School board member in Massachusetts used anti-Semitic slur on live TV

[Behind the Aegis]

A school board member in Lowell, Massachusetts, called a former school district leader a “kike” on live television, spurring calls for his resignation.

Bob Hoey should step down from the Lowell School Committee, the mayor of the Boston suburb said.

“We lost the kike, oh, I mean, the Jewish guy,” Hoey said Wednesday morning on “City Life,” a news opinion show, according to video posted by the local Jewish Journal. “I hate to say it, but that’s what people used to say behind his back.”

Hoey, an elected official in the city of 111,000, was referring to Gary Frisch, the former CFO of the Lowell Public Schools.

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Sounds about right.

[Aristus]

1. The childish, pretend slip-of-the-tongue is a popular tactic with them.

I once had a guy say to me "Happy Nig- Oh! I meant Martin Luther King Day!" and then hee-hee-hee like he had said something witty...

[brush]

2. Force this dumb ass' resignation asap. How stupid can you get.

[CurtEastPoint]

3. He resigned.

https://www.lowellsun.com/2021/02/26/lowell-school-committee-member-robert-hoey-apparently-resigns-on-facebook-live-post/

[Behind the Aegis]

4. That "apology" is beyond pathetic, but par for the course for those types.

[Mike 03]

5. Ghastly.

We are so far beyond "dog whistle" we might as well relegate that too-genteel euphemism to the trash bin.

The sickest thing about the open racism/antisemitism/Islamophobia/anti-LGBT ism is that they now believe this is how you get voted into office. So we've moved into something some of us have never seen before, at least in the U.S. It's really sickening beyond belief.

[Solly Mack]

6. Damn.

Good he resigned.

But, still...damn.

[The Blue Flower]

7. I've often wondered the etymology of that word

I didn't know bigots still used it.

[ChubbyStar]

9. Here you go

kike (n.)
derogatory slang for "a Jew," by 1901, American English; early evidence supports the belief that it was used at first among German-American Jews in reference to newcomers from Eastern Europe, perhaps because the names of the latter ended in -ki or -ky.

There is no charity organization of any kind here [a small city in Pennsylvania] and, what is sadder to relate, the Jews in this city will not form one; that is, if the present temper of the people can be used as a criterion. The German Jews are bitterly opposed to the "Kikes," as they persist in calling the Russian Jews .... ["Report of the National Conference of Jewish Charities in the United States," Cleveland, 1912]

Philip Cowen, first editor of "The American Hebrew," suggests a source in Yiddish kikel "circle." According to him, Jewish immigrants, ignorant of writing with the Latin alphabet, signed their entry forms with a circle, eschewing the customary "X" as a sign of Christianity. On this theory, Ellis Island immigration inspectors began calling such people kikels, and the term shortened as it passed into general use.

[The Blue Flower]

10. Thank you

I can't believe it's still in use. So stupid.

[Behind the Aegis]

11. It's more common than you might think.

About 12 years ago, in New Orleans, I was called a "Yid". That was surprising; not that I was called an anti-Semitic slur, it's happened a few times, but that particular slur is almost exclusive to Europe and NYC. "Kike" is the most used word, and I think is followed by "Heeb", which I have heard in a few places, but outside of articles and stories from family, up until it happened to me, I had never heard "Yid" used in real life. Well, I said "kike" was most popular, but it is probably a nasty hiss of "Jew" or that word being used as an adjective, that is the most common anti-Semitic slur.

[rickyhall]

8. Now, leave town.