Really weird column by Peter Beinart about race and racism through the lens of Sephardi (Mediterranean) and Mizrachi (Middle Eastern) Jews.
Granted, olive skinned Middle Eastern Jews are arguably “not as white” as Europeans, but it seems rather stupid to say that they resemble people of mixed African and European ancestry like Obama. Mitt Romney himself is no fair haired boy. Beinart brings some real issues of Israeli racism to the table, but he inflects the discussion with a totally inappropriate American valence. In Beinarts American white frame “people of color” are one, and it is ludicrous that Middle Eastern people of color should exhibit racism toward Sub-Saharan people of color. But on their own terms Middle Eastern people often consider themselves white in relation to Sub-Saharan Africans and South Asians.
This goes to a weird tendency of Western white liberals: take other cultures on their own terms, until you don’t like the outcome, so you unilaterally impose your own “privilege.” Peter Beinart, as a white American, albeit with some Sephardi heritage, has the “creds” to pass judgement on the whiteness of others. So the same white liberals who yank the privilege of whiteness from their elite perch from Mizrachi Jews feel that they can impose whiteness on George Zimmerman, all the better to fit their narrative.