One Priest’s Prayer for Unity January 30, 2008

The Catholic Explorer today ran this beautiful piece by Bishop J. Peter Sartain on “The Insidious Power of Racism”. It gives an insight into precisely how racism affects its victims:

From an early age I had been aware that our southern city was divided by race and economics, though at first I did not fully understand how that division unjustly determined so many details of daily life. My parents had taught us to treat all people with respect, and they practiced what they preached.

The grocery and upscale department store in our neighborhood were like many others in the South of my youth. Among the characteristics they shared was a striking symbol: two drinking fountains side by side, identical in every way except that one bore a sign that read “White” and the other a sign that read “Colored.” Even as a child I was struck by the strangeness of that arrangement….

As I prepared for confirmation in the sacristy of an Arkansas parish three years ago, I overheard a young boy ask the pastor if he needed servers. “Sure,” said Father. “You can carry the cross.”

The blond-haired boy quickly reappeared, vested in an alb and carrying the processional cross. A few moments later, he startled me with a question.

“Do you know what the KKK is?”

I was truly taken aback. “Yes,” I said. “That’s the Ku Klux Klan. We don’t agree at all with what they stand for. Why are you asking about them?”

“I heard they’re coming to town, and I’m afraid because my father and my sister are from Mexico.” I tried to reassure him that his father and sister were in no danger, that the police would be aware of anything unusual that might be planned…It broke my heart that evening to confront the painful effects of racism again in such a powerful way. Anxiety was written on his face and in his question. With shame I admit that my brief exchange with the server exposed to me once again my own lack of sensitivity to the insidious power of racism.

A little child. Anxious and scared from racism. Bishop Sartain explains where he believes the root of his lack of sensitivity to said insidious power comes from:

As I mentioned, I was reared in a home where racist attitudes were neither taught nor tolerated, and I grew to understand more clearly why racism is sinful and antithetical to Christian faith. As a priest I have preached about it.

But I have never had to face racist attitudes directed at me.

Hearing his question, I was awakened in a new way to what racism does to little kids, to struggling parents, to aging grandparents, to the courageous pioneers and modern-day workers in the civil rights movement—and to people like me, who aren’t nearly as alert as we should be to its dangerous influence.

Those of us who have been victimized by racism are so much more primed, if you will, for its horrible effects. Those of us who have (and we know that anti-white racism is as damaging to its respective victims) been victimized by racism are the ones second guessing negative social interactions with members of other groups asking, “Is it because I’m…” Pervasive racism can only be denied by those not suffering from it, and Bishop Sartain became acutely aware of this with a simple statement from a child.

Did the other kids in his class know the KKK were coming? Did they even know who the KKK were? While his (probably older) sister and mother knew that the KKK were a fringe group of crazies not to be worried about, this kid said straight out, “I’m afraid.” He heard they were coming and he was afraid.

Bishop Sartain’s piece concludes with his prayer for the end of hatred and division:

[G-d], teach us to build a world where little boys and girls, and their parents and grandparents, don’t have to ask fearful questions. Help us rise above racism in all its forms that we may recognize and disarm its influence. May we never reject or frighten any of Your little ones, for we are all Your sons and daughters, made in Your image. Amen.

Ken y’hi ratzon. So may it be His Will.

Judaism On Prejudice

A beautiful article on Chabad.org caught my eye today at random. Normally I don’t read Chabad’s The Jewish Woman, but doing a Google News search for “Torah” led me to this beautiful article by Ms. Stacey Goldman, teaching about this week’s Torah portion. The piece is called “The Spirit of the Laws”, a phrase I am usually used to hearing in a different, more judgment-centered context — “don’t do X, it would violate the spirit of the law”, if not the letter — to justify the prohibition of any number of things.

Ms. Goldman’s Torah teaching, however, sheds light on a beautiful concept expressed by Exodus 21: G-d’s eschewing of prejudice between humans. Her story begins autobiographical, lamenting her ironic “loss of Jewish identity” as her Jewish observance grew:

It sounds bizarre, but I have found that the more I live my life as an observant Jew, the more I seem to lose my Jewish identity. When I was growing up in Minnesota, Jews made up less than two percent of the mostly Scandinavian, German population. My dark, curly hair was a constant reminder of my minority status. I never saw this as a negative aspect to my identity. On the contrary, I relished my membership in a global club of Jewish people all over the world…I didn’t discriminate; I would beam at every person regardless of age, gender, length of skirt, head covering or lack thereof. Invariably, I would receive a nod and a smile in return. Yes, we are one of the same; we shared a history and a destiny.

