An anti-Semitic good morning for Professor Ceiling Cat

March 8, 2015 • 1:58 pm

When Robin Ince asked me last night (offstage) what was the most common trope in the hate mail I get about religion or atheism, I had to think for a minute, and then decided it was stuff calling attention to and making fun of my Jewish background: phrases like “dirty Jew” and the like. Coincidentally, when I got to work this morning, I found this lovely email waiting for me—from one “Nathan Hull”:

Mr [not Professor]* Coyne
“Your” people have been stealing University spots from Asian-Americans and others for decades. That girl’s spot should have been taken by a Chan or Singh (or even a Khan). It’s time that US colleges stopped taking bribes from stockbrokers to allow their mediocre offspring onto campuses to waste billions of dollars that should be spent on more deserving people.
*you’ll get your title back when you stop whining (and posting videos of cats eating watermelons)

I presume that by “that girl” he means Rachel Beyda, the UCLA student who was initially rejected for a post on the UCLA student judiciary committee because she was Jewish.

Can there be any more stereotypical view of Jews than to call them “my people,” to imply that Jews are somehow buying their way into college campuses, and that there are inflated Jewish quotas on campuses. I’m sure at least one reader will be thinking that is is a joke, but really—who would try to make a joke like that?

Well, this person is a vile anti-Semite, though I don’t need reminders that these sentiments are alive and well. But they don’t much bother me, because I’m not upset by invective from loons like this. But what really stings is the comment on cats!

84 thoughts on “An anti-Semitic good morning for Professor Ceiling Cat”

  1. The opprobrium of persons such as Nathan Hull is a greater reward than their approbation.

  3. What can you say about that bit of tripe, not much, brain of a pea (and a mushy one at that) comes to mind.

  4. No, it’s not worth getting upset at loons like this, they can be dismissed because we know they are ignorant or bitter. It does though, get awfully tiring, doesn’t it?

  5. The part that struck me as the most bizarre is that “Nathan Hull” seems to be the nom-de-plume of an asian supremacist. It takes all types, I guess.

    1. And, to make that even funnier, Israel is technically part of the Asian continent, so “Your people”, as Hull put it, are Asians, too!

  6. Idiots like “Nathan Hull” are incredibly clueless, and not just because they are bigots. The idea that good students can’t get into good colleges because less deserving “stockbroker mediocrities” or “affirmative action babies” are taking the few available slots is one that any major state university instructor of freshmen will laugh at. The problem we have, even well up the academic food chain, is the large number of students whose admission had nothing to do with any special preferences who are academically DOA. They can’t write coherent sentences, let alone paragraphs. They can’t spell. Their reading comprehension is sometimes so poor, you realize that it isn’t just the chemistry in their textbook they are having trouble with (if they bother to read it at all), it is the 10th grade reading level at which their textbook is written. Some are mystified that you expect them to comprehend ninth grade algebra – and some of them aspire to be engineers!

    1. Too true. I tutor some of them at the high school level and cannot make them see the light. Those are the students who tend not to last long, because I tend not to tell them how wonderful they are just as they are.

    2. People can “aspire” to all kinds of things, it’s the lack of connection between aspiration and hard work that eludes them all too often

    3. Hmm. Sounds similar to a Yale legacy grad who goes on to Harvard business school, then becomes a state governor and then President of the United States.

    1. I think there was one (but only one), and that must have been a long time ago. On the other hand, there may be another video of a cat eating cantaloupe. As the British say, I can’t be arsed to look, but you can search for “watermelon” if you’re desperately curious.

        1. Whew! For second I was thinking he meant the porcupine eating a pumpkin and thought this guy *really* needs to pick up a book. Hiwever, then there is even less explanation for his stupidity.

          1. Come on, that would be too far, even for an anti-Semite. Everyone loves a porcupine eating pumpkin.

  8. Prof, I think this is even mild. I didn’t know how much hate you generate until a few days ago I saw a post where the author wrote things that are unprintable. It is, to me, really sad.

