Yarram

I only look white.

Ruddy complexion, curly auburn hair, now starting to grey. "What part of Ireland is your family from," isn't a rare question. Apparently I'm a LIBI - looks Irish, but isn't.

My minority identity is pretty strong. My family is Jewish, both sides. All 4 of my grandparents were emigrants & while they learned it as children, English was a second language for both my parents. Even I heard more than just English as a child. My family came here to escape European antisemitism. The States weren't devoid of antisemític sentiments. They just weren't what they were in Europe. Your prospects were much brighter here than there. The bulk of my father's family succeeded in coming over. Sadly, not the story for my mother's family. Particularly hard hit was my maternal grandmother's family. The town she was from was taken off the map by the Nazis. It no longer exists. The only two to survive were my grandmother and her eldest brother, the only two that were here in the states prior to the war.

Both my father and his brother wanted to become physicians. My uncle succeeded, although he was most of the way through a PhD program before he was able to get a seat in a medical school at the same midwestern public university. Despite graduating summa cum from Syracuse University with a dual major in political science and bio chemistry, my father wasn't able to gain entry to either medical or law school in this country in the early 1950s. Why did he go to Syracuse? Simple. They were one of the private universities willing to accept Jews in 1948. (Incidentally, Jerry Stiller was one of my father's fraternity brothers.)

Growing up in the safety of New York City's "melting pot" I never feared for my safety because of my ethnicity, the basic safety in numbers. However, after my grandfather's death, post a long battle with lung cancer in the summer of 1968, my parents took us on a road trip from New York to Florida. I was 13. We pulled off the interstate somewhere in the rural Georgia, to stop for gas and something to eat. Walking into a country diner, we sat and patiently waited for service. Though my mother is a blue-eyed blonde, Pop had the map of eastern Europe for a face & my youngest sister had a gold star of David hanging on her neck. After 20 minutes, a waitress sauntered over, leaned over to speak quietly to my mother, who was seated next to me. With a saccharine drawl over pursed lips she said, "we don't serve your kind here. I suggest you take your children and leave, before something untowards happens." With the nod of her head, she gestured over her shoulder towards two rather large men in overalls seated at the counter, both of whom glared menacingly in our direction. We left, leaving behind a piece of my innocence. Years later, I would read about lynchings of Jews, including one in outside of Atlanta in 1915 & feel much more comfortable with my parents move to retreat. .מאָדנע פרוכט (strange fruit.)

Most associate the KKK with the American south, but historically they've flexed their muscle in areas far flung. How about in Queens, New York in 1927? There was a march & with a riot that followed. Post riot, a number of people were arrested, including Fred Trump. That name familiar? It should be. He's the Donald's father. Perhaps this explains the president's tepid response condemning the recent events in Charlottesville, claiming both sides were to blame for the violence, where a young woman peacefully protesting was killed by a supremacist who plowed his van into the crowd, ala an ISIS inspired attack.

One of the Charlottesville synagogues had three white supremacists, armed with semi automatic rifles standing across the street while their congregation met for services Saturday morning. I guess simply being a person of color, or Jewish appears to be provocation. They got to listen to those man screaming for people to burn down the synagogue as the congregation stood there in worship. (A letter from the rabbi of my sister's congregation in New Jersey of her communication with the congregation in Charlottesville will be posted to follow this post. Please do read it.)

I am clearer now then ever that I am a minority person, who is not safe within the borders of my own country. That we have a president who cannot unequivocally and immediately condemn in no uncertain terms, that racial and ethnic hatred is antithetical to everything this country stands for, gives me great pause. Reality is he is both a cause and a symptom of the pervasive underlying bigotry that still exists in a large portion of this country. There is no racial, ethnic, religious, or social minority within this country he is not willing to throw under the bus if, it suits his needs & sadly enough, he has a like minded community to preach to.

We must work in coalition and unity to stand up for what is right. Jew must support Muslim, who must support Hispanic, who must support African-American, who must support LGBT, who must support women, who must support environmentalist, who must support Native American, and so on, and so on. We must speak with clarity when we speak truth to power. Anything less insures our failure, if not out right subjugation.