"who now walk with seeming ease through the corridors of wealth and power, " More about what it's like to walk through the corridors of wealth and power - getting an offer for a contract job at a local tech company, coming here from CA, arriving on the first day, only to find that the job didn't exist because the people who hired me weren't authorized to hire anyone. Then when the manager returned from vacation, he refused to talk to me. At group meetings, he went around the table and passed over me. When I presented my results and gave them to him in writing, he refused to read it. When a new project leader was hired, there was a layoff notice on my desk. Oh, and they tried to tell me I had to buy a $10,000 computer for the job, and that I could put it on a credit card. Here's another example of dark skinned Jewish women walking through the corridors of power: a male from Australia given a teaching assistantship and my not being treated as an equal, and having to take a teaching assistantship in another subject. Or being bullied by white Anglo students in graduate school to the point where I changed advisers and my topic. Or another example, attending a public math lecture at the Institute of Advanced Studies, with two men from France sitting next to me, talking in French about how this woman (me) could be there, and asking what I could possibly know about this subject, not realizing that I could understand everything they were saying in French. Or winning a fellowship to study in Japan for a year, only to have it rescinded after a Japanese professor in the US asked them to award it to his male student., whose music composition project was about murdering people, whereas my project was about computers and signal processing. Or winning a fellowship to study in Korea for a summer, only to turn it down because it wasn't a 100% fellowship and nothing would have replaced my hourly wages from a summer job. Or a job at a large company in NJ, when two white Anglo men mentioned their salaries, which were $20,000 more than mine, with the same job and the same education level. So please don't erase the life stories of Jewish women with dark skin who come from the other side of the tracks, the students who didn't have parents paying for their college or even emotionally supporting them, the people without inheritance or trust funds or houses. Or teaching at four community colleges in New Jersey, but not one community college here even calling me in for an interview - that's hatred, not privilege and power. Perhaps some Jews have enjoyed advantages, but these generalizations, and the failure to count the hiring and promotion of Jews just as Hispanic and Black workers are counted by HR offices, has damaged and seriously damages our lives. Now Black and Hispanic women know their labor statistics, but Jewish women were denied that. At the very least, our community should acknowledge how privileged we are not, how everything is a struggle, and how you have to work much harder to achieve a tenth of what comes automatically to the majority culture. And many Jewish women struggle with being able to walk at all, let alone through the corridors of power. A whole generation of Jewish women in the US is going into old age alone and with no support system. This is how we walk through the corridors of wealth and power.
Anyone who thinks we walk through the corridors of professional life easily doesn't know what it's like to be a Jewish woman who isn't wealthy in R&D in the tech industry, even to have a Jewish person offer you some hourly gig economy contracting, but not the principal engineer role. Or to have a Jewish science professor offer and promise you a job and announce it to his lab, but then never follow though with the paperwork, primarily because you are competent enough to be a threat to the postdoc on the project. Or to have a rabbi say to you that you can clean houses when you have a Master's degree in engineering from the top school in the US. Or to get a layoff notice in your contract job from a Chinese director when you say you will be out for Rosh Hashanah, because bosses think that you're really going to a job interview and don't understand our holidays. Or to go to a job fair and have the female recruiter from India not talk to you regardless of how qualified you are. Or to teach at 4 community colleges in NJ and have not one community college here even offer an interview. Or to see white, Christian men with the same level of education and experience I have easily get Research Scientist 3 or 4 at UW, while I was never able to get a job. Or to be interviewed at a large company in Silicon Valley and have the interviewer say, "I will work on the algorithms and you will do the software." Or to move here for a contract job with papers from a national staffing agency and show up on the first day of work only to find that there is no job because the people who hired me weren't authorized to hire anyone, and the manager returning from vacation refusing to have a conversation. Or to be undermined by another women playing little tricks when that would not happen to a male. So privileged and walking so easily through the corridors of power.
