In my most fantastic of fantasy worlds, both overt and subtle racism, sexism, ageism, and any -ism one can possibly think of is
gone.
Finito.
Kaput. Buh-bye. Don't come around here no more.
I instead get waaay too many reminders that we're not there yet. Clues that we're still behind, that we've tripped up here and there, that as soon as we get a few steps up something knocks us a step down. And I'm not just talking about stay-at-home mamas like myself -
though I was sent something recently that proves that unwritten national policy still favors childless women. Scroll down a little and read some stories that will not only make you not want to procreate - if you are female, it will make you wonder why you were even born. Thanks, employers. Thanks a
bundle.
No, I'm talking about all the -isms that give us the excuse not to care. The stuff that we can also get hung up on to the extent that it holds back real dialogue, real talk about the issues, about how best we can work for change that benefits everyone. Classism that keeps us from truly looking at those less fortunate than we and seeing things from their side. Racism that judges others by their skin. Sexism that says, because you are a woman, you need to stay here, go here, do this, do that, stay out of this, keep your mouth shut and your body invisible. All the -isms that give us the gall, the tackiness, and the ignorance to make such crass judgments as
the one highlighted in this post concerning the two homeless folks that froze to death in last week's icy cold temperatures. Yeah, once again,
I know about those Nola.com comments. They're bad for me. I shoulda made a New Year's resolution to stay as far away from them as possible. But hey, m.d. just
had to post one on his blog. Whatever.
The more I read in general, however, the more I see that we have a long way to go precisely because, over the millenia we human beings have been on this planet, we have set up some elaborate psychological systems to keep us all in our places. Try this tragicomic scenario on for size:
I saw anti-Semitism among my Iranian friends. At a gathering of a group of women at the home of my friend Nargess one evening, one woman told a joke about a Jew, a Christian, and a Muslim. Another told a joke about a Jew and a Turkish-speaking Iranian. In both jokes, the Jew was cunning, miserly, and a master merchant.
I had had it. After years of enduring comments like these, I protested. "I'm so sick and tired of these jokes about Jews," I said. "My husband is a Jew. You've got to realize how offensive these jokes are."
Nargess's sister, Monir, who owns a hair salon that is one of my favorite places to visit, tried to console me. "Your husband is okay," she said. "He's not a Zionist. So it's okay that he is a Jew. My best customer is a Jew. I love the Jews. When I move back to America again, I want all my best customers to be rich Jews."
The women explained that they said nothing about Jews that they didn't say about Isfahanis, adding that Isfahanis are just as cunning and miserly as Jews.
I tried to make the point again. "Monir, you're a Turk from Azerbaijan," I said. "Everyone is always making jokes about Turks. You of all people should be sensitive to this."
"I love Turkish jokes," Nargess chimed in. "They're the best jokes in the world."
"When you were in the United States during the hostage crisis and people cursed you just because you were Iranian, wasn't that racist?" I asked.
"Not at all!" Nargess exclaimed. "They were ignorant people. And they were justified. We were burning their flag. Our culture was hurting their culture."
I couldn't win. The Islamic Republic's anti-Semitism goes deeper even than cultural stereotypes. It stems directly from interpretations of the Koran and other teachings that have been passed along for centuries. The Koran reveres the prophets of Judaism, but it also refers to the Jews of Mohammad's time as the Muslims' "worst friends".*
This morning in my synagogue's religious school, the middle school students were treated to a prayer that wasn't included in their revised, secular version of the Reform Jewish movement's most recent prayerbook: "Blessed are You, Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who has not made me a gentile." At least one student recognized the negative connotations and the exclusivity and superiority implied in such a prayer. I was glad the cantor had chosen that one and not the one that says,"who has not made me a woman" - we'd have had a small war on our hands in religious school. Orthodox and ultra-orthodox sects of Judaism still include these prayers in their daily rituals. How's
that for sanctioned elitism?
I could go on about the suspicion, the discrimination, and the downright idiocy other cultures, religions, and microcosms of such things use to separate and/or elevate themselves above a real or imagined horde that is ready to snatch their superiority from them at any second. Mardi Gras in this city has certainly developed into one of them.
Posts such as
David's, however, serve as reminders that we fritter away many opportunities to reverse the damage we have done to each other and prevent it from happening to others in the future. We missed one opportunity to look at many other ways in which we could reverse this trend with the housing demolitions and what has been
promised to be put in their place (once again,
no contracts, just words). Another one is heading down the drain with
the approval of the Lindy Boggs Hospital demolition. Schools and
private homes are looking as though they are next on the chopping block. I really don't have much hope for those entities at this point. It's sad.
It's also why I have little hope for the recent crop of presidential candidates. Mario Cuomo once said of politicians that "We campaign in poetry, but when we're elected we're forced to govern in prose." If the politicians won't speak of rebuilding the Gulf Coast,
maybe they can speak of getting this country's crumbling infrastructure propped up and working again instead. Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama are apparently not poetic enough for this bunch.
And so, I have vented out my negativity online, hoping it won't seep into my everyday life too much. A good friend of ours is moving to the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain and, in a moment of prosaic weakness, it looked a little too good to my husband and I. A tad further from those pesky, hurricane-harboring gulf waters, from a high murder rate, from having to negotiate the school systems for a better education minus the drain on our pursestrings: "If we can't get the little guy into a good high school in New Orleans, we could rent out our apartment in the house and schlep up to Mandeville!" Dan said.
The trip back across that wide divide known as the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway tempered those thoughts quite a bit. I thought of how much I did
not want to return to the small Pennsylvania town my parents lived in at the time I graduated college. It was a nice town - there just wasn't much for me there. I thought of how much I loved New Orleans, and yet of how fragile our ties to it really could be, especially with a husband with a two-hour round trip commute (on a
good day) to work every day, the fact that I don't have a nine-to-five job myself and am easily transplantable on that fact
alone, the fact that the little guy is still young. What passes for common sense these days says we ought to be moving up there, too.
Common sense sucks sometimes. Thank goodness we don't listen to it
all the time.
Where would the fun - and the poetry - be in
that? * Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran
invite picture courtesy of Dan C.
