Blacks vs Jews, Emcees

On this edition of Black vs Jews, a friendly competition between the groups, we'll examine two emcees. Talib Kweli is my favorite emcees and he's black. 50 Shekel is an emcee and a Jew.

Talib Kweli rhymes about righting injustices, hope in the heart of darkness, and he does it with an angry compassion. He describes himself as a "legendary lyricist, nice-guy persona. My songs celebrate life and you can play them for your mama." 50 Shekel is a Jewish paraody rapper, who isn't as good as Jew Live Crew or Jew Tang Clan. 50 Shekel doesn't describe himself in rhyme.

Kweli says things like, "Even when the condition is critical, when the living is miserable, your position is pivotal, I ain’t bullshitting you." - Get By

50 Shekel says things like, "You can find me in da shul, praying after school. Honey I got the Chevitz if you're jumping in my pool." - In Da Shul

Kweli: “Who needs the chains when you can enslave the mind.” - Time Zone

50 Shekel says, well, let's get some more Kweli lyrics: “In Africa, they’re starving. Over here, the food hurts you. Cows gone mad and the chickens caught the bird flu.” - Eat to Live

Kweli: “No question being a black man is demanding. The fire’s in my eyes and the flames need fanning.” K.O.S. [Determination]

50 Shekel: "The best part is, when I get all these kids who email me, all these adults who email me, I don't feel so much alone as a Jew. Oy." An interview about why he's not an embarrassing stereotype

Kweli: "At exactly which point do you start to realize that life without knowledge is death in disguise." K.O.S. [Determination]

50 Shekel rather awkwardly, somewhat arrogantly, and sort of insultingly states: "When I met an African-American teenage girl who heard my song, she kept on singing the chorus to "In Da Shul" all day. She wanted to know what the words meant, so I explained it to her and she totally got it. Who would ever imagine that an African-American girl from Harlem would get a chance to learn some Yiddish and sing a fun Jewish song with 50 Shekel? I feel that what I'm doing is bridging the gaps between Jews and non-Jews and uniting races."

Kweli: "My heart goes out to everyone at Ground Zero. Red, black, yellow, white, and brown heroes. It's more complicated than black or white. To give your own life is the greatest sacrifice." - The Proud

50 Shekel: "Wait 365 to light my menorah. Spin the dreidel as we read from the Torah." - Chanukah Jam

Kweli: "A flower that grow in the ghetto know more about survival than the one from fresh meadow." - Love Language

50 Shekel has said, "I'm always going to be me and part of being me is being a Jew. So instead of changing everything and hiding from being a Jew, I decided to completely do the opposite, embrace it and not just embrace it, but speak out for our culture. It's about celebrating the culture and celebrating the Jew life." He has since found Jesus and become a Jew for Jesus, who are usually called Christians.

Talib Kweli has something to say about that too, "Taught that if you don’t know Jesus, then you lead a hollow life. Never question that Jesus was Jewish, not a Christian, nor that Christianity was law according to politicians. Who is King James? And why did he think it was so vital to remove chapters and make his own version of the bible?" - Give 'em Hell

The winner is obviously:
Talib Kweli
Overall standings: Blacks 5 Jews 2

Blacks vs Jews, Presidents

In the friendly competition between blacks and Jews, we'll examine the presidents of the United States from each group.











Overall standing: Blacks 4 Jews 2
The fact is every United States president has been a white Christian man. Only three have been homosexual, including one of the last three Republican presidents.

Blacks vs Jews, PTI

In this version of the friendly competition between blacks and Jews, we'll look at the two hosts of the ESPN program Pardon the Interruption, Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser.

Tony Kornheiser is a writer for the Washington Post and an announcer on Monday Night Football.

Michael Wilbon is a writer for the Washington Post and an analyst on ABC's NBA coverage.

I like both the same but different. There will be no winner.

Overall Standings: Black 4 Jews 2

Blacks vs Jews, Diversified Comedians

In the version of the friendly competition between blacks and Jews, we look at my four favorite comedians. who all happened to go on to have their own television show.

