Of the three Palestinian young men who were shot in Vermont two days ago, one is a student at Brown University, where I am on the faculty; one is a student at Haverford College, the "sister" institution of my alma mater, where I spent two summers participating in a theater program and otherwise visited often to see friends; and Trinity College in Hartford, which I have also visited at least twice. They became friends because they all attended a prep school in Ramallah, in the West Bank. Their families thought they would be safer now that they are all in the U.S. So obviously I can relate to them. At their age I was in a similar situation.
A man simply stepped out onto his front porch and shot all three of them without saying a word, probably because they were speaking Arabic and two of them were wearing kafiyehs. What I am about to say should be obvious but apparently it is too complicated for some people to understand, judging from the racist comments I have received on my posts about the conflict in Gaza. The Hamas militants who entered Israel and murdered civilians and kidnapped others, however legitimate you may consider their grievances against the state of Israel, made a fundamental error of attribution. Their grievance was not with the Jews, certainly not with Jewish children or farmers or shopkeepers. It was with the leadership of a specific political entity, and over complex historical events.
It works the same way in the other direction. It was not the Palestinians that committed the atrocities of October 7, it was a few hundred individuals, representing a political entity that had developed in the context of complex historical events. Just as we cannot know what any Jewish Israeli, chosen at random, thinks about those same events or would like to see as the outcome for Israel and Palestine, we cannot know that about any random resident of Gaza, or any Palestinian anywhere. Furthermore, people are responsible for their actions, not their thoughts or identity. Therefore, the actions of the Hamas militants on October 7 do not constitute moral justification, or even amelioration, for inflicting mass death and suffering indiscriminately on the people of Gaza, or any sort of hostility toward Palestinians in general, anywhere on earth. That is the very definition of racism.
We need to think, and try to understand, in terms of humanity, not tribe. That is the only hope for the species.
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My partner and I sometimes quote a comedian who said "I used to be a 'people person," but people ruined it for me."
Day after day, I am stunned at the idiocy of people. And in accordance with today's post, note that I'm not saying "all people" -- but rather, some people. The problem of today's world is the "one asshole" ... that is, the person who is so angry about something in their own life that they project it outward onto "Blacks," "Jews," "Arabs," "Chinese," "Liberals," etc.
We do not live in a society that teaches tolerance. In fact, it's the opposite. And many "Christians," "Jews" and "Muslims" (etc.) are among the worst offenders. So religion ain't the answer. Not at all. People who are "good people" are so despite their religion, not because of it. Beliefs don't make "good people" -- behavior does.
Then there's the problem of a society that has no regard for caring for those with mental illness or those in poverty.
The event described in today's post is not just unfortunate in today's USA and larger world, but inevitable -- because we don't give a shit. And that's what life MEANS: it means giving a shit.
PS: Two things need to begin IMMEDIATELY, one in the U.S. and the other globally. Perhaps they could start if we could begin electing young, energetic people for the office of president.
1) It's not enough for the statues to come down. We need IMMEDIATE education in the U.S. in our schools, starting as early as age appropriate, about the country's history of slavery and the institutional racism inherent in the U.S. Constitution, along with the true written history of Jefferson and the other cowards and racists who fucked up the country's founding because their status and wealth depended on it. This leads to the second immediate need:
2) We need to understand as a species that RACISM is simply the belief that there are different "races" (when my DNA, in fact, is 99.99% identical -- unfortunately -- to Donald J. Shitler's, as well as to any human, any member of Homo sapiens, that you can find anywhere on Earth). We need to IMMEDIATELY HALT usage of the term "race" to describe members of different ethnic or cultural groups, people of different skin color, etc.
See:
1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFQkLp5u-No
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=IL1aiDTFaYo
Inspired by Hamas, the Palestinian shooters that were previously in prison for terrorist activities went to a bus stop to KILL JOOS. Killed three and injured somewhere between six and sixteen. I might add that these victims were not part of any arm of the Israeli government.
Just regular schmoes waitin' on a bus.
Just following the Hamas Charter. No biggie.
There seems to be an intentional confusion labeling the groups involved. "Hamas" may be a subset of "Palestinian" but they refer to distinct groups who are unlike each other. Similarly "Jew", "Israeli", "Zionist", and "Likudnik (for want of a better term)" are also distinct and need to be talked about differently. I actually find the term "antisemitic" especially confusing since Arabic is definitely a Semitic language.
The one thing I find encouraging about this situation is that even though leaders and influencers tend to use racial terms the vast majority of the world's population sees this as a matter of common humanity; every life is important regardless of the labels attached to it. Since a central tenet of Christianity is that God loves everyone equally this should be obvious to citizens of a Christian nation, but that same sentiment seems dominant in the rest of the globe as well.
If we want to claim any kind of moral leadership in this environment we need to make it clear that the Palestinians have been forced to wander in a wilderness in their own homeland for 75 years, and it is time for them to have a real home of their own - probably much like the one laid out in the original 1947 UN declaration that gifted half of Palestine to Zionists.
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