Oh damn, you bring me back. All the way to fifth grade and a girl named, I kid you not, Karen. We were in same class from second grade on but never friends; she was very much in crowd and I was no crowd at all. Our mothers, though, were not close but friendly. They were both in PTA and League of Women Voters, both Democrats in a heavily Republican community, sometimes had coffee together after PTA meetings, that sort of thing. Anyway, one find California day in fifth grade I was walking home and Karen, who lived a block over, came up behind me taunting "dirty Jew, dirty stinking Jew". I turned around and belted her one. We both went home crying. I told my mother the whole story. Karen told her mother only that I'd punched her, omitting the preamble. In due course, Mrs. A called my mother all upset, she said she knew I was not the kind of girl who ordinarily went around hitting people, something must have upset me, but this was unacceptable blah blah. My mother waited until she was finished, then said in her sweetest voice (when my mother used her sweet voice, it usually meant you were going to get your ass handed to you), "I'm very sorry that [crandc] hit Karen, but you really should tell Karen it's not nice to call people dirty stinking Jews." There was this dead silence for several seconds, then my mother heard Mrs. A call "Karen!" and some side conversation. Mrs. A was so embarrassed she apologized to my mother up one side and down the other. Karen and I were in the same class all through high school and were never friends ... but she never called me a dirty stinking Jew again.
No. I have no interest at all in what she is up to these days, haven't seen her since I escaped the town where I was raised at 16. And I'm not on Facebook.
You reminded me of middle school. Not that my experience has to do with racism or antisemitism. (I am not trying to be comparative here at all to your or the above experiences). Just reminded of a bully. Tried to bully me in middle school because I was short and he figured me an easy target. I kicked his ass all the way home with a good number of kids watching. Kicked his ass down the street, up his porch, and into his front door where he went crying for his mother. I went to high school with the same group. I was never bullied again. Normally I dont care for violence, but sometimes you have get a point across that you can't with words.
One time my wife, my sister-in-law and I were all going to an all you can eat buffet. We raced my sister-in-law for the honor to get there first and pay for the other. She beat us. As I was parking the car my wife headed for the line. My sister-in-law had already paid the bill for all three of us and the waitress was beckoning my wife and I forward so the waitress could seat us. I got there a few seconds after my wife and was behind her swimming forward through the line. There was a sign near the head of the line that said we needed to progress through the line even if we have already paid. My wife never saw this new sign and we figured the waitress took precedence anyhow. This big guy who never saw me says to my Asian wife "You no reedy signy?" I caught up about that time and slugged him in the back hard enough to spin him around. Despite the fact that he was considerably bigger than me he could see the anger in my eyes and that I meant business. Now, I firmly believe in non violence as was taught to me by my father but God Damn it, there are times when you need to resort to a little brute force and ignorance with some people. They just don't seem to understand anything else. To sum it up, I agree with you.
