pride and prejudice

photo via http://s637.photobucket.com/albums/uu92/byebyecanada/Canada

I've read a couple of unrelated posts recently about racism and prejudice. It's not something I tolerate well and being the bluntly outspoken person that I tend to be, I will confront people with their...assumptions. Well, people that I know.

For instance, years ago we had a single black mother buy and move into one of the houses on the block. I had met her and knew a little about her and one day was talking to another neighbor. We were talking about the neighborhood I guess and he made some disparaging remarks about our new resident along the lines of lazy black woman with kids on welfare. She was, in fact, employed, was not on welfare and was trying to provide a decent home for her young children after getting rid of an abusive husband and I told him so. He was a little sheepish about that but I don't think it really changed his opinions any.

Most people nowadays will hold their tongue unless they are sure of a receptive audience. It's amazing how easy racism and prejudice can slip off the tongue. I don't think it is always intentional, just notions that people have without thinking and I don't usually confront strangers with their prejudices, especially things overheard, but it's been known to happen. Like the time I was at the gym working on one of the machines and the white guy at the machine next to me was talking to his black trainer.

“I'm not prejudiced.” That was the sentence that got my attention and started me listening. I thought what a condescending prick. I thought other things like guilty dogs bark first and most people who volunteer that information usually are. He went on to say more about how he judged individuals, not color blah blah blah blech. And then he said...”except for Jews.”

I knew it. I knew that guy was an ass. He went on about how he had been cheated by a Jew and they were all the same trotting out that old ridiculous tired canard of the rich penny pincher Jew who controls everything from the banks to the governments.

What you may not know about me is that I'm married to a Jew and I raised my kids as Jews and I was comfortable myself for a long time within Jewish theology. I sat there trying to keep myself from springing up and confronting him but in the end that was exactly what I did. I'm surprised he couldn't see the steam coming out of my ears.

I was so furious I could hardly speak coherently. That guy didn't know me from Adam or should I say Eve and he had already judged my character and found it lacking, found me to be distasteful and deserving of scorn and prejudice.

I stood up, took the two steps and turned to face him. The trainer took one look at me and stepped back. I don't remember exactly what I said. I did tell him that he ought to be more careful about what he said in the hearing of strangers. I did tell him I was a Jew and that I found his opinion to be highly rude and offensive and downright ignorant. I did tell him that there were people like that across the board in every culture and religion. I told him that I knew christians that would pinch a penny til it screamed but that I didn't condemn all christians because of the actions of a few.

At least that's what I was saying in my head. Probably I was standing there sputtering. In any event, he didn't say a word. Finally I just glared at him and stormed off, paced up and down the aisle and then went to the ladies locker room to gather my composure. When I came out again he was gone and I finished my workout and left.

I don't know why I blew my cool that day. Maybe because it was personal. Maybe because I knew a Jew, a cousin, who was the slum lord of a small set of apartments, who totally deserved that guy's insults. Maybe it was because it was just so patently unfair. Maybe because the guy didn't just let slip a derogatory word or remark but set himself up as 'holier that thou'.

People have all sorts of justifications, or rather excuses, for their prejudices but I have to wonder, if the guy in the gym had felt cheated by a member of any other group, would he have had the same reaction, the same wholesale denigration of every member of that group? I think not. And really, I think the better question is this, if the exact same transaction had occurred with anyone other than a Jew, would he have felt cheated at all?