Identities: Race and Religion

 Two of the more idiosyncratic bloggers I follow are University Diaries, written by Margaret Sotan, a GWU English professor, and The Daily Howler, written by Bob Somerby, a retired schoolteacher and Harvard grad. Both have, as my mother might have said, bees in their bonnet. I say Prof. Soltan's are guns, corruption in colleges, and Haridim. Mr. Somerby's are liberal media (particularly on education and statistics) and philosophy.  

Soltan has a post on an article from Mosaic, an online Jewish magazine, describing education in the Haridim schools in New York City.  There seems not to be much education occurring within the schools.  She calls it a cult, and questions its acceptance within American culture.  

Somerby has posts yesterday and today on a NYTimes Magazine piece on Rebecca Hall and an upcoming movie.  He questions whether an individual belongs to a race, and the nature of the linkage. Is it the one-blood rule, is it the context within which the person grows up, or something else? Is there any reality to race?

Seems to me both bloggers are dealing with issues of belonging and identity. If you view, as I do, the bonds between individual and nation as rather rubbery, stretching and contracting depending on the individual and the circumstances, under what circumstances do the links break.  I've no problem with the Amish Americans, even though they end education early and get some special treatment. But Haridi Americans (is that a term) stretch the bonds more, perhaps simply because they have the history here than the Amish do. But for both the Amish and the Haridi the bond between individual and group are voluntary, though as long as one is a member you're subject to group pressure.

Somerby's subject relates to involuntary bonds--you can't choose your grandparents or the cultural context you grow up in.  At least, they used to be involuntary, entirely determined by the community.  It turns out there is choice: first for those whose color is ambiguous, they can "pass", and now for many who can choose which parts of their history they accept.  (Somerby has some fun with the words "Allen whose great great grandfather...", pointing out she had several  great grandfathers (16 to be specific).