I’m in the ambulance, driving back from the hospital so we are alone. We see a car overloaded with Orthodox Hasidic Jews, headed towards our exit. She says, " God, those Hebes just drive me nuts".
I got so sick inside. She backtracked very fast, and stopped JUST short of saying " Some of my VERY BEST FRIENDS ARE JEWS !! ".
The damage is done, however. I’m now an officer in this organization, and report to her. I’m stunned at her blatant racism. It’s all volunteer, there’s nothing to be done really. If I quit out of sheer fury, NOBODY will suffer except the citizens I’m supposed to be helping out.
I’m not a fucking moron, I know that I’m surrounded by veiled racism and Anti-Semitism. But shit man. I’m at a loss. I would talk to her, but it would do zero good. One doesn’t change racist attitudes with a heartfelt lecture.
I just had to get this off my chest, I can’t imagine a decent way to deal with this at all. FUCK :(.
One of the bus drivers that drives my kids is known as a “mean” lady. She is very strict with the kids, who dislike her accordingly. My wife has occasionally tried made small talk with her, said hello, thank you etc. but she is ignored. But the possiblity was that maybe she is by nature a strict, stern, person.
Today my wife was in the drug store when another driver from that company came in, and the conversation turned to this woman. The kid behind the counter said that when he went to school he had this woman as a driver and she used tell the kids “You Jew bastards, Hitler should have killed all of you!” Kind of makes you a bit uncomfortable about having this person drive your kids to school. But such is life. At least she doesn’t run the government.
Farbeit from me to start making excuses for bigots, but since you have to work with this person, it might be worth investigating slightly-more-acceptable explanations for her dumbass, rude, ill-bred comment.
Some people get weirded out by differentness, especially that which is based on religious devotion. I don’t know why it touches a nerve with some people, but it clearly does. It’s possible that she’s the same way, and boy Hasidism can look as different as it comes. In trying to express that, she might have chosen a particularly ugly way to say it. Personally, I think she ought to keep such thoughts to herself, and if she felt she had to say something, she should have had the fucking sense to not use an offensive epithet while doing so. It was thoughtless and stupid.
She’s lost your respect and I suspect she knows that. Does this have to go any further than that? I would say no unless you have reason to believe that she’d do something like, say, not drive as fast on a call to a Hasidic neighborhood. Or be less willing to treat a Jewish person needing medical care. Then, I think you’ve got a problem.
I don’t blame you for being horrified, but she might not be the bigoted monster she first seemed. She might just be intolerant of religion, and indulged in some ugly language to express it. This is, in my mind, at least marginally more endurable in someone I had to work with.
Doesn’t sound like there was anything “veiled” about it. :mad:
My Liberal Crank method:
You’re an officer in your organization, you say? You now have some weight to throw around. File a complaint. It’s fun to see how high HR people jump these days when they hear about the HINT of a lawsuit! And you’re a volunteer. What are they going to do, FIRE YOU? Hah, hah, hah!
Wife says you should confront her gently. She’s generally wiser than me. Say:
“Gee, I’m so surprised hearing you say something like that! You don’t seem like the type.”
It’s a Dale Carnegie trick. I mean, method. Set a standard for the person to live up to and act like they already do. They feel compelled to live up to it.
She also says, “Maybe she has had a bad experience with Jewish people and would like to talk about it.”
Whenever I start to suspect, from her taste in movies, that she’s really a guy she starts talking all girly like that.
My impulse is to say, “call her on it” but damned if I know what you could say that would make a dent in that kind of blind, hating stupidity. If you made it official she’d probably twist it around into a kind of justification for her hate anyway. (“After all, one of ‘them’ got me into trouble, so see?”)
By catching herself only meant she knew she shouldn’t have said it, not that even thinking that way is profoundly stupid, hateful and an affront to everyone’s humanity, her own included. But maybe since she felt comfortable enough around you to slip in the first place might be an opening?
It’s gotta be disgusting even having to deal with her now but sounds like you’re stuck with her anyway. Any chance that you could grab a quiet moment and say something like, “About your comment the other day-- I thought we worked together well and you respected me professionally as well as personally…” and go from there.
Which all sounds noble but gotta say your account of her made me want to rinse out my brain pan with Drano. Damn, actually being stuck in proximity to her must be sickening. It’s probably not much comfort, 'toon, but you’re infinitely finer on any human level that matters.
One tiny statement has worked you up into such a lather. Are you a member of the ADL or something? A single statement does not make her an anti-semite.
One tiny statement has worked you up into such a lather. Are you a member of the ADL or something? A single statement does not make her an anti-semite.
Marc **
[/QUOTE]
hey Marc
Did you just leave the Hitler Nazi Youth Camp?
Frankly 'Toon do what I do (course I’m Jewish so its more fun for me)
My response would have been, “really? They don’t bother me that much, course then again I’m Jewish”
I don’t know if you can ever change anyones mind, but you sure as hell can make them uncomfortable!
For me, this is the crux of it. You’re angry it happened, and it’s intensified because you’re powerless to make real change. What I learned this week, is that there are some people, places, and times when no matter how much to want to fight ignorance, condemn bigotry or right a wrong, nothing you can do will accomplish what your heart desires.
Oh, really? Then what does?
When that “single, tiny” statement consists of calling a group of innocent strangers Hebes and claiming they automatically and collectively drive her nuts strikes me as anti-semitic. IMO slapping on a deliberately insulting, derogatory label in the first place pretty well qualifies.
It wasn’t like she said, “Gee, I just don’t get Jewish clannishness.” Recast the scenario into “those niggers/bitches/faggots/wetbacks/white males” to someone who shared the tidy category. Implicitly backtracking, even silently, with “but I didn’t mean YOU” or “but I didn’t DO anything” doesn’t mitigate the ugliness.
I loathe PC thought-facism. Idiots can believe whatever they want. But when they blurt out hateful judgements, even inadvertantly, the insult is real. They have the right to be genuine assholes. And those they insult have the right to resent the hell out of it. Dumping even mental sewage on someone’s head is insult enough.
Maybe they way they dress or style their hair is what drives her nuts. Who knows? It doesn’t automatically make her an anti-semite.
**
You’ll excuse me if I don’t put “hebes” in the same category as nigger, kike, or wet back. Was it a polite thing to say, no. But it sounds to me like the OP is blowing this way out of proportion.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by MGibson *
You’ll excuse me if I don’t put “hebes” in the same category as nigger, kike, or wet back. Was it a polite thing to say, no. But it sounds to me like the OP is blowing this way out of proportion.
I agree with MGibson… I find it presumptuous to condemn a person for a single instance of bad judgement. Now, it would be a different story if this were a constant thing… but since the OP has been avoiding her, he wouldn’t know, now would he?
And equally you’ll excuse me if I categorize crass, random insults differently. I simply don’t see a significant difference even if it was based on their hair, clothing, etc. It’d be just as stupid and offensive as, say, all tattooed/pierced Goths are nihilistic wannabe mass murderers. Or all men are knuckle-dragging oppressors. Etc. Etc. It’s mental and emotional shoddiness. Looks like we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.
**
Impolite? At the very least, defining courtesy as basic respect for other people. I’m honestly baffled at the impulse to give casual, stupid cruelty a free pass.
i dunno. but to me, saying that ‘hebe’ isn’t as offensive as ‘kike’ is like saying ‘spearchucker’ isnt as offensive as ‘nigger’, or ‘beaner’ isnt as offensive as ‘wetback’. but thats just me.
and, mgibson, you got your head so far up your ass that tomorrow’s turd is poking you in the eye.