  9. I am almost laughing at the idea of Jews getting preference in enrolling in universities. Almost laughing. I am old enuf to remember that there was a quota on Jews getting into the Univ of Michigan. Meaning only so many Jews could enroll.

    1. That’s the impression I had from hearing about Jewish friends’ parents.

      Speaking of quotas, and since it’s International Women’s Day, Stanford had a quota for women when I attended in the 60s. It was something like 3 or 4:1, men:women.

      2. When I was a student, it struck me how there were no females in the pictures that hung in hallowed halls.

        1. In 1984 I interviewed at Hopkins. When they took me to an unmemorable dinner at the faculty club, they told me that women had only just been admitted to the club, which astonished me.

    2. I hesitate to weigh in with this quote because I do not wish to sound like I have an issue with it, but as a UCLA alum I can tell you there is no under-representation of individuals of Asian descent or nationality. A very close Japanese-American friend says UCLA stands for “University of Caucasians Lost among Asians.” UCLA has a very, proudly diverse student body.

      2. The west coast has always had a larger population of Asian people; very noticeable after I moved to the east. Also, when native Asians send their kids to school in the US, most of them tend to end up on the west coast, too.

        A few decades ago, there were some proposals to limit Asian university enrolment, as they so out-competed Americans. Happily that didn’t gain much traction.

        But now all-things Asian seems to be the latest fad.

    3. Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto owes it’s existence to the fact that Jewish doctors were refused residencies in other hospitals.

      The Toronto Island Yacht Club was founded in 1951 by a small group of Jewish sailing enthusiasts who could not gain admittance in other local yacht clubs.

      According to an article by Pierre Berton published in Maclean’s Magazine on November 1, 1948: “Segregation by race at which Canadians are apt to look askance when it is practiced in the southern United States, is just as strong in the Canadian social world as it is in the economic world. There are golf clubs which make no bones about the fact that they won’t accept Jewish members, college fraternities and sororities, which exclude Jewish students. Members of these clubs have argued that in private, social organizations they should be allowed to choose the people they associate with.”

      McGill University and the University of Toronto imposed quotas on Jewish students into the 1960s.

      In 1930s Toronto signs in store windows and in the city’s Beaches neighborhood read “No Dogs or Jews Allowed”.

      2. What a bunch of jerks. I’m glad things have changed. I still don’t like Masons because women aren’t allowed in and secret societies freak me out. My friend spat on the steps of the Scottish Rite in Hamilton (the Mason head quarters). Back then he looked like a hippy Jesus so I’m surprised he wasn’t persued by someone inside. 🙂

  10. Unfortunately, the bigger the following you command, the greater the number of cranks and loons who attack you for no good reason.

    Sigh…sorry you got this.

  11. I know you are pretty tough, but what an awful message to get after a great Saturday night (or anytime). I am sorry there are people out there that think like this, Jerry. To cheer myself up I am going to search your site for those melon eating cats! And, I cannot wait to hear The Infinite Monkey series!

      1. Thanks for your effort. I had missed that one too!

        I thought Mr. Hull might have been thinking about the watermelon eating opossums. That one stuck in my brain because the critters chewed the melon very, very thoroughly.

  13. Sorry you have to deal with e-mail like that from Nathan “I regret that I have but one brain cell to give for my country” Hull.
    Here in California I recall the complaint some years ago being that Asians were taking too many places at the University of California: I guess there will always be resentment against those who succeed, and it’s just a question of what feature you complain about – physical features or religion.

    1. Reminds me of my great aunt – in East Tennessee – in the early 70’s griping that “the blacks were taking over.” (As if they were acting too white, apparently.)

    2. “…Nathan “I regret that I have but one brain cell to give for my country” Hull.”

      LOL!

  14. Before I went happily faith-free, I’d visit various religious chat rooms, particularly the Jewish ones (the Catholic/Jewish forums tended to have more interesting discussions).

