true, ugly nativism when she laments that:
A properly civilised society would accept that while lovely little C of E schools were once an excellent place for children to learn about the religion that shaped their culture, art and laws, you can’t have them without having the madrassa run by the mad mullah next door, and therefore, sadly, you can’t have either. [my emphasis]
In short, she does not, like many of us, have a principled commitment to secular education. She is merely saddened that schools cannot promulgate the lovely and decent English religion (and in the process scare the shit out of millions of kids who happen to be gay) without opening the door to repulsive foreign beliefs.
Anyway, in contrast Christina Patterson’s treatment of her neighbours, I would like to extend to her the courtesy of engaging with her not as a specimen but as an individual. As such I would like to state for the record that her tendency write like an utter idiot, and her inability to get to perceive her neighbours as anything more differentiated than a mush of weird Jews, has nothing whatsoever to do with her being a gentile. Like the man who didn’t say please or thank you to her, some people are just pricks.
Reader Comments
There’s a technical term for what’s going on here – the out-group homogeneity bias:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity_bias
Not only is Ms Patterson wrong, she’s not even wrong in an original way.
But then, the point of newspaper columns is to demonstrate the ubiquity of cognitive biases – isn’t it?
‘Out-group homogeneity bias’? Dear George Orwell, You’ve been away too long. Please come back soon. We’re missing you.
Cheers chris. That is indeed exactly what is going on. Did not know there was a technical term but it perfectly describes what is wrong with her rant.
I can think of some shorter, non-technical terms.
Bit of a long-winded way of saying that one shouldn’t cast aspersions on a whole group of people? Rather undermined when you went on to do just that about folk who live in Surrey – not sure why you don’t like them, is it because they’re perceived to be part of the nasty aspiration class and that there’s a Jack Wills shop in Guilford?
If you’re going to get annoyed (or academic as some of the commenters have) about prejudice, you’ll be chasing your tail Ruben.
Personally, I thought the guy who didn’t say “please” or “thank you” was showing how well he’d integrated into London life, becoming totally indistinguishable from the natives. But that’s maybe just me being bitter after nearly thirty years of living in a city without a soul.
LOL!
But she is so right!
In complaining about racism how many of those who comlain about CP’s article have similarly complained of the racism of religious fundamentalists who operate the price tag policy against Palestinian Israelis in the Occupied Territories. How many have complained about the racist Rabbis who wrote The Kings’ Torah, or the fundamentalists who throw chairs at women to dare to pray at the Western Wall?
Aaron what exactly are you trying to say? The third estate has been moth forthright in its opposition to Israel and zionism.
Were you assuming otherwise.
Some people, who don’t know much about these things, think that we shouldn’t complain about antisemitism because Zionists oppress Palestinians. Strange logic, especially from people who claim to be fighting against discrimination and injustice, that racism justifies racism. BTW are Christina Patterson’s neighbours occupying Palestinian land (do they even agree that Jewish people should be living there?) or are they just bad drivers? Someone drove too fast up my street the other day, talking into his mobile phone. I expect he supports the war in Iraq.
Many of those who claim that CP is anti semitic are noticeably absent when it comes to critising the very real examples of fundamentalist racism that I have pointed out. I haven’t even mentioned the ‘modesty patrols’ the Haredi riots, the attacks on women who dare to sit on the wrong part of the bus. It is a strange logic that does not call into question why this should be so. Racism never justifies racism, what a silly thing to say. But anyone who complains about CP’s mild faux pas, without having a track record of consistently and openly condeming the much much larger crimes that are commited in the name of religious fundamentalism in Israel is clearly not worth taking seriously. I look forward to the Wiesenthal’s list of the ten worst fundamentalist events of this year. Try Hiddush they will give you a few instances. Then point me to where everyone who criticises CP has highlighted the above. These fundamentalist attacks are not given enough publicity. It is our moral duty to do more, much much more, to highlight them. What are you doing to highlight them?
Are you equating The Wiesenthal Center with Third Estate or asking The Third Estate to justify the behaviour of the Wiesenthal Center? Why would you want to do that?
The fight against racism, including antisemitism, is not predicated on whether or not we fight fundamentalism or on the behaviour of the victims. Racism is wrong. We don’t need to lay out our credentials in order to earn the right to challenge it. And protection from racism is not a privilege we give to people who behave nicely. It’s a right for everyone, nice or nasty, powerful or powerless, oppressor or fighter against oppression.
You’re right that the terrible oppression meted out by fundamentalism in all religions is not given enough publicity. Claiming that one form of persecution trumps the others is hardly going to improve matters.
‘Racism is wrong. We don’t need to lay out our credentials in order to earn the right to challenge it.’
There are plenty of people who do need to lay out their credentials to challenge this incident. You need to ask yourself why this innocuous remark has recieved so much publicity when the real crimes of fundamentalists go largely un reported. Those who condemn such incidents as anti semitism have a responsibility to ensure that the charge of anti semitism is not debased. When CP’s remark becomes part of the Wiesenthal centres list of top ten anti semitic remarks then clearly that is an abuse of the term. The false charge of anti semitism is often used to deflect attention away from the fundies and their crimes. That is why it is so important that we examine carefully the credentials of anyone who uses it. It is up to those who use the term to prove that they condemn all acts of racism, and not just some.
‘Are you equating The Wiesenthal Center with Third Estate or asking The Third Estate to justify the behaviour of the Wiesenthal Center? Why would you want to do that?’ I have made no comment about the Third Estate, so I don’t understand your point.
This is beyond moronic. You don’t even seem to know what site you’re on. Time for me to bow out of this ‘discussion’.
As I suspected, this is a chase the tail subject. Call me apathetic, or much worse, but I don’t think human nature will fundamentally change, and if so, conflict and prejudice will remain a topic of conversation, or much worse, as long as we exist. Collectively we all walk on the ocean floor when it suits and reason isn’t usually welcome.
Do you mean when one has an oxygen cylinder?
I don’t think one would do for all walking collectively on the ocean floor.
Just to be clear, that wasn’t a dig at people who like to go diving. Then I’d be a nasty diverist.
Can you call any woman a prick? I would have thought cunt would be more acurate.