In the Jew corner, Jerry Seinfeld and Jon Stewart.

In the black corner, Bill Cosby and Dave Chappelle.

Both Seinfeld and Cosby represented a less overt pride in their people during their respective shows. Their significance lies in subtlety sharing their culture with mainstream America. Stewart and Chappelle have both been able to crossover without needing to use the same subtlety as their forbearers.

Mainstream America and crossing over are code words for white gentiles. These four comedians tricked you into liking them. Gotcha, jerkoffs! They're all Rick James, bitch.

To decide a winner we'll see how long their shows were on air. The Cosby Show was on for 8 seasons. Seinfeld was on for 9 seasons. Chappelle's Show was on for 2 plus seasons. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has been on for like 8 years or so. Anyway you slice it:
The winner is Seinfeld and Stewart.
Overall standings: Blacks 4 Jews 2

Blacks vs Jews, Heroes Rising Above Tragedy

In another installment of our friendly competition between blacks and Jews, we examine two heroes who have risen above the worst tragedy each community has faced. The Jewish representative is Elie Wiesel, a man who survived the Holocaust and has become a voice of triumph. The black representative is Frederick Douglass, a man who overcame slavery and was a powerful voice for the cause of his people.

Elie Wiesel was born in Romania in 1928. When Wiesel was 16 years old he was deported to Auschwitz with his family. The next year he was sent to another concentration camp, Buchenwald (which is one camp my grandfather was probably at as well). After the war ended, Wiesel went to America. He has written 40 books, the most famous of which is Night, a recount of his experiences during the Holocaust.

Frederick Douglass was born enslaved in Maryland in 1818. Douglass eventually escaped slavery when he was 18 years old. He then began fighting to abolish the institution of slavery. Douglass rose to a position of prominence in the United States and played an instrumental part in emancipation and Reconstruction-era government. His most famous book is Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.

These are two amazing people, who have overcome the worst horrors that human beings can inflict on their own kind, and these two men have been able to restore the humanity that their tormentors stripped from them. So how do we decide a winner?

I can think of only one way: most Google hits.

Frederick Douglass 1,730,000 hits, Elie Wiesel 1,350,000 hits.
Overall standings: Blacks 4 Jews 1.

Blacks vs Jews, Congress

In this edition of the friendly competition between blacks and Jews, we look at the current United States Congress. Which group is actually secretly running the world?

There are 13 current Jewish US senators and 30 in the House of Representatives. You can count that glorious Jew from Wisconsin, Russ Feingold, among the senators. One of Maryland's senators, be Cardin, is Jewish. Just like many other Jews, Cardin downplayed his Jewishness during his election run, partly because he wanted the gentiles to actually vote for him and partly because he wanted to get away with celebrating Christmas.

There is 1 current black senator. His name is Barack Obama. There are 43 black members in House of Representatives. John Lewis, the great civil rights activist, ranks among them. Elijah Cummings and Al Wynn are from Maryland.

So the score is Blacks 44 Jews 43. But the Jews have a high percentage compared to their population in America.

So the group that secretly runs the Congress and the winner: the Jews.
Overall standings: Blacks 3 Jews 1

That means that there are 14 senators who are either black or Jewish (out of 100) and 73 representatives in the House (out of 435). That's a powerful total of 87 out of 535. It's fairly clear that the white man should tremble at the feet of that clear majority. Especially since blacks and Jews always agree on everything (maybe we should, or better yet, at least work together).

Blacks vs Jews, Presidential Candidates

This time the friendly competition between Jews and Blacks features a contest between each group's best presidential candidate. The black representative is Barack Obama. The Jew representative is Joe Lieberman.

Joe Lieberman ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2004 (remember?) and Barack Obama is running to be the Democratic nominee for 2008.

