I say I think for a number of reasons.
You see…I have simply never seen it in action.
In the movies, sure- but not here. Not in my lifetime.
Being a white bread Australian- and not given to keeping people separate into categories according to their race, colour or creed- unless someone is wearing as yarmulke, or has a surname ending in Stein or Bloom or is Woody Allen, I wouldn’t even know a person was Jewish.
I am like a child in this regard.
People think I am kidding; but I am THE SAME WAY with people I was as a child.
And I’m not sure that is such a bad thing.
To me, they were- and still are- just the one species.
Human beings.
I didn’t divide them up into groupings.
I noticed moderate differences in colour, shape, size, accent- all to me VERY minor- but we all did BASICALLY the same things.
Laughed, cried, eat, slept, and went to the toilet.
The girls had Giny’s- the boy’s willies.
As I got older, I noticed little variations in lifestyle choices- sometimes boys wanted to be girls and cut off their willies to do so…
But for the most part, I saw mainly our similarities.
Not our differences.
It is OTHER PEOPLE who seemed to dwell on the differences.
And I noticed they wanted me to.
It is like this obsession with differences made them lonely- & they wanted to find like-minded friends.
But I resisted.
It simply didn’t matter to me.
Even when I was a cop- people boiled down into ‘Good’ & ‘Bad’; or rather- those who broke the law, and those who did not.
Not ‘darkies’, or ‘whites’. ‘chinks’, or ‘wops’. I mean, WTF?
I simply never could get my mind around it.
Apartheid.
Christ.
To them- it was a fucking SCIENCE!
I mean really; when it comes down to the minutiae of racial differentiation…
How can one tell who is what?
In the heat of feverish hate…who can tell Hutu’s from Tutsi? Or Tutu’s from Hutsi’s?
What’s in a name?
What’s in a race???
I just don’t get it.
HOW do you tell- let alone WHY??
Watching ‘Europa Europa’ recently, & in particular the scene where the doctor after careful cranial measurement of the young Jewish infiltrator into the Hitler Youth so proudly declares him to be a fine example of pure Aryan breeding- I remember wondering ‘how on earth could they ever tell who was a Jew who wasn’t?
If this guy couldn’t?
I know there is some business about whether you are circumcised or not- but what of the women?
And…AGAIN…what the hell does this matter??
However- I CAN tell a RACIST.
And I can NOW tell a Jew Hater.
I might not be able to tell a Jew...but I CAN tell an anti-Semite.
Maybe we should ALL meet such a racist. At least once.
Rather than tsk'ing and oozing aaahs as we watch ‘Schindlers List’…sitting in righteous indignation…
Maybe we should ALL get a taste of what it is like to meet a true hater.
That BURN. That sick BURN the experience leaves you with.
Experience it- load it into the sense memory…
& then MOVE on.
Or at least…try to.
Because experiencing first hand racism…
Bigotry against ME for failing to see things HER way…
It changes you.
It has changed me.
A wake up call if you like.
A reminder that NOT ALL is right with the world.
Not everything is peace, love and light.
Hate still flourishes, no matter how much I might try to pretend it does not.
MY JOB is to not allow it to flourish in me.
I am not racist- and not because I am especially morally pure.
It is a mere matter of convenience in this helter skelter modern world.
It always just seemed EASIER to divide people up into NICE…& not so nice.
Who has time for all that bigotry, Swastikas, Jackboots, cross burning, & lynch mobs?
An entire infrastructure built on hate, fear and loathing?
I always found my own survival a full time job without branching out into hatred.
The ONLY time I am aware of bigotry is when the papers or TV tell me to be.
Until now.
Last Friday. ‘Good’ Friday?
I met an Anti-Semite.
I was shocked.
Because it came from someone I have known for some time…and did not realise she was an anti-Semite.
No idea.
So I say I THINK I did…because it has taken me a few hours…DAYS- to come to terms with the fact that I was friends with a closet Jew Hater.
It’s like that stunned silence; ‘did she really say what I thought she said??’
And ‘what else don’t I know about my friends and their secrets?’
It’s not like I have never came up against HATE before.
10 years as a cop, I encountered my fair share. But in the force, there is much to hate.
You wear a uniform and a badge- yr pretty much asking for it.
So you pay your money- you takes your choice.
As a youth, I was hated & beaten by my Father- but I don’t think that is all that uncommon.
Half the planet is an abused child.
I doubt it is the preferred archetypal paternal model.
But I have NEVER been hated for the colour of my skin, my religion, or my sexual orientation.
Or maybe I have been; I just never heard about it.
Hate me by all means…I don’t want to know about it.
Hell, I have hated; but not according to skin or race.
It usually has something to do with the object of my hate being a bastard.
A prick. Or a dickhead.
Never racial.
If I DO have some primal fear of other people from other tribes taking my food…we are not there yet.
Times are not QUITE so desperate for this.
