This is an important contribution to the study of anti-Semitism in
America- a reasoned, objective and constructive approach by a man
whose experience in the field of minority problems has given him
the understanding necessary to the task. He views anti-Semitism as
"one of the greatest barriers to self-knowledge and social
understanding of our times because it masks a reality- the reality
of social, economic and political injustice". He shows, step by
step, how the disease of anti-Semitism has spread, until it has
infected the fields of education, livelihood, social contacts. From
1877 on, the growth has been insidious- and fed largely on myths,
which he conclusively analyzes and destroys. This is a fully
documented, thoughtful and challenging book. It should be read by
more than the students of the subject. Unfortunately he has handled
the subject on the intellectual level, carefully avoiding the
emotional, the human, the dramatic, which might have made the book
more readable for the average man. As it stands, its market will
probably be limited. (Kirkus Reviews)
Why in America should the most sinister of European social
diseases have taken root? Why should that disease have spread from
its seemingly anachronistic beginning in the Gilded Age until it
infected many of our great magazines and newspapers? Until it
determined not only where a man might stay the night, but where he
got his education and how he earned his living? This book answers
such questions by exposing the myths with which the anti-Semite
surrounds his position. By taking away the "mask of privilege" it
reveals the source of such prejudice for what it is--the
determination of the forces of special privilege, with their
hangers-on, to maintain their select and exclusive status
regardless of the consequences to other human beings.
Like Carey McWilliams's other books on minorities in America, "A
Mask for Privilege "reveals the facts of discrimination so that the
fogs of prejudice may be dispersed by the truth. It traces the
growth of discrimination and persecution in America from 1877 to
1947, shows why Jews are such good scapegoats, and contrasts the
Jewish stereotype--"too pushing, too cunning" with that of other
minority groups. Then it looks at the anti-Semitic personality and
concludes, with Sartre, that here is "a man who is afraid"--of
himself.
In his stirring new introduction, Wilson Carey McWilliams calls
this a work of recovery "evoking names and moods and incidents now
either half-forgotten or lost to memory." This brilliant analysis
of anti-Semitism is a documented and forceful attempt to inform
Americans about the danger of the undemocratic, antisocial
practices in their midst, and to suggest a positive program to
arrest a course too similar to that which led to the Holocaust. It
transcends majority-minority relations and becomes an analysis of
antidemocratic practices, which affect the whole fabric of American
life.
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