Struggling with my weight in an endeavor to avoid diabetes and to lower my blood pressure, I resolved to join Weight Watchers, which I did recently. I am perhaps the only man in a group of about 35 to 40; it fluctuates. I find the plan itself sane and doable, and my pressure within three weeks has become almost that of a young man’s. It is due to portion control, I believe. But all this is by the way of an introduction. The group is led by a cheerful woman, who does not chirp but is pleasant. The Tuesday before Easter she led the group with a pair of rabbit ears on her head; I don’t find that too crazed nor do I feel a need to comment upon it. For that day she was showing us how to prepare a meal for the “holiday.” She spoke about ham and deviled eggs and other items for that dinner. Passover comes in late April. However, the two holidays are linked historically. I observed that she did not mention that other holiday. I am wondering if she will advise the group about a meal for Passover; I think not. I intuit that. I may also be surprised. I asked puckishly about the point value for a matzoh, but that died in mid-flight.
When the Conquistadores came to Arizona with their swords and the friars with their crosses and bibles, one had to choose conversion or die. Here I am in Green Valley, Arizona and apparently there is no other religion than Christianity. Like Ellison’s The Invisible Man, it is more than I don’t exist — I can’t be seen. I’ve grown up in schools on the East Coast where recognition for both faiths was part and parcel of education. What the beef here, dear reader, is that I experienced that intolerable and supersuccessionist belief that the world contains no others than the majority religion — to wit, the new testament is an improvement over the old. Really! It is at moments like this that I immediately identify with the black man or any minority. I am not there.
Few Americans know anything about Judaism or Jews other than the usual comedic rigamarole, yiddishisms, movie stereotypes; movie producers and heads of studios going back decades who were Jewish spent an inordinate amount of time becoming attentuated, assimilated and antiseptic. They presented Jews as reeking of schmaltz, playing fiddles, haggling, chiseling and other stereotypical attitudes. With Jews like these who needs enemies. All in all, I believe the average non-Jew has