One of my students caught me out yesterday. He'd just announced he would miss class on Thursday because it was Passover, and I'd hesitated. I could fudge, and say I hesitated moreso because of the two additional students who immediately chimed in that they would also miss class, sensing a run on an easy excused absence. (Indeed, another student then announced, "If they're not coming, I'm not either!")
I caught and corrected myself, but there it was, the truth of a stereotype hanging out there for all to see. This young man, to all visible clues an African-American, is also Jewish. Duh! It's not like I don't know the fact that the largest percentage of the world's Jewish population is of a skin tone other than pale pinkish-white! Yet my personal demographic exposure, combined with common US mass media representations, set me up for a textbook case of momentary essentialization.
How embarrassing. This NPR broadcast on Blacks, the Jewish Faith and Hanukkah addresses the "misperception that black people are not Jewish."