"We are an extremely privileged group. " Yes, we have experienced privilege in being able to walk down the street and not harassed by the police. I will admit that part of it. As a Jewish woman with dark skin, from a poor family, and a survivor of child abuse, I am tired of hearing how privileged we are or that we walk easily in professional corridors. My entire life experience has been completely the opposite. My father worked for the IRS. All of his money was spent taking care of my grandfather in a nursing home for a long period of years. My high school was predominantly Jewish. There were 1100 people in my graduating class. Only about 20 people went on to a top college out of 1100 students. Most of the men got drafted into the Vietnam war. But we never seem to mention all of those Jewish veterans who came from poor families. I worked part time and all summer during college. I never had full time for studying. I was the best student in my class year in elementary school. The Jewish woman who was the best student in the year before mine went on to become ... a dating coach. Yes, zip code does determine your future. My mother undermined my college applications and viciously kept me from the colleges of my choice. I hard dark skin and a poor family, so, before the liberal movements of 1968, I didn't get into any of the Jewish sororities at Penn, so I was deprived of meeting Jewish boys who weren't gay. Being dark skinned and poor, I was never able to meet or marry the kind of educated man I wanted to marry. I lost the opportunity for marriage and children. I never had the Jewish family life I wanted to have and build. That's how the East Coast "marriage market" works. Blond hair and white skin were considered more prestigious. The issue isn't opposing marrying whom you love, the issue is that it was considered less prestigious to marry someone who looked like me and didn't come from money, even if it meant coming from a law enforcement family without corruption. Look at the education Jewish women have. Look at the jobs we have. The Jewish community doesn't get jobs for its people the way the Catholics or LDS community network. I was able to maintain home ownership for about 7 years in NJ. In 2013, the Pew Charitable Trust said that 40% of American Jews don't own a home. It also showed that the workforce non-participation rate was about 32%. That is a different measure than the unemployment rate. It is more accurate. The recent Pew survey said that 10% of US Jews earn less than $32,000 per year. It didn't include home ownership statistics. the discrimination is blatant in graduate school, where the old boy network of white, Christian men, many European, talk on the phone and at conferences and promote their proteges, and women and minorities are marginalized. Being dark and Jewish is an intersection of being a woman and a minority, and it hits you harder. I didn't have enough money to finish my doctorate. None of the Jewish students in my program and from my school went on to an actual tenure track faculty position. Somehow, my white, Christian male classmates there and at previous schools ended up in tenure track faculty positions and have the respect of being a professor. You don't get the advising, the encouragement, the things to put on your resume that get you to the next step in your career. I had to turn down fellowships I won because they were only partial fellowships and didn't pay 100% of the expenses. I am well aware that Black students often had it worse. But now, no one is willing to admit that Jews also suffer poverty and discrimination. So there is the double curse of being underprivileged through life, while being told we are privileged.
"who now walk with seeming ease through the corridors of wealth and power, " More about what it's like to walk through the corridors of wealth and power - getting an offer for a contract job at a local tech company, coming here from CA, arriving on the first day, only to find that the job didn't exist because the people who hired me weren't authorized to hire anyone. Then when the manager returned from vacation, he refused to talk to me. At group meetings, he went around the table and passed over me. When I presented my results and gave them to him in writing, he refused to read it. When a new project leader was hired, there was a layoff notice on my desk. Oh, and they tried to tell me I had to buy a $10,000 computer for the job, and that I could put it on a credit card. Here's another example of dark skinned Jewish women walking through the corridors of power: a male from Australia given a teaching assistantship and my not being treated as an equal, and having to take a teaching assistantship in another subject. Or being bullied by white Anglo students in graduate school to the point where I changed advisers and my topic. Or another example, attending a public math lecture at the Institute of Advanced Studies, with two men from France sitting next to me, talking in French about how this woman (me) could be there, and asking what I could possibly know about this subject, not realizing that I could understand everything they were saying in French. Or winning a fellowship to study in Japan for a year, only to have it rescinded after a Japanese professor in the US asked them to award it to his male student., whose music composition project was about murdering people, whereas my project was about computers and signal processing. Or winning a fellowship to study in Korea for a summer, only to turn it down because it wasn't a 100% fellowship and nothing would have replaced my hourly wages from a summer job. Or a job at a large company in NJ, when two white Anglo men mentioned their salaries, which were $20,000 more than mine, with the same job and the same education level. So please don't erase the life stories of Jewish women with dark skin who come from the other side of the tracks, the students who didn't have parents paying for their college or even emotionally supporting them, the people without inheritance or trust funds or houses. Or teaching at four community colleges in New Jersey, but not one community college here even calling me in for an interview - that's hatred, not privilege and power. Perhaps some Jews have enjoyed advantages, but these generalizations, and the failure to count the hiring and promotion of Jews just as Hispanic and Black workers are counted by HR offices, has damaged and seriously damages our lives. Now Black and Hispanic women know their labor statistics, but Jewish women were denied that. At the very least, our community should acknowledge how privileged we are not, how everything is a struggle, and how you have to work much harder to achieve a tenth of what comes automatically to the majority culture. And many Jewish women struggle with being able to walk at all, let alone through the corridors of power. A whole generation of Jewish women in the US is going into old age alone and with no support system. This is how we walk through the corridors of wealth and power.