    The bizarre vitriol I witnessed against both secular and religious Jews literally made me gasp. I still remember it. It’s true that unless one lives in a cave, we all see acts of monstrosity in the world but I have to say that witnessing the chat room bombs in Jewish forums was one of the first experiences that made me worried for our species.

    It’s nasty out there.

    Mike

    1. Your experience is impressive. Few who aren’t targets of a particular prejudice get a realistic grasp of how bad it is, and that includes the targetting of Jews.

    2. Here’s an aspect of Internet trolls that might actually be worse than being racist: I suspect many are not honestly expressing deeply-held opinions, they are simply repeating tropes they think will cause others the most hurt and offense. Not that racists are not haters, of course – but a sincere racist is also stating what he thinks is true, and often the hurt inflicted is a secondary benefit of racial one-upmanship; a hating hater is just being cruel.

      Either way, I’m glad I’ve never spent any time in a forum that doesn’t diligently cull hateful comments and ban haters. I don’t need that kind of “negative energy” in my life.

  15. you’ll get your title back when you stop whining (and posting videos of cats eating watermelons)

    I wonder how many professors would lose their titles if posting cat videos and “whining” somehow counted against their academic qualifications. Quite a few, I should think.

    Ah well, at least these half-baked rants of bigotry are amusingly stupid.

    1. That got me wondering: Might there be a correlation between cool cat-owning professors (intelligence, independence, ethics, etc.) vs. wound up, dog-owning, dogmatic, black or white, rigid thinking, redundantly narrow-minded idiots who must have props (religious, religio-political, prejudicial, etc.) to lean on or they can’t even think to stand?

      1. That is cruel and unfair to those of us dog owners who are cool intellectuals.

        1. Yes, and I apologize. As an all around animal lover, I playfully play up the cat lover part and play down the dog lover part. I only really hate dog drool.

      2. More likely professors would own cats because it means not leaving your research lab every five hours to give the pet a walk. 🙂

  16. It sounds to my ear that his grumbling complainer is chronically envious of those who achieve something he can’t.

  17. The folks who claim not to understand why TEH ATHEISTS IZ SO AGNRY (I said “folks” right? Sometimes I slip.) might take a peek at what an atheist shares of his mailbag. I’ll bet Ryan Bell gets some humdingers.

    A more honest question might be “Why aren’t atheists more angry than they are?” The answer to which is but another clue to why the rationalist mentality is healthier than the faith-y one: in short, it’s easier to move on when one can accept that a person is emotionally damaged and not a demon to be feared or vanquished.

    Moving on (though hoping Mr. I-call-you-mister changes his tune before someone kicks his ass) …

  18. In a way that’s quite an achievement by “Nathan Hull” — to write an email in which a demand to stop posting videos of cats eating watermelon is the *least* ridiculous thing in it.

  20. LOL… What I know is Jewish kids doing very well at school, there were quota to limit Jewish get into many top universities. Of course I think many people know the situation better what I do. My message is only for the clueless. One shall not using one special case as a group pattern.

  21. Did this Nathan Hull say if he was an official member of the KKK or just wanted in when there was an opening…..

  23. I’ve simply never understood racism. I used to watch documentaries about people like white supremacists all the time trying to understand where the hatred came from. I couldn’t work it out, although of course I know all the theories about fear of the unknown etc.

    I view people like this with contempt and consider them pathetic. I’m sorry you were subjected to this Jerry. I’ve got a small amount as a woman and as an atheist and once, amazingly, for being a NZer from and American. It’s not nice.

    1. Am American didn’t like a Kiwi? Did they mistake you for an Australian like in The Flight of the Concords? 😉

      1. LOL!

        I think it was basically that I wasn’t an American that was the problem. He seemed to be an extreme xenophobe. Lots of Americans jumped in to stick up for NZ and NZers, so that was nice.

  24. I have often wondered about the factors that determine ethnic and “racial” differences. A long time ago, I gave up the notion of human “race”, since we are all clearly genetically compatible as a single species, with fewer differences between one “race” and another than between different breeds of d*gs (which are recognized as a single species).

