The Moment of Truth

I remember quite clearly the moment that my daughter learned about racism.

She was six years old and was quietly reading a book on the couch in the family room while I prepared dinner.    The book she was reading was from the Babysitter Club chapter book series.  The series focuses on a group of young adolescent girls who run their own babysitting business.  Even though my precocious reader was a little younger than the age that the books were targeted for, the books seemed gentle enough in content that I didn't feel the need to censor them before she read each individual book.

On this fateful day, she was completely engrossed in one of the books, her eyes quickly darting back and forth as she devoured every word on the page.    I tended to my pasta sauce.    At some point I heard sniffles and I went to check on her.   The book was on the floor, she was curled up under a blanket, and she was crying.   I was perplexed.

"What's wrong?"  I asked.

"There is a family in that book that doesn't want Claudia to babysit for them, they don't want her to babysit for them because she is (long pause with some sobs for effect) Japanese."

"Oh." is all I can say.

Then she looked at me with big, tear-filled eyes and asked the awful, awful question, "Will people hate ME because of the way I look?"

Oh, how I wished at that moment I could just say "No."

I knew she already knew the answer, she just wanted confirmation from me.    Lying was not an option.  This was not Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.   This question begged an honest answer.  I knew I had to respect that.

I sat down on the couch and explained to my six year old child that there were some really stupid people in the world.  These people hated everybody, not just one person, but they were out there, and she might encounter them.  I must have said the word "stupid" about 100 times.   I hated having this conversation with my daughter.
I hated telling her that the world was less than perfect.
When our awful conversation was over, I picked up the book, and told her to finish it.   It was a book for children, so I knew it must have a happy ending, or at least a good moral lesson.  
She resisted, but being the avid reader that she was, she couldn't not finish it.
I went back to making dinner.   I heard a few more sniffles, but eventually they subsided.  By the time she finished the book her eyes were completely dry.

At dinner, I asked her to tell me how it all turned out.   She told me in her own six year old way that Claudia's friends all decided not to babysit for that family either.  So the "stupid" parents couldn't go out to their "stupid" dinner and had to spend their anniversary at home with their "stupid" kids.   She thought it was a great ending.   She also made it clear that it was the "stupidest" book she ever read and I couldn't argue with her.

Over the years, I have thought of that moment many times.   I have wished she had never picked up that book, I have wished I had read it first so I could have prepared her, and I have wished that I could have honestly told her that no one would ever hate her for the way that she looks.

But, in a strange way, I am also grateful for that day.   I am grateful that she was at home, with me, when she learned this harsh lesson.    Sadly, there was no way I could prevent her from coming face to face with racism at some point in her life, but at least I was there when the unsavory introduction was made.   I am also glad that I could tell her that it was the offenders who were "stupid" and not the other way around.

Now she is fifteen and reads books like "The Diary of Anne Frank" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" that deal with racism at a much deeper level, with endings that are not always happy.   Thankfully,  neither the untimely death of Miss Anne Frank nor the unjust death of Tom Robinson will ever have the impact on her that one simply written, elementary school chapter book did.  

Unfortunately, the lesson that the world can be a cruel and unkind place only needs to be learned once.
In my opinion, it's a pretty stupid lesson.

Who's a Jew? Are you?

Tonight is the beginning of Yom Kippur, which is a day of atonement for the Jews.   Those who practice the faith will fast and ask for forgiveness for their sins.

I will be eating plenty, maybe even bacon (gasp!) and might even commit a sin or two.

But, here is my secret identity:   I am half-Jewish.

So, what does that mean?

I have been trying to figure that out my whole life.

My kids are half Korean and this is obvious to the whole world.   They can't deny it.

My brother is half Jewish too (duh!) and he has blond hair and blue eyes.    He fits right into his adopted Scandinavian homeland.   His heritage doesn't make him stand out in any way.

Judaism is a religion, so how can you be half?   I don't think I have ever met a person who called themselves "half-Catholic" or "half-Muslim", so how can you be half-Jewish?   I have met many, many people who call themselves just that.    Is it a race or a religion?

I suppose they talk about the Jewish identity in Temple, but I wouldn't know, because I don't go to Temple.   Are you allowed to call yourself Jewish if you don't go to Temple?

I know people who grew up Christian, married someone Jewish, and converted.   Now they celebrate the Jewish holidays, study the Torah, and have banished the Christmas tree from their homes.   They are considered, by some standards, to be Jewish.

I am married to an Asian.   I can cook a mean Kimchi Jiggae.   I have celebrated Chusuk and the Lunar New Year.    I have worn a Hanbok.    But no one would ever consider me Asian.  "Honorasian" is the best I will ever do.