When I was accepted to an East Coast university, I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm at the prospect of constantly being surrounded by my People…I increased in my Jewish observance, got married and started to have children. I still smiled at other Jews, but I noticed that I was only smiling at Jews who looked suspiciously like me - the new religious me. In fact, I had lost my ability to identify other Jews who weren’t wearing the telltale uniform of Orthodox Judaism. I had found the Torah of Israel, but I seemed to have lost my sense of the Nation of Israel that had come so easily before I even knew about the commandments.

I hear this complaint far too often from non-Orthodox Jews — that Orthodox Jews don’t want to interact with them, that Orthodox Jews “think they are better” intrinsically, that Orthodox Jews are standoffish and clannish. This is especially painful when someone’s path to observance is dashed because - how were she supposed to know she wasn’t supposed to wear that..? - someone cut them off or embarrassed or admonished them when they were taking their first steps to Torah.

Ms. Goldman finds her way out of her mindset through learning Exodus 21, and what she learns is far bigger than just relations between Jews — she learns lessons for all of humanity:
(more…)

Black-on-Black Hate Crime January 29, 2008

A Maryland family awoke recently to a horrifying discovery: “KKK” and racial slurs, spray-painted on the side of their home, together with a crude spray-painted drawing of genitalia. What would make the crime at the Trotter’s home, however, so shocking was that the perpetrators were not white KKK sympathizers as police had originally believed, but black teenagers.

Cries for hate crime convictions quickly switched off, and black leaders were calling for hate crime investigations “until they learned that [the perpetrator] was black.” The entire case has sparked a debate about hate crime laws which, officials say, are not specific enough or equipped to deal with same-race hate crime.

The Baltimore Sun reports:

On Jan. 20, neighbors found the graffiti on the home of Lorenza and Virginia Trotter, in the 2000 block of Brigadier Blvd. Trotter said the racial slur and “KKK” were accompanied by a drawing of male genitals.

Police said witnesses reported having seen a group of black males flee the scene. A police spokeswoman said last week that the suspects were thought to be a group of teenagers “trying to outdo another group of kids with vandalism. … It was not a racially motivated incident.”

…In some ways, Trotter said, the fact that the suspects are members of her own race is even more troubling.

“I guess you can kind of, well, almost understand when someone of a different race does something like that. You say, ‘They’re sick,’ or something. But when your own race does it, it makes me really angry. The young kids today, they don’t understand that that kind of thing isn’t taken lightly.”

A black restaurant owner in Georgia was blasted for putting up a “racist sign” in his store: “Closed Due to African American Continuous Employee Theft.” Black students at Ole Miss in Mississippi were allowed to continue their studies there, even after writing “obscene and racist slurs” including drawing a noose on some black students’ doors.

While the number of black-on-black hate crimes is small compared to the total, the number did jump slightly from 87 such incidents (out of 3,200 total anti-black hate crimes) in 2005 to 93 (out of 3,136) in 2006 — a change from 2.7% of the total to 3%, a rise of 11% — the Black community especially, and indeed, all of humanity, ultimately, must ask itself why this is going on. (And these numbers are far higher than convicted black non-Jewish-on-Jewish crime.)

Is it really, like Ms. Trotter said, just gross insensitivity? Perhaps the case could be made that stronger black history curricula would be a solution, but simply knowing facts does not necessarily engender the emotional connection that would make a noose taboo for a black man. Perhaps we could say that there is a lack of self-identification with the “larger black struggle” or “global black community” but how would one create this where none exists, or bolster identity floundering to the point of drawing nooses?

(And is this related to Jewish neo-Nazis who try to use anti-Semitism-based defenses in court?)

Should it not be culturally instinctive for black young people to eschew symbols of racism and KKK insignias? Where is the disconnect?

“Offending the masses is not a fundamental right”

Geert Wilders, Dutch parliamentarian for the very right-wing Freedom Party (one of whose slogans is “less tax and less Islam”), has been causing a stir as of late with his new anti-Islam film which has as one of its climaxes a copy of the Qur’an being burned. Wilders, who in February 2007 called upon Dutch Muslims to “tear out half the pages of the Quran and throw them away”, plans on burning (or tearing up) the Muslim holy book as evidence of his opinion that the Qur’an is a “fascist” document, calling Islam “an inspiration for murder”.

