I’m Sick and Tired of Being Called a Racist
In the wake of the Henry Gates affair and the late-August story about black British footballer Jermain Defoe being wrongfully arrested and kept overnight in a police lockup, I was inspired to look at the issue of “racism.”
I was first called a racist in 2000. It was an unforgettable experience that blew me away. There I was, the daughter of left-wing American Jews who had followed their combined consciences tirelessly campaigning for every liberal movement, just as the anti-apartheid movement was led by South African Jews. In the 1930s anti-Semitism was on the rise in the United States; some feel this arose from Jewish devotion to socialist causes.
In the 1930s my mother was a social worker with the Philadelphia DPA (Department of Public Assistance) and many years later recounted to my sister and me horror stories about the local butchers giving maggoty meat to her black caseload (“They’re animals; they don’t know any better,” said the butchers) and Philadelphians protesting during the war when black men were first allowed to drive buses. Mommy said that one day “nine million concentrated hates behind the barricades will burst through” and there would be, in James Baldwin’s words, “the fire next time.” She was right. During the war she came close to dishonorable discharge from the Army for loudly complaining to her commanding officer about white GIs chanting “WAC-coons!” when the black WACs marched.
Throughout my lifetime my parents were liberals and lived their lives accordingly…
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com …
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