Words, you see, do hurt

[mamadeb]

Many of us write; all of us read. And we know words do have power because they can shape the way we perceive something or someone, they can change our moods in moments and they can cause damage that is almost impossible to repair.

This is why in Judaism, we are supposed to guard our tongues, we are supposed to not talk about other people or listen to gossip, or believe it when we hear it - because evil tongues can do plenty of hurt.


Yesterday, I was on the bus with this young family - Mommy, Daddy, two older kids and one baby. The kids were excited, the little boy was wet from a fountain (and rather proud of it), but they behaved well - they weren't quiet, but they weren't *loud*, and they stayed where they were told without arguments or whining. When a seat became available, Daddy sat down and cuddled his son, even though he was wet. And at one very charming point, the two older kids sang for the baby, who smiled and kicked and gurgled at that. It was just wonderful. Far too often on public transport, kids are NOT like that, and parents are just as loud telling them to behave. And this applies to all racial groups equally. As it happens, this family was African-American.

They were making everyone around them smile.

About two stops from their own, an old lady came on the bus, leaning heavily on her cane. The father not only stood up, but he carefully handed her into his seat, demonstrating very nicely what a gentleman does to his son. Two stops later, they gathered stroller and baby and kids and got off. And the old lady turns to me and says, in a voice full of vitriol, "Your taxes pay for them! All that welfare goes to them."

I was shocked into speechlessness. There was no sign this family was on any sort of assistance and no reason to assume they were other than their skin color. Her hatefilled speech would have been bad under any circumstances but that it was about people who'd treated her with kindness made it even worse. I knew nothing I would say could change her mind and I didn't want to get into a fight on the bus (and then a friend of mine got on and proceded to drag me to an Instant Theater thing at the local library), so I just said nothing. But her words almost poisoned a lovely experience.

This brings me to the events last night, with that experience fresh in my mind. I first heard of witchqueen's protest from someone who disagreed with it. Which means I spent a lot of time arguing with that person. Because the word "miscegenation" hit me hard - it's such a thankfully old-fashioned term, but it carries such an freight of discrimination and death, and I still can't understand how anyone could not react that way. And when I read what Zvi actually said and protested about, it was even worse - she wanted to change a label. She didn't say a word about the content. And to see bestiality conflated with it...oh, my goodness.

I don't understand how people at this point in our history could think such things are acceptable, or that protesting such things are censorship.

liviapenn has compiled a list of posts about this here.

Comments

[vass]

Because the word "miscegenation" hit me hard - it's such a thankfully old-fashioned term, but it carries such an freight of discrimination and death, and I still can't understand how anyone could not react that way.

Sometimes, I just. You know what I managed to forget, while watching this whole discussion and fuming and commenting and so on? I managed to forget the term's Nazi context. Understandably so, since we were discussing the word's American origin and context. It took a comment from ratcreature about the German translation and connotations to throw me back into my own family history and remind me that, yeah, this applies to me too, me and my Jewish grandfather and Gentile grandmother. I was so busy being angry on other people's behalf (and, you know, as a human being)... I can't believe I missed that.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I *didn't* think about that. I was thinking in purely American terms.

But, yes, Jews have been called animals, too - we're just considered very *clever* ones. And we know that while things are good here and now, they can change in an eyeblink unless we keep constant vigilance.

Included in that, for both decency and self-interest, is watching out for others. That slope is slippery.

[gingicat]

Yet another reason that I am proud to call you my friend.

[vass]

But, yes, Jews have been called animals, too - we're just considered very *clever* ones.

*nod* It's what attracted my father (a historian) to his field of study, the ethnic Chinese diaspora. He was seeing the same stereotypes of slyness and greed, the same mistrust. Complete with pogroms.

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

Tigerbright linked me here, and I am glad to read your words. I share your horror at that old lady and her thoughtless hatred.

[thebratqueen.livejournal.com]

Well, I was eating lunch.

What gets me about that woman too is her automatic assumption that you would agree with her.

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

I must confess, my reaction to the old lady is: "My taxes pay for you,actually. Where do you think Medicare and Social Security come from? Not to mention the Senior discount you just used to get on this bus.

"I don't know if those noce people are on any sort of public assistance or not, but I would wager that even if they are, you are right now costing me a lot more -- like my patience.