    Yes, there are ethnic distinctions – there are very few blonde Asians or Africans; in fact, if we were to consider certain visible physical traits (i.e., hair color, eye color), Europeans and their descendants show less consistency than any other segment of the human population.

    That said, to what extent is “Jewish” a religious preference, an ethnicity or a “race”? I have sometimes pondered this, and, since I have a degree in linguistics, and comprehend the similarities among the Semitic languages (which includes Arabic as well as Hebrew) probably indicates an ethnic kinship among the native speakers of those languages. I also know that, from family experience, that sometimes the ones one hates most are one’s closest relatives – the more someone is similar, maybe the easier it is to hate – it causes too much self-reflection, perhaps? My own personal worst enemy is my own sister. Since she is quite a bit older than me, I sincerely hope that her obituary will predate mine, and, in the spirit of Clarence Darrow, I shall read it with great satisfaction.

    So we have to wonder – is anti-Semitism exclusively restricted to Jews? If so, is it on the basis of their religion or their ethnicity? If Arabs are also a Semitic ethnicity, why isn’t anti-Arab sentiment also called anti-Semitism?

    I think that the real problem is how we define “race”, ethnicity and demonize the “other”. At the risk of sounding like a Republican politician, I am not an ethnologist, an anthropologist or a sociologist. I am a linguist and a technical writer, and I have only my own opinions (I hope that they are informed opinions a la Harlan Ellison), but somewhere along the line I would like to see some rational answers along these lines.

    I apoligize for ranting for so long, and welcom constructive comments to the questions I may have raised (but never begged).

    2. “Jewish” seems more of a cultural distinction than a racial or ethnic one. As for hating worst those closest, “Familiarity breeds contempt”, as the old saying goes.

    3. “…hair color, eye color), Europeans and their descendants show less consistency than any other segment of the human population.”

      My father was liberal in many ways. He was most often for the underdog in confrontations and hated to see anyone oppressed. But he had a deep seated racism in that he admired the idea of color diversity. Irish with red hair and freckles was his favorite example. What worried him was the threat that through intermarriage you would eventually lose that diversity. In the distant future everyone would have dark hair and eyes and brown complexion.

      1. I think maybe you are too harsh on him. I know people who regret that the diverse bright-colored embroidered traditional garments that used to be worn in rural areas have been replaced by the universal Western dress code.
        As for the eye color, blue is expected to persist though at a lower frequency (because a single allele in homozygous state suffices to determine blue eyes).

    4. I don’t know what a human race is, and if there is such a thing a at all. If Europeans, Africans and Asians (to use a commonly used notion) are different races, than Jews cannot be a race, because there are Jews from all these races (and also from other human groups with typical physical features).
      I don’t want speak for other Jews (and I suspect that others Jews here will disagree with me), but for me, Judaism is at the same time a religion (this is complicated. If there is one thing which is clear in the Jewish religious law, is that you can be a Jew without believing in anything and without doing anything this law requires), an ethnicity and a culture. They are all interdependent and not well defined in themselves.

      1. Don’t think of ‘races’ as countable things, of course that’s logically wrong (unless you’re partitioning a finite and fixed number of individuals, in which case what’d be the point?) Instead, ‘race’ refers to geographic variation that’s externally obvious, includes some relatively homogeneous areas (and some local boundaries or steep gradients due to varying population growth and historical migrations) and reflects some amount of underlying genetic covariation. Jerry covered this well on a recent post.

          1. The second one certainly has much shorter hair than the first, but other than that, I see no significant differences. They must be the same race.

            That second one: Looks just like a guy who graduated high school a year behind me, named Jonathan Berlinerman. Nice guy, too. Real doppelganger for Dr. Coyne.

          2. “same race” presumes that “race” is a singular count-noun. What did I just say?

  25. We don’t seem to have an issue with anti-Semitism in Australia. The only anti-Semitic views I ever heard was from my father, sadly. He grew up in Holland and was surrounded by anti-semitism so I guess it must have rubbed off. He was otherwise a very humble agreeable friendly person.