So…it just seems easier to live and let live- separating the good, the bad and the ugly spirited- rather than sequestering people according to their race, colour, creed, etc.
I mean- aside from everything else…
WHY??
I didn’t even know it still existed!
I could no more hate a Jewish person than I could a German.
Can you tell from my photos I have German Blood in me?
Aryan stock??
Why would you care? I don’t!!!!
It doesn’t change my day one goddam iota!
Or how I treat people!
I would no more hate Jews than I would Germans!
For ANY reason!
That would be hating me!!!
Ahhh…wait a second.
Maybe I have hit on something.
Hating others as the deflection of hating oneself?
Hmm.
Speaking of dickheads…
I said I did not even know anti-Semitism still existed.
Perhaps it is just well hidden.
Or perhaps I have a short memory.
On reflection, I thought of something that happened here in Melbourne a few years back, which I had included in a draft of a book I was working on about masculinity.
Excerpt as follows;
Take a posse of local football heroes on a footy trip. Our brave boys attacked one Menachem Vorchheimer, a 33 year old Jewish man, who was walking with his children, aged three and six, along Balaclava Rd, Caulfield, wearing traditional Jewish dress, including a Shabbat hat, when men from the Ocean Grove Football Club who had been at the nearby Caulfield Guineas race meeting yelled taunts including "F... off Jews" and "Go the Nazis" from a mini bus. Mr Vorchheimer approached the minibus when it stopped at a red light to find out whom the group represented. When the lights changed, the bus moved off and two of the players grabbed his hats, the Shabbat and a yarmulke cap. The bus stopped a short distance away and when Mr Vorchheimer went to retrieve his hat, he was pulled towards a window and punched.
"The window was opening and they grabbed my hands and, before I knew it, there was a king-hit across the face ... It knocked me back quite a bit and the blood started gushing out of my face and I started feeling really sick. I could hear my kids screaming and crying in the background," Mr Vorchheimer said.
"This is just not acceptable. Australian, Christian, Jewish, Muslim. Whoever you are, no-one should have to put up with this socially irresponsible behaviour."
Such ill feeling toward the Jewish people and such adoration for the Nazi’s after all these years.
I read this in the papers. Saw it on TV.
But this was not first hand.
These are not the kind of fellows I like to hang out with.
And yet, obviously racial hate can be found lurking anywhere.
And I would do well to REMEMBER this.
'Lest We Forget' indeed.
So…where does all this leave me?
What can I carry with me from this noxious, disturbing experience??
Am I left with an overwhelming urge to buddy up with any Jews?
Offer the olive branch of peace and reconciliation?
No.
That would be part Anglo Saxon part Aryan guilt.
And who really wants guilt?
And in any event…
I have heard it said that they are a very insular people- keep to themselves.
Based on the above scenario…who can blame them?
I like keeping to myself as well; not because I’m Jewish.
Because I find most people very unkind and intolerant.
Like my so-called 'friend'- who, incidentally, unfriended and blocked me.
A cowardly act indeed; but Cowardice is the underlying driving force behind all racism and bigotry. Cowardice, hatred, and fear.
Fear of not being good enough; so they tear others down.
Gutless.
So what would the Jewish people want me to learn from this experience?
Given that I am not able to ask one right now here in this café in downtown country Victoria, Australia- even if I knew what one looked like-
I really cannot say for sure.
But I THINK they might want me to learn from the experience…
Immerse myself in the reality of this racial hatred…empathise...
And then LET IT GO.
But that is so hard.
To stop myself from hating her, for her hatred.
So why do I find it so hard to let it go?
Is it losing a friend?
Finding out the truth about someone I thought I knew and trusted, and then losing her?
I know I don’t want someone like that back.
So why am I finding it hard to let it go?
And why am I allowing this feeling to infect the rest of my life?
I am not sure.
Maybe I should blog about it.
Maybe I HAVE ALREADY blogged about it, and forgotten.
Because LETTING GO is hard.
It is a life long struggle.
One day at a time…learning to LET GO of all the hate, fear, anger, disappointment.
Letting go is probably one of the toughest things we will ever have to learn to do in life.
But it is the only true authentic way to live.
Letting go of those things we are attached to- including our hate, our fear, and our desire to blame others for our own faults…
To let go and find peace in just being.
Letting go of our judgements on the way other people live…what they say…
And simply focusing on our choices.
Failure to do this is how hate is spread.
It is the allowance of hateful feelings to cause us to hate in turn…
Hate the hater.
And it spreads.
UNLESS WE LET IT GO.
I am willing to keep at it.
I going to try to let go of her hate- and not allow it to become a part of my life.
I will acknowledge the experience as a learning curve.
I will not allow it to colour my view of other human beings.
I will continue to take each person as they come, on a case by case basis.
According the kind of person they are.
Not their race.
And hope for the best.
I will continue to be on the lookout for racist friends…
And when the time comes…LET THEM AND THEIR HATEFUL IDEAS GO.
And then quickly move on.
Who’s with me??
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