"And in your case, I'd like a refund."

But I'm an evil person.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I've seen that comparison before.

It's what happens to landless people who are forced to make their money through commerce and moneylending - keeping things liquid so they can move in a hurry.

It shows it's as much historical/economic forces as it is religion - actually, does religion play a part in this?

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I wish she were unique.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I have the same skin color and my headscarf proclaimed me the same religious group.

And I wish I'd had the courage to say something.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

But I'm an evil person.

Or just much more outspoken than I am.

And certainly braver.

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

Comes from being physically bigger, male, and raised with a passionate hatred of bullies.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I'd probably have said something similar, except possibly with the added nastiness of a hand held out demandingly for said refund. But I'm outspoken to the point of stupid, when I get angry.

[tod-hollykim.livejournal.com]

witchqueen is right, the *term* is offensive, not the kink. Ghu knows I have writen or thought of enough interracial smut. Real interracial smut, not just mixing of different human groups.

::sigh:: I've been in fandom too long I think. I don't believe there are any real *racial* differences on this planet. Ethnic, yeah, sure. But there is only one race on this planet of tool using, semi-sentient beings, the human race. The differences are just a result of where your ancestors settled and what was needed to survive.

[vass]

actually, does religion play a part in this?

I don't actually know, I'll have to ask my father. My guess would be yes, but not nearly as much as for Jews. Social and dietary customs, appearance etc, for sure, and with the same anger at them for not assimilating, coupled with distrust for those who *do* try to assimilate.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

*nods* It's rather a shame. (And if you'd thought of it in time, perhaps even to say something along the lines of "but I'm receiving public assistance" -- untrue, but it would have made a point.)

There's been a great deal of talk (http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/009220.html) around the liberal blogosphere (http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2007/07/revenge-on-grandma-snatchers.html) the past few days about Rick Perlstein and his grandmother (http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/fox_time_fight_back). This woman sounds like a prime example of the horror perpetrated on America as Perlstein describes it. Go watch, if you have the stomach for it.

[norabombay.livejournal.com]

What frustrates me is that no one is attempting to censor them. That has been made clear by everyone from the beginning. Nobody is attempting to make them change the theme of interracial etc.

At this point, it's a public shaming. A deserved public shaming.

I'm still finding it telling that the top post in daily_deviant, just prior to the refusal to change is of the oh noes, not the white women variety.

I hadn't even thought of the Nazis, and their eugenics movements, of which miscegenation is a powerful part. It's hard to treat people as subhuman when they are a member of your own family.

I'm just frustrated here. jennyo has a theory that if she ever becomes a very conservative, Ann Coulter type, she's going to blame Harry Potter fandom. I'm not sure I disagree.

And I think it would be fascinating for somebody to do a series ficathon, adressing the muggle/wizard divide, and the very legitimate reasons that someone on either side might have for encouraging people to only date/marry/etc within a group. You have a world of grays.

Instead, we get Ableforth and a goat. Grr.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Nod. I saw that video, and I was wondering at the time if the old lady was one of those, too.

And can I say how grateful I am that neither set of our parents are the type to watch such programming?

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Just - getting into it on a NYC bus is daunting, to say the least.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Zvi had no problems with content - or rather, had no intention of determining content.

I really, really wish skin color was meaningless.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

It's hard to treat people as subhuman when they are a member of your own family.

Or it's easier to forget people are members of your own family when you treat them as subhuman.

Be a fun ficathon.

[chvickers.livejournal.com]

One day, back when I was about twelve, my family went shopping downtown. I remember I had told my father I was going to shop in the ladies' department, and he had left me to it (not really wanting to hang around the bras and etc.). A few minutes later I was browsing and some old lady came up to me and said, "I saw that terrible old drunken Indian bothering you and I almost interrupted but I saw you got rid of him. Did he hurt you?"

It took me about ten minutes to realize she had been talking about my dad, who was not drunk. Because I was paler than he was (my mother's family is from Eastern Europe, while Dad was part Iroquois and part probably some fur trader), it never even occurred to her that it was my dad.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Shakes head at unthinking, ignorant people.

What did you do?

