Sticks and stones

When I was young, my parents taught me an old rhyme:  "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."  Yes, there are variations on this, but I was taught "break" and "hurt".  The lesson I learned was to ignore what people say but pay close attention to what they do.

There's a reason they taught me this rhyme.  It was because I was a target for the unreasoning hatred of others - not because of what I did but because of who and what I am.

I am about to reveal something about my past that very few people know.  It is something I have been ashamed of for most of my life, and something I had no control over.  But it has given me direction in my life and is a constant reminder of that rhyme.

When I was 6 years old and the only child, we moved from Brooklyn to a small town in northern NJ (for now, I won't name the town).  Why my father chose that town has always been a mystery to me.  The predominant religion in that town was Dutch Reformed, and most of the churches were closely aligned with other churches in South Africa.  There were a couple of other churches, but nothing outside mainstream Christianity.  The town had no "people of color" (I really hate that phrase, but it's appropriate here).  We moved in, and I almost immediately began feeling the pressure of prejudice and hatred.

I am a Jew.

It didn't take me long to discover that I was the only Jewish child in the entire school system.  We were the only Jewish family in town.

The taunting began immediately and continued from 2nd grade all the way thru graduation from High School.  By that time there were 3 Jewish children in the school system: me, my younger brother (who was born the year we moved into town), and a boy from a second Jewish family (who moved out of town only a couple of years later).

Taunting.  Teasing.  "Christ killer." "Jew-boy". And I'm going to put this into print even though it will offend some folks, because it was what I was called: "White n-gger".

My lunches were stolen,  I was physically intimidated and knocked to the ground many times.  The teachers made a point of calling on me when they knew I didn't have the answer, just so they could embarrass me in front of the rest of the class and be friends with the other students and their parents (how many times did I hear "Good one, Miss whatever" when the bell rang, accompanied by laughter - including from the teacher).

I took up clarinet.  During annual blind auditions for the school band, I always won either 1st or 2nd chair in the school's Wind Symphony.  I took up the saxophone.  During annual blind auditions for the jazz band, I always won 1st chair alto sax.  One day, the band teacher handed me an oboe - and, after a moment of adjusting my embouchure (how you place your lips) around the double-reed, I played a scale and a short exercise.  The band teacher was pleased - he was the only one, tho.

The other members of the band weren't pleased or congratulatory at my ability to play almost any reed instrument handed to me.  They were angry and jealous - and it only made my time worse.  Instead of band practice being a place I could be with peer musicians, it became a place where I drew even more attention as "that [expletive] Jew boy".

Why am I telling you this story?

Because I grew up knowing that words are meaningless unless followed up by action.  Words can be ignored.  The people who speak angry words usually don't follow up those words with actions.  And when it's only one or two jerks calling someone a horrible epithet, the situation will end when either the jerks or the target walk away from each other.

Now to the heart of the matter:

What I was subjected to was - and this is the exactly correct word - racism.  The insults, mistreatment, threats, and school hallway knock-downs ("Oh, sorry, Jew-boy") were almost exactly what black children were experiencing during the 60's when busing was considered a "workable remedy" to the SCOTUS Brown decision.  Intentional mistreatment, being knocked against lockers or knocked down on the floor, being physically attacked for no reason - and all because you are different.

I know what racism feels like.  I was a target during my entire 2-K schooling (which is why I have never attended a high school reunion, for obvious reasons).  I spent my preteen and teen years in a town where I had no friends and where I was hated for no good reason at all - other than the simple fact that I was different.

What's my point?

Those who scream "!!1!RACISM!!11!!" at everything they don't like to hear should calm down and recognize the difference between actual racism and boorish/rude words.  Yes, there are verbal tropes that are highly offensive, and "send them back" (which isn't what Trump tweeted) does reflect back to at least one trope.  But think on this: in 1854, Lincoln said that his first instinct would be “to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia”  https://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-may-not-know-about-lincoln-slavery-and-emancipation)  Does this make Lincoln a racist?

