My Twitter Exchange With Jamelle Bouie
Holy crap. That post would have been better if it were just “Look at this Jewry Jew Jew.”
I don’t buy into the Jews-rule-the-world-with-their-hedge-funds-and-Neiman-Marcus-Holiday-Season-catalogues thing. But I’m Jewish.
Um, I was being really, really sarcastic when I sent that tweet.
Thanks for responding. I was about to post a sarcastic response to you on Angry Bear. Suffice it to say that I’m not anti-Semitic.
She’s right, of course. I mean, who knew that only Jews work on Wall Street and have Neiman’s credit cards?! And that “Carlyle” is a Jewish name?! Or, for that matter, that Seitz is?! I’m not a Twitter user–wasn’t, that is, until an hour or so ago; I think it’sis ridiculous–but I opened an account this evening in order to repond to the many accusations of anti-Semitism in that Twitter thread, including from Seitz-Wald, who surely knows that Seitz is not usually a Jewish name, but figured I thought it was. Carmon, by the way, is a Harvard alum, who in the Twitter thread said her kids have (surprise!) hyphenated last names. She’s probably busy getting ready for the High Holidays next month. I can tell by her last name.
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UPDATE: An exchange between reader Sheila and me in the Comments thread to this post:
SHEILA: I have a hard time understanding why post generation boomers are so negative about us. We cared about the poor, protested unnecessary wars, protested corruption and actually gave a shit about racism and the environment. Along with women’s rights. And for this we are vilified? It seems the right wing has been allowed to change the narrative to cast us as a bunch of stoned welfare recipients. I am a boomer and I kept my name because we moved to Alaska and I wanted my friends from the Bay Area and Madison to be able to find me . My kids are named after my husband. It honestly did not seem to matter. At any rate, I am really proud to be of my generation. I only hope that the generations to come eventually emulate us. Sheila
ME: And you think my post is about women who keep their married names after they marry, WHY EXACTLY, Sheila?
Let me spell it out: This post is about people WHO GIVE THEIR KIDS a last name that is: the mother’s last name, a hyphen, father’s last name. This is a tiny segment of upscale people, almost all of them with degrees from fancy universities and from or currently living in a large metro upper-Atlantic coast area. I suspect that you could travel throughout, say, Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico, and almost every other non-northeastern or mid-Atlantic state, spending weeks in each, and never encounter a Millenial with a hyphenated mother’s-last-name/father’s-last-name last name. Yet people with those last names are heavily represented in the student body of the most prestigous and expensive private colleges and universities, and in the upper-tier print news media and other no-one-but-people-with-upscale-backgrounds-need-apply professional circles.
To spell it out further: It’s about elitism. It’s about putting a neon sign on your kid that is intended to shout: “Upscale.” “From erudite, highly-educated family.” Exactly the way, back in the early and mid-20th Century, the New England boarding prep schools, the Ivy League, the banking industry, the State Department, and ALL the other pillars of wealth and privilege were stocked with names like McGeorge Bundy, Erskine Bowles, Fill-in-the-Blanks-Wasp-Last-Name-As-First-Name.
I have a hard time understanding why post generation boomers are so negative about us. We cared about the poor, protested unnecessary wars, protested corruption and actually gave a shit about racism and the environment. Along with women’s rights. And for this we are vilified? It seems the right wing has been allowed to change the narrative to cast us as a bunch of stoned welfare recipients. I am a boomer and I kept my name because we moved to Alaska and I wanted my friends from the Bay Area and Madison to be able to find me . My kids are named after my husband. It honestly did not seem to matter. At any rate, I am really proud to be of my generation. I only hope that the generations to come eventually emulate us. Sheila
yes, she IS mad…
i has given a thought to trying to convey that message, but i couldnt figure out how to do it limited by the constraints of a short tweet…
And you think my post is about women who keep their married names after they marry, WHY EXACTLY, Sheila?
Let me spell it out: This post is people WHO GIVE THEIR KIDS a last name that is: the mother’s last name, a hyphen, father’s last name. This is a tiny segment of upscale people, almost all of them with degrees from fancy universities and from or currently living in a large metro upper-Atlantic coast area. I suspect that you could travel throughout, say, Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico, and almost every other non-northeastern or mid-Atlantic state, spending weeks in each, and never encounter a Millenial with a hyphenated mother’s-last-name/father’s-last-name last name. Yet people with those last names are heavily represented in the student body of the most prestigous and expensive private colleges and universities, and in the upper-tier print news media and other no-one-but-people-with-upscale-backgrounds-need-apply professional circles.
To spell it out further: elitism. It’s about putting a neon sign on your kid that is intended to shout: “Upscale.” “From erudite, highly-educated family.” Exactly the way, back in the early and mid-20th Century, the New England boarding prep schools, Ivy League, the banking industry, the State Department, and ALL the other pillars of wealth and privilege were stocked with names like McGeorge Bundy, Erskine Bowles, Fill-in-the-Blanks-Wasp-Last-Name-As-First-Name.
Make that: “This post is about people who ….”
Speaking as a combination WASP/hillbilly, I thought the post was really funny.
Now I will get hate mail from the Hillbilly Defamation League.