Anyone who thinks we walk through the corridors of professional life easily doesn't know what it's like to be a Jewish woman who isn't wealthy in R&D in the tech industry, even to have a Jewish person offer you some hourly gig economy contracting, but not the principal engineer role. Or to have a Jewish science professor offer and promise you a job and announce it to his lab, but then never follow though with the paperwork, primarily because you are competent enough to be a threat to the postdoc on the project. Or to have a rabbi say to you that you can clean houses when you have a Master's degree in engineering from the top school in the US. Or to get a layoff notice in your contract job from a Chinese director when you say you will be out for Rosh Hashanah, because bosses think that you're really going to a job interview and don't understand our holidays. Or to go to a job fair and have the female recruiter from India not talk to you regardless of how qualified you are. Or to teach at 4 community colleges in NJ and have not one community college here even offer an interview. Or to see white, Christian men with the same level of education and experience I have easily get Research Scientist 3 or 4 at UW, while I was never able to get a job. Or to be interviewed at a large company in Silicon Valley and have the interviewer say, "I will work on the algorithms and you will do the software." Or to move here for a contract job with papers from a national staffing agency and show up on the first day of work only to find that there is no job because the people who hired me weren't authorized to hire anyone, and the manager returning from vacation refusing to have a conversation. Or to be undermined by another women playing little tricks when that would not happen to a male. So privileged and walking so easily through the corridors of power.
"We are an extremely privileged group. " Yes, we have experienced privilege in being able to walk down the street and not harassed by the police. I will admit that part of it. As a Jewish woman with dark skin, from a poor family, and a survivor of child abuse, I am tired of hearing how privileged we are or that we walk easily in professional corridors. My entire life experience has been completely the opposite. My father worked for the IRS. All of his money was spent taking care of my grandfather in a nursing home for a long period of years. My high school was predominantly Jewish. There were 1100 people in my graduating class. Only about 20 people went on to a top college out of 1100 students. Most of the men got drafted into the Vietnam war. But we never seem to mention all of those Jewish veterans who came from poor families. I worked part time and all summer during college. I never had full time for studying. I was the best student in my class year in elementary school. The Jewish woman who was the best student in the year before mine went on to become ... a dating coach. Yes, zip code does determine your future. My mother undermined my college applications and viciously kept me from the colleges of my choice. I hard dark skin and a poor family, so, before the liberal movements of 1968, I didn't get into any of the Jewish sororities at Penn, so I was deprived of meeting Jewish boys who weren't gay. Being dark skinned and poor, I was never able to meet or marry the kind of educated man I wanted to marry. I lost the opportunity for marriage and children. I never had the Jewish family life I wanted to have and build. That's how the East Coast "marriage market" works. Blond hair and white skin were considered more prestigious. The issue isn't opposing marrying whom you love, the issue is that it was considered less prestigious to marry someone who looked like me and didn't come from money, even if it meant coming from a law enforcement family without corruption. Look at the education Jewish women have. Look at the jobs we have. The Jewish community doesn't get jobs for its people the way the Catholics or LDS community network. I was able to maintain home ownership for about 7 years in NJ. In 2013, the Pew Charitable Trust said that 40% of American Jews don't own a home. It also showed that the workforce non-participation rate was about 32%. That is a different measure than the unemployment rate. It is more accurate. The recent Pew survey said that 10% of US Jews earn less than $32,000 per year. It didn't include home ownership statistics. the discrimination is blatant in graduate school, where the old boy network of white, Christian men, many European, talk on the phone and at conferences and promote their proteges, and women and minorities are marginalized. Being dark and Jewish is an intersection of being a woman and a minority, and it hits you harder. I didn't have enough money to finish my doctorate. None of the Jewish students in my program and from my school went on to an actual tenure track faculty position. Somehow, my white, Christian male classmates there and at previous schools ended up in tenure track faculty positions and have the respect of being a professor. You don't get the advising, the encouragement, the things to put on your resume that get you to the next step in your career. I had to turn down fellowships I won because they were only partial fellowships and didn't pay 100% of the expenses. I am well aware that Black students often had it worse. But now, no one is willing to admit that Jews also suffer poverty and discrimination. So there is the double curse of being underprivileged through life, while being told we are privileged.