The "Jim Crow" laws were passed to enforce discriminatory actions against blacks, even by those who didn't want to do it.  This was actual institutionalized racism.  When the laws were repealed, some continued to discriminate against blacks.  Yes, those actions classify as racism.  But those were actions - not words.

Jews also felt race-based discrimination as well.  The film "Gentleman's Agreement", starring Gregory Peck, relates how Jews were treated by "polite society" just because they were Jews

The days of institutionally-enforced racism are over.  There are no laws that permit institutional discrimination based on race, religion, or gender, and plenty of laws that forbid such discrimination (let's leave discussions over cakes for another day).

These are only words.  Racism is in the action, not the words.  Words can be opposed by more words.  If you think someone's words are wrong, respond with better words.  Escalating the situation by using ever increasing threats doesn't ease tensions.  It aggravates and increases them.  Telling your opponent that you intend to be a perpetual thorn in their side (viz. Omar and "the squad") doesn't work - and almost always makes things worse.  A stupid response to a stupid statement makes both orators look stupid.

But the thing to remember is that these are all words.  Words are not violence.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.

Facebook - Today's "vast wasteland"

How many of us have the driver of a car loaded with family, and noticed the impenetrable curtain of silence drop as soon as the car starts moving?  It happens to me almost every time I get in the car.  My loving wife sits in the front passenger seat, takes out her Android phone, opens Facebook, and begins sweeping her finger up and down... up and down... up and down... seemingly looking for something, and spending her time watching videos or looking for videos to watch.

How many of us sit behind the wheel in silence, knowing that anything we say is either ignored or unheard, and knowing that we have been reduced to servants, invisible unless we are needed?  When we stop the car after having arrived at the destination, how many of us notice that conversations resume as if they had never stopped?

Happens to me all the time.  But today, when she finished watching a video that was accompanied with sound effects and turned to me to tell me what she just watched, I interrupted her with, "I don't care.  I don't want to know."

She and I are both in our mid-60s.  Her response was to sulk like a 12-year old who had just been told that she couldn't watch her favorite TV show, or talk on the phone for hours with a friend.  Or watch Facebook videos for hours.  Or that her BFF (in this case, "husband") was completely uninterested in a Facebook video.

Horrors!

Here's my take on it: Facebook has mutated from a social media platform to a platform that infantilizes adults, turning them into mindless juveniles and prompting obnoxious behavior.  Like spoiled children, they immediately become angered - as if their toy had been taken away from them.

Childish.  Selfish.

She and I used to have long conversations in the car on all kinds of subjects.  Her job and her interactions with clients.  My job and my interactions with co-workers.  Our children and how well they're doing.  Friends.  Family.  Sports.  Weather.  We laughed together,  We expressed our frustrations to each other.

We shared our time together.

Now I sit in silence in the driver's seat.  No more conversations.  Just the drone of puerile videos that someone thought was funny and posted for others to watch.

Until today, I had to suffer the indignity being ignored in favor of a video that I neither watched nor cared about, nor will watch later, nor will ever care about.  Instead of being able to socialize with a human, I was disregarded as unnecessary and unwanted.

This seeming obsession with Facebook has turned an entire generation - actually, multiple generations - of once-thinking adults into churlish children.

Newton Minow, appointed as a commissioner to the FCC by JFK, remarked at a National Association of Broadcasters meeting as to the usefulness - or uselessness - of television.  From the Wikipedia page:

"When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there for a day without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland." 

Newton N. Minow, "Television and the Public Interest", address to the National Association of Broadcasters, Washington, D.C., May 9, 1961

Today, television as a "public interest" is quickly fading into obscurity.  Instead, people spend more and more time on the Internet and less in front of a wall-mounted screen. What Mr. Minow said in 1961 about television is equally as true about the Internet, and especially Facebook, today.

We have only replaced one "vast wasteland" with another.  Only now, that "vast wateland" is no longer captive to that screen in the living room.

It follows us into our cars as well.