Could everyone quit being so defensive and enjoy a little humor?
ok, beverly, then how to you explain george walker bush? seems he lost a middle name between generations, as his father was george herbert walker bush…
In defense of Sheila, I think there is an element of the hyphenated last names that grew out of independent women rebelling against the custom of taking their husband’s last names. I know that was my wife’s rationale. And yes she wanted to hyphenate our daughters’ last names and I said no mainly because of Beverly’s point of where does it all end? Both daughters are highly educated, but not at Ivy league schools which even with 2 professional level incomes for much of their childhood we could not have afforded without financial assistance. As it is both daughters have paid for a good portion of their post B.A./ B.S. educations. I expect at least one to take her fiancé’s name when they get married next year. What the other one will do–including whether she will ever marry– is anyone’s guess. I also know that even after almost 37 years of marriage my wife and I still encounter hassles because our last names are different.
This is one of those threads I really hope doesn’t get dug up by archaeologists 3000 years from now.
“The sharp decline in intelligence occurring in early 21st Century Usa Culture is evidenced by the following…”.
sufferin:
Oh please feel free to take Bev on this topic. I am sure she is up to it. Good luck.
Hey Bev:
On the side I have a story to tell on middle names.
No Bev, the hyphen is not indicative of the high brow set. As noted above, George Walker Bush and his father before him took on the name of Uncle Herb, but note that there is no hyphen. The name is a middle name that is then rarely used by the high brow set. I think its there to denote lineage. Didn’t the Kennedys do the same with Fitzgerald?
The hyphenated names are there to declare that the mother is equally responsible for the foal. It’s similar to what is done by breeders of pure bred animals, as in out of Seitz, by Wald. Maybe its an educated feminist thing. And it is just one long surname.
I don’t see the connection to peculiar first names. Erskine Bowles isn’t Erskine because of his mother’s name. Nor is McGeorge Bundy named for his mother’s tribe. Both are out of the ordinary as first names go, but seem to have no connection to anyone’s surname. And Bowles is too old to have been named for Carl Erskine. Go know where these things originate.
Sorry to disappoint, rjs–he’s my one follower on Twitter–but Tweeting really, really isn’t my thing. I think it’s a fine forum if you’re, say, trying to overthrow a Middle Eastern dictatorship, but since I have no immediate or intermediate plans to try to do that, I hope never to have to Tweet again.
It is not where my talents, such as they are, lie—as evidenced by the fact that I can’t even figure out how to remove the profile Twitter now has for me that says I’m, among other things, a rocket scientist and big Giants fan. I must have accidentally clicked some set of suggested profile options when I was setting up the account while foaming at the mouth on Tuesday, and when I tried yesterday to remove it, I couldn’t!
Obviously, I flunked the Twitter account-setup-course in the Jet Propulsion Ph.D. program I attended at M.I.T. It’s too late for me to cure that now, but I think I’ll start watching Giants games, just to make the profile more accurate. As soon as I figure out whether my profile means I’m a football fan or instead a baseball fan.
Actually, I flunked the entire Jet Propulsion Ph.D. program. In the interest of full disclosure, I should have made that clear. Don’t want to mislead anyone here.
i dont see where you’re a rocket scientist and big Giants fan, Beverly…unless you have since seen the little gear shaped object on the top twitter bar that allows you to eidt your profile…
and i dont get tweeting either, btw….i tried it a few years back and found i spent more time trying to consoldate what i had to say. even about links, into 140 characters than anything else…but for some i know, that’s all they do…go figure…
OMG! I just checked, and I’m no longer a rocket scientist or a Giants fan! I have no idea how they managed to get NASA to fire me, and confiscated my Giants T-shirt and cap.
Seriously, that’s really weird. In just a few hours my entire identity changed–to nothing–without me doing a thing.
who knows how those thing happen anymore, beverly..
maybe in monitoring comments here at AB, agents at the NSA noticed your objection to the profile you were saddled with, and forwarded your complaint to twitter collaborators, who then fixed it while you werent watching…
Yeah. Thanks to Snowden, we now know what “the invisible hand” REALLY means.
Over towards here (in the UK) hyphenation is a sign of extreme upper classness as high ranking mothers were noted along with lower ranking fathers. South of there in Spain, everyone has two last names, but, sad to say the point was to make it clear that neither mom nor dad was a converted Moslem or (gasp) Jew. Finally right here in Italy, hyphenated last names are basically proof of Anarchist ancestry. They were imposed when mother and father weren’t married but the father acknowledged the child. This back in the day when anarchists were the only men who refuse to marry but insisted on recognising their children. Now no problemo the child has the father’s name*.
By the way, Mann is not quite as Jewish a name as Seitz. I mean wowwww Mann cosmic, I dig it really I do, but I mean how did that happen Mannnnnn ?
* whether he agrees or not and there in lies an extremely long and boring tale. Our elder daughter was born in the USA and was named Marina Addis (her mother’s name — I’m a radical feminist – and – hate – hyphens Then our younger daughter Katharine was born in Italy. So she had to be named Katharine Waldmann (typical Italian name). But then we (and Marina) discovered that lo Stato Italiano had renamed Marina Addis Marina Waldmann. So now she is US citizen Marina Addis and Italian citizen Marina Waldmann.