Comedian Jon Stewart skewered Vice President Joe Biden for using the word “shylock” in a recent speech.
“It is important to remember that as Joe Biden giveth, Joe Biden taketh away,” Stewart began during a segment on Thursday night’s episode of “The Daily Show.” A clip then played of Biden at the Legal Services Corporation’s 40th anniversary conference describing how his son would describe to him the the financial struggles of American soldiers.
“”[P]eople would come to him and talk about what was happening to them at home in terms of foreclosures, in terms of bad loans that were being…I mean these Shylocks who took advantage of, um, these women and men while overseas,” Biden said.
“For those of you who may not know it,” Stewart said. “The Shylocks are not an old school R&B group from the seventies. But in fact are a reference to the steady, greedy Jewish money lender in Merchant of Venice. Oh, which reminds me, f*ck you Shakespeare! F*ck you!”
But that was “a single isolated instance of using outdated racial terminology hardly disqualifies him from —” Stewart continued before cutting himself off and rolling another clip of Biden describing a meeting with a man Biden said is considered “the wisest man in the Orient.”
“Orient? Shylock?” Stewart said. “It’s like Biden hasn’t been out of the house since 1962!”
Watch the clip below:
What? Well, I guess I’ll have find a different word for my ‘Oriental’ rugs…
Occidental/Oriental…
I do love me some unfiltered Smokin’ Joe commentary, but that was dumb and offensive. No excuse for that.
Shylock. Yes.
Oriental. No.
But that’s just me. I don’t use either word…
But do i call some of my other rugs ‘Persian’ or ‘Iranian’…I also have a couple Afghans, one featuring tanks/rocket propelled grenade launchers (from the war against the Russkies) - a ‘period piece’ if you will.
Shylock was a character in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice who happened to be a greedy, shady money lender. He also happened to be a Jew.
Why is it that the term, “Shylock”, as used by Biden, in the context of discussing money lenders, is considered a slap at Jews, rather than a slap at greedy, shady money lenders?
Why does Shylock’s Jewishness trump the fact that, first and foremost, he was an asshole?
I gotta disagree with Stewart on that one. Are we to remove all eponyms associated to Jews from English? If we say someone is a David vs a Goliath, are we inferring that Jews are small and weak? How about Fagin? Is that okay? Portnoy?
I personally find the original Shylock to be a sympathetic character. He made an honest deal, loaning money at a price agreed to by the borrower who then didn’t pay him back. When he tries to get justice, the ruling of the kangaroo court (presided on by the unqualified daughter of the borrower in disguise!) effectively rules against him on the flimsiest of legal arguments.