                                       


I suppose it would be easier if all Jews came from one place, like Israel.   Then, I could say I was half-Israeli.   It would separate the "people" from the religion.  However, my family came from Hungary and Austria, so it would also be a lie.  

I grew up with a Jewish grandmother (although she was, strangely, kind of anti-Semitic), and a Jewish mother.   I love bagels, lox, gefilte fish, matzoh, matzoh ball soup, latkes and noodle kugel.   I have celebrated Chanukkah and Passover. I utter familiar yiddish phrases like "Oy!" and "Vey!"    Do I qualify?

I can't read Hebrew.   I never had a Bat Mitzvah (although I do know the difference between a Bat Mitzvah and a Bar Mitzvah).    I never went to Temple as a child.    Do I fail?

My kids cannot deny their Asian heritage, they cannot hide it,  but I can.   I can choose to be one of the Chosen.   If race cannot be seen, is it still there?

I know that in my heart, I feel Jewish.   It is somewhere deep inside me, there is a connection that cannot be denied, a sense of cultural and culinary, if not religious, belonging.    So, I will call myself a Jew and if that is a sin, I am sorry.

Have a wonderful Yom Kippur!

Who said what?

Funny or offensive? 

Would it be funny if it was a gift from one Asian to another?

Would it be funny if it was a gift from a white person to an Asian friend?

What if they were selling it at the Gap?  Would it be funny then?

Yesterday I ran into a friend and we were discussing my blog.   She said she wanted to post a comment about my blog but didn't want to register with blogger just to comment.  This is a common complaint I have been hearing.   I am trying to set up a facebook page that is linked to my blog that will make it easier for people to comment, at least for people who are on facebook.   No one else really matters, do they?

In the meantime, she shared her thoughts about my latest blog post, and I found her thoughts interesting enough that I want to share them with you.   I hope I do her justice, if not, maybe I will inspire her to register with blogger so she can correct me :)

She said that when she read the story about my daughter and the idiot in her science class, she was left wondering about one missing tidbit of information.   She wanted to know what "color" the boy who made the offending(?) statement was, and whether or not that would matter.   In other words, is it more offensive for a white kid to say, "I can see you as a doctor because you are asian," than if another asian kid had said it.   Hmmmmm.    I asked my daughter, and she confirmed that he was indeed white.   I won't include the other adjectives she used, but you can assume that they were less than complimentary.

In my discussion with my friend, she brought up that in many groups (not just racial) it is okay to poke fun of your own people.  For example, women call each other "chicks" all the time, but if men call a group of women "chicks", they are read the riot act.   We all know that a woman can complain that she is crazy with PMS, and she can commiserate with her friends about this, but pity the man who even hints that a certain mood might be attributed to a certain time of the month.   He is a dead man for sure.

So, is it okay when one Asian says to another, "Of course you'll be a doctor, you're Asian!" (wink, wink)?   And, by allowing and contributing to this kind of behavior, are we giving the message that sometimes, in certain circumstances, racism is okay?

We were discussing this topic at dinner and it led to DD1 sharing some new information about something that had happened to her this summer.   An event that we had all heard about before, but with a new twist.

This past summer DD1 went to visit my brother and his family in Scandinavia.    When she returned home her flight arrived at the airport at the same time as a plane from Tokyo.    When she came out of customs she told me that one of the airport workers had been insisting that she should go into the foreigners line instead of the US citizens line.   She kept telling him she was American and eventually had to show him her US passport so he would let her get in the right line.     When she told me that story I was outraged.    How could someone working at the airport be so racist?   Couldn't he see that she was wearing sweats from Hollister, and a t-shirt from her high school.   She might not be white, but on that day, she was the poster girl for "typical American fifteen year old."

Yesterday at dinner, she told us for the first time, that the man who had given her such trouble was Asian.    She also said that in retrospect he was probably not working for the TSA, but for the Japanese airline that had come in at the same time as her flight.    I have to admit, this changes things for me a bit. First of all, assuming he was ethnically Japanese, it means he wasn't labeling her as an outsider by pushing her towards the foreign-born line, but instead, he was including her as one of his own.   He was being inclusive, not exclusive.   Also, if he was ethnically Japanese he might not have recognized her extremely American outfit as such.   I do think he was a bit racist, or idiotic, to not believe her the first time she told him she was American.   But, somehow this new tidbit of information made the situation seem a little less awful?

So,what is it called when someone from a certain ethnic group, makes certain assumptions based on his or her own race, is it still racism?  And, is it benign?