Discussion about families. K made sense of hers in one way - talking about food and rationing and the war and love - and I brought in another angle:
Taking from Richard Dyer's 'White', I ventured that the anglo-saxon white body has a similar relationship to food as it does to sex: an evil necessity, which other 'races' take pleasure from as a mark of their inferiority.
Other 'races' not being able to control their animal or bodily instincts as well as 'white' people.
K hated this, saying that her family is not just some extension of a theory, in other words, they are not raced. She asked how I would like it, if it was reversed. I said I know how it feels. It is reversed all the time. In fact, Jewish people are constantly aware of how others see them, how they are framed and stereotyped. As we are mostly a diaspora people, we are always seeing ourselves through the eyes of others... that's the point.
It's strange thing to do, to race a 'white' person, to point out when they conform to stereotype - or even that they have a stereotype!
I was having a chat the other day with a couple of older colleagues who both have really bad teeth - to the point that they fall out of their mouths!
I said, you know it's an english stereotype... like 'Austin Powers'... They looked blankly at me and quickly moved onto a French stereotype about not washing, talking about how true that stereotype is. I didn't mean to make them feel uncomfortable. I thought it would be ok to talk about it. Afterall, people ask me all the time whether this or that stereotype is true regarding Jewish-ness or Australian-ness or whatever. I'm even asked to speak on behalf of other (minority) ethnicities sometimes.