[chvickers.livejournal.com]

The point was:

a) she assumed my dad was drunk because he was obviously not white;
b) she assumed he was bothering me because she thought we were of different races;
c) she assumed that someone who was not white would only talk to a white girl in order to harass her;
d) if there was a textbook definition of 'passing', I would be the illustration. I'm so white I glow.

[chvickers.livejournal.com]

At twelve? I sat there and stared at her open-mouthed. But to this day I remember it as if it happened yesterday.

[chvickers.livejournal.com]

I should point out, at the moment she said it I hadn't a clue what she was talking about. I didn't think of Dad as Indian: he was Dad. But afterwards, when I figured it out - I was in the change room and I almost collapsed.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Believe me, I know. My husband got into an argument on a Chicago bus and got his nose punched, destroying the effectiveness of the deviated septum surgery he'd had only six weeks earlier. I didn't say I was very smart, in fact I specifically said that when I'm angry I'm not.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Being considered clever animals is more dangerous than being considered stupid ones. People who truly, in their deepest heart, believe that you are inferior to them will hold your life cheap -- they'll disparage you, dismiss you, throw you out to starve, enslave you, kill you if it suits their convenience for some other reason or if you try to challenge that belief... but they don't need to bother attempting to wipe you off the planet. People who truly, in their deepest heart, believe that you might just be *superior* to them will stop at nothing to exterminate you, because your very existence puts them in terrible danger.

Neither is a safe place to be, neither is an acceptable way to treat someone else, of course. And there are some balances... I'm convinced that one of the primary reasons the American religious right hasn't gone full-scale after the Jews in the last ten years is that they're afraid we actually *do* control the money and the press, and don't dare take us on. It's just different kinds of awful, not better or worse, but I suspect being believed superior is more outright deadly even if less unpleasant in between times.

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

Long shot I know, but I used to know a Petronella (can't forget a name like that) who lived on West 75th St in Manhattan, who was involved in LifeSpring, about 20 years ago. Are you she?

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

No, sorry. It's just a nom de plume.

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

Huh. Both paragraphs reminded me of my late Uncle Joe. We were very careful not to talk politics around him, because he thought Reagan was too liberal. But his politics had shifted from left to right because of some unethical behavior by Communists at City College in the 1950s, where he taught for 42 years (American history and international affairs).

As for the first paragraph, when he was in grad school at Columbia in the late 1920s, he was in a seminar. Each student would give a paper one week. Joe went fairly early. He was sweet on some girl in the group. There was also another guy, who was obviously Jewish, looked the part, with an obviously Jewish name, and who was generally critical of others' papers, asking sharp questions. When it came Goldberg's (I think it was), the girl said to Uncle Joe, "Let's get that Jew." Joe replied, mildly, "But I'm Jewish." She never spoke to him again.

Uncle Joe may not have been religious, but he couldn't escape his heritage - his initials were J.E.W.

[cellio]

*applause*

[otherdeb.livejournal.com]

Several boyfriends back, I was dating a poly Brit whose wife was black. They had (at the time) two gorgeous kids. J, the kids and I were waiting outside of Bloomingdales for his wife, and the kids were climbing all over us. This blue-haired old bat came and yelled at the kids for bothering us. J just looked at her and said, "Madam, those are my kids." She moved away but kept staring at us -- clearly trying to figure out who had the bad blood. About two minutes later, his wife came out of the store, and he -- who was not big on PDA -- french-kissed her right there in them middle of the block on Lexington Avenue. It was almost as uch fun as the time I was on the bus with my best friend from college (who happened to be black) and these little old Jewish ladies were going on about "the schvartzeh this" and "the schvartzeh that." They nearly dropped dead when she asked them in perfect Yiddish to shut up. Ya gotta love scenes like that.

My own personal scene came at the gynecologist's. He made a remark while I was in the stirrups that was offensive, and when I told him it was offensive, he responded that only a lesbian would think so. I got up, got dressed, and complained to the office manager. He asked why I was offended given that I wasn't a lesbian. My response: "Oh, says who?" Now, when asked I normally respond that I am bi; if folks can't deal with that, then they are not folks I want to hang out with.

[otherdeb.livejournal.com]

Oh, and as for your lady -- I would have just reminded her that, by spreading such hate, she was not observing the tenet of guarding her tongue.