Lieberman is an Orthodox Jew from Connecticut who was the only Democratic candidate in 2004 that ran on a pro-Iraq war stance. How'd that work out for you, Joe? Not even his Joe-mentum could garner double-digit support anywhere (except Delaware) with that ideology and his overall unlikeability. By 2006, Lieberman completed (hopefully, for his sake) his stupendous fall- since being Al Gore's hot new vice presidential nominee in 2000- losing his party's primary campaign in his re-election bid to be senator from Connecticut. He eventually won back his seat as an Independent.

Barack Obama is a current senator from Illinois. He has positioned himself as an anti-war candidate willing to engage in dialogue with other world leaders (except his bizarre desire to invade Pakistan, because they haven't gone after Islamic extremists. The fact is Musharraf is in political trouble at home partly because of the exact opposite, for going after extremists to vigorously). While he is still in second place, that's a lot better than Lieberman could have ever dreamed of doing. And keep in mind, it's still very early in the campaign cycle.

Joe Lieberman and Barack Obama have the same amount of delegates won thus far. Unfortunately for Lieberman, his election is over and Obama's hasn't started yet.
So the winner is Barack Obama.
Overall standings: Blacks 3 Jews 0

Blacks vs Jews, Gay Communists

In this version of Blacks vs Jews, a friendly competition between the two groups, we examine the lives of a great gay communist from each community. Bayard Rustin represents blacks while Allen Ginsberg is his Jewish counterpart.

Bayard Rustin was a civil rights acitivist who believed in non-violent methods of eradicating persecution. He was also a gay communist. Allen Ginsberg was a beat poet and avid spokesman for freedom of speech. He was also a gay communist.

Rustin worked closely with the great civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph. He was instumental in the first freedom ride, well before it reached the national consciousness. He was Dr. Martin Luther King's tactical mentor (yep) during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rustin consulted African leaders and was a principle organizer for the 1963 March on Washington. Allen Ginsberg is best known for his poem Howl. he knew the great writer Jack Kerouac. He was a leading voice in protesting the Vietnam war and promoted free speech all around the world. Both fought for gay rights.

So how do we decide who wins? Let's look at their organization affiliations.

Bayard Rustin
YCL - Young Communist League
FOR - Fellowship of Reconciliation
CORE - Congress of Racial Equality
APRI - A. Philip Randolph Institute

Allen Ginsberg
NAMBLA - North American Man/Boy Love Association

Though Ginsberg joined the organization to promote freedom of speech, and not have sex with boys, the outcome becomes clear after reviewing this list.

And the winner is Bayard Rustin.
Overall standings: Black 2 Jews 0

Blacks vs Jews, Baseball

This is the beginning of a new friendly competition between blacks and Jews. I'll pick a topic, then I'll choose a member of each community that fits the description, and finally I'll compare the two.

The best Jewish baseball player (forgive me Hank Greenberg and Ryan Braun in the future) of all time is Sandy Koufax. The best black baseball player of all time is Willie Mays. For today's contest we'll compare their numbers when facing each other. That will give us an objective winner.

Willie Mays batted .263 with 4 homers and 13 RBIs in 96 at bats against Sandy Koufax. That basically amounts to a tie. However, these stats are acording to Baseball-Reference.com, which hasn't accounted for the 1955 and 1956 seasons. Those were Koufax's first two seasons in the majors and he didn't fare well. He was 4-6 in 28 games and around 100 innings pitched. His ERA in 1955 was 3.02 and 4.91 in 1956. During the same period Mays hit .319 with 51 homers and 127 RBIs in 1955 and .296 with 36 homers and 84 RBIs. So Mays gets the edge there.

A fairer way to determine who wins is to look at other known stats, so we don't award a win based on guessing. Mays walked 23 times and only struckout 20 times against Koufax, no small feat. That puts Mays' on base percentage against Koufax at .407, which is quite good. His OPS against was .891 which is above average even today. Keep in mind that pitchers had the advantage during the era that they played, unlike today.

So the winner is Willie Mays.
Overall record: Blacks 1 Jews 0

Join me next time when the topic will be gay communists.