    On the other hand, I grew up in multicultural Australia. My group of five friends at school were Australian, Dutch, Italian, Chinese, and Polish. It’s difficult to be a bigot in these circumstances. How can you be anti-Asian (a bigger issue here than anti-semitism) when your friend at school was Chinese.

  26. No subset of humans is special for being “chosen” and no patch of dirt is really more “holy” or “sacred” than any other.
    All people are people, all land is just dirt we live on.

    1. There’s that antisemitic propaganda popping up, again — this time about the “chosen people” thing.

      Raised Jewish, I was taught that we were “chosen” to carry greater responsibility, to look after our communities, our countries, regardless of the religion, race, gender, etc., of others, that all humans were equally important, and so on.

      We were taught that if someone, for example, broke into a home and stole a TV, to sell it either for drugs or to feed his or her family, it was our fault, as we were responsible for seeing to community services to help addicts break free and to help the poor get on their feet.

      Hitch railed against Mother Theresa for believing the poor were supposed to be and stay poor. Not all religions teach helping the poor get out of poverty.

      I could go on, but to the Jewish culture, being chosen is like being the oldest sibling: responsible for setting a good example, held to a higher standard in order to do so. That is why rabbis traditionally turn prospective converts away, a few times, first. After all, who wants to take on greater responsibility, the risk of failing in that responsibility, and anti-semitism to go with it?

    3. As for that “patch of dirt”, what, then, of other tribes? Where do they belong? The Kurds, the Native Americans, the true native Hawaiians, etc.?

      As Ayaan Hirsi Ali pointed out, the issue with Israel is not that it is a modern nation, but that Islam prohibits equality for Jews, and by having a Jewish nation, especially right next door to so many Muslim nations, Jews are demonstrating equality. How dare they?!

      With great courage and tenaciousness, that’s how. It’s a life or death struggle. The Holocaust didn’t happen out of the blue and would not have been able to kill so many Jews, had there been a nation, any nation, willing to take the Jews in. There wasn’t. Now, there is. And now, antisemitism is on the rise, has been, exponentially, for decades, and is becoming more visible in the past few years, internationally. Israel is the haven that America refused to be, as our own Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., makes abundantly clear.

  27. Apparently, this person hasn’t been on the internet long: cats rule the Web! Whining is also allowed, this is your forum, Professor Coyne (and I loved WEIT,BTW). If you are not pissing people off, you’re not challenging enough. There are many more of us who appreciate the daily postings, please carry on and ignore the idiots.

  28. Given this individual’s demonstrably poor language skills, perhaps he meant “winning” when he wrote “whining”.

  29. The fight against the Nathan Hulls of this world is never ending. It is depressingly sad to realize that they will always be with us.

  30. Not that you’re a vengeful person, Jerry, but if “living well is the best revenge” you’ve got that covered in spades: distinguished professor, eminent author, blossoming TV personality, globe trotter, gourmand, commanding a daily readership of hundreds to thousands, winner of the renowned “Emperor Has No Clothes,” “Censor of the Year,” and the “Richard Dawkins” awards…just off the top of my head. 😀

    1. … western boot connoisseur, felid afficionado, and Lord of the Drosophila!

      [Cartoon imagery: PCC in boots, happily high-stepping a la Michael Flatly, feline curled on top his head like Davy Crockett’s coon cap, left hand behind his back, right hand holding steady a tray of flies — each of them dancing in boots, too!]

    1. Nice!

      I think it’s a cultural difference that explains it. Makes me cringe to see or hear propaganda that, for whatever reason, exhibits Judaism as some sort of Christianity light (no Jesus) or Christianity heavy (brutal bible), as though that’s that, hands brushed, all done.

      Culturally, education is started quite young, with questions encouraged rather than stymied, including questioning authority — legitimately, over real concerns.

  33. The thing that amuses me the most about this email, is that the name given (and as most others, I assume it is an affected name), “Nathan,” is a Hebrew name…

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