The 10-15 minute anti-Quran film, scheduled to air in March (though Wilders has yet to find a broadcaster, he pledged to release it on the Internet if he can not find a media outlet), “has already prompted the government to alert Dutch cities to prepare for possible violent reactions and warn embassies in Islamic countries”, inciting ire from Syria to Singapore.

Dutch Muslims are “appealing for calm”, trying to “neutralize” the potentially negative effects of the film, including any violence or boycotts, reminding Wilders that they, too, were Dutch citizens:

Mohamed Rabbae’s group [the Dutch National Moroccan Council], which he said represents the majority of the more than 850,000 Muslims living in this nation of 16.3 million, also plans to call on the Muslim world to react peacefully if and when the film is broadcast, and not to boycott Dutch products.

“We want to make clear that the Netherlands is not just the country of one man, but also of the Muslims who live here,” he said. “Anything that hurts the Netherlands also hurts us.”

Appeals to Geert Wilders to refrain from making the film got this statement in reply:

“That a 10-minute film that’s never been shown may lead to riots, boycotts and other bad things, says everything about the nature of Islam,” said Wilders in an open letter Thursday. “Nothing about me.”

Reading these things incites feelings much like the title of this Somalian op-ed piece from Garowe Online: offending the masses is not a fundamental right. The “Sunday Editorial” piece voices the question I’m sure many people feel when dealing with these neo-conservative extremists — when did it become so ok, so accepted, and so in vogue to offend so many hundreds of millions of people?

Although no one (or very few people) has seen this film yet, the media uproar has created a suspenseful atmosphere, with many Western publications expecting a violent response from the Islamic world, as if this is the “natural” reaction to be expected from Muslims…[Wilders] is a man who has called the Qur’an “a fascist book” and expects Muslims to abandon their religion if they wish to live in the Netherlands…

The theme of the MP Wilders’ film is to associate growing unrest and anger across the Islamic world to the Qur’an, a Divine Revelation that preaches the values of peace, justice and mercy. Of course, the vast majority of Muslims will react with anger to anyone who disrespects the Word of Allah. But that is precisely MP Wilders’ unstated goal; he understands his blasphemous rhetoric (now on film) might lead to a violent response, but therein is his primary objective. He can then point at the violence his insensitive and intolerant work has created and tell the Dutch people that the Qur’an engenders violence.

The Qur’an is such a Holy Book that Muslims are willing to fight for it and defend it. It is the foundation of a world religion, with more than 1.5 billion adherents across the globe. If MP Wilders is willing to offend 1.5 billion people in defense of the “freedom of expression,” then is there any surprise that the offended people want to defend their own belief system?

What the world needs today, perhaps more than ever, is for all groups to realize that we are all humans who must learn to coexist peacefully in this limited world of ours.

Precisely. And firmly entrenched in the camp against co-existence, we find Geert Wilders and all others of his ilk, determined to spread bigotry in the guise of self-preservation. Here you can find Wilders giving his opinions to FOXNews, speaking about what he termed “the retarded Islamic culture”:

Being this offensive and ignorant is not a fundamental right to be enjoyed and cherished. On the contrary, it is a symptom of an illness begging to be cured.

May hatred and division be replaced by coexistence and unity, speedily in our days, throughout Europe, en ook in Nederland.

Obama Denounces Anti-Semitism in Black Community

From The Jerusalem Post, unity-oriented statements from Barack Obama decrying anti-Semitism and hatred which did not get nearly enough attention in the media:

US Sen. Barack Obama spoke out against black anti-Semitism and other bigotry at an African-American church. Obama (D-Ill.), a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, spoke Sunday at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta to mark Martin Luther King Day.

[…]

“The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.”

This was said before Monday’s official “I have never practiced Islam” statement.

I only hope that Obama’s outreach to Jews is as effective as it is unequivocal — unfortunately the “Obama gap” with Jewish voters is still alive and well, and I hope he’s not fighting as much of an uphill battle with Jewish populations as his detractors would like to make it seem.

Welcome Back, Y-Love!

Due to technical difficulties, This is Babylon was offline for about 6 weeks with no new posting.

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