IS Friday, March 14, 1986

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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ROBERT ST. JOHN

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March 17
8 00 P.M.

"Misho Rachlevsky

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Thoughts About Labels,
Stereotypes And Bias

.

Back in that era called the
Roaring Twenties, I was a
young, crusading newspaper
editor in Cicero, Illinois. My
paper was engaging in a non-
stop campaign to drive Scarface
Al Capone of that Chicago sub-
urb.
It was not a very • successful
campaign, because one day a
carload of Capone's men picked
me up, took me for a ride and
left me for dead in a ditch by
the side of a road ...• and the
Capones continued to run their
speakeasies, gambling joints and
houses of prostitution untrou-
bled by any more "investigative
journalisin."
Some weeks from now I am to
deliver a paper in Washington
before a prestigious gathering of
intellectuals, on the subject
"Anti-Semitism, Its Causes and
Effects." Several days ago, I
began composing the paper in
my head and suddenly I thought
of Cicero and the Capones.
The connection may seem far-
fetched, but bear with me.
In the 1920s I was married to
a second-generation Italian-
American, whose mother, al-
though she had been in this
country !lir more than 35 years,
spoke not a word of English. (I
think she was too busy cooking
Italian delicacies for her family
to get very far from her several
kitchen stoves.)
In the 1920s Scarface Al, his
four brothers and their under-
world associates, all Italian, re-
ceived so much publicity in the
newspapers and on radio that
they gave all Italians a bad
name. It became almost an em-
barrassment in some circles to
be an Italian, to look like an
Italian, .to have an Italian name
or even to be married to an Ita-
lian.
But all of Chicago's gangsters
were not Italian. 'There were
also the Dean O'Bannion
mobsters. They were all Irish
and they gave the Irish a bad
name. As a result,. as the under-
ground wars raged, as Irish rum
runners and Italian rum run-
. ners killed each other off in
dramatic fashion, the newspap-
ers not only in Chicago but
across the country, and even in
foreign parts, wrote endlessly
about Italian gangsters, Irish
gangsters, Italian gangsters,
Irish gangsters.
How well I remember the
agonizing that went on in the
St. John household over the
popular over-generalization
about Italians.. What terrible
people they are! Undisciplined!
No respect for the law! Murder-
. ers at heart! What can you ex-
pect from the country that pro-
duced the Mafia?
Over-generalization. It seems
to me to be one of the funda-
mental causes of anti-Semitism
the habit of implying that
all are, something or other be-
cause a few May be.

It was the lesson we should
have learned from World War
II, because Adolph Hitler, de-
testing the behavior of some

Jews, decided to exterminate all
Jews.
As a journalist I have tried all
my professional life to guard
against ever saying or writing
anything .that would even imply
that all is ever anything–It has
not been easy, for most Ameri-
can readers are victims of what
I call "the Hollywood B-Film
Syndrome" — making all actors
either good guys or bad guys.
This has encouraged over-
generalization. The American
movie-viewing public likes ev-
erything, everybody to be good
or bad. It wants a world of
blacks and whites. Grays are too

Over-generalization;
the habit of
implying that all are
something or other
because a few may
be.

disconcerting. One can be emo-
tional rather than intellectual
about extremes, about blacks
and whites. Grays make you
think and we have so little time
to think. Also it's often painful'.
Being emotional is more fun.
The victims of the Hollywood
B-Film Syndrome are not Ita-
lian gangsters or Jews who be-
have badly, but the entire gen-
eral community of Italians or
Jews (or any other distinguish-
able people) who get labeled and
denounced be'cause someone
blames the shortcomings or the
crimes of the few on the whole
group.
Of course anti-Semitism is not
a simple plague nor is it a dis-
ease with a simple cure. A man
can rake a lot of leaves while
he's just thinking about it.

.Saudis Target
Of ADL Anger

New York — The Anti-
Defamation League of B'nai
B'rith protested to. the Saudi
Arabian 'government the publi-
cation in the Saudi press of
anti-Semitic statements and car-
toons in the past feW months.
In a letter. to Saudi Ambas-
sador Prince Bandar bin Sultan,
ADL assocate national director
Abraham H. Foxman urged the
Saudi government to "take ac-
tion" against propagation of
anti-Semitism in the, country.
Foxman cited cited four car-
toons and two statements pub-
lished since the first:of October,
one of which applauded the
murder of seven Israelis by an
Egyptian soldier and the slaying
of two Tunisian Jews. The other
Saudi statement made reference
to an anti-Semitic work by
American auto magnate Henry
Ford, which was based on the
infamous czarist-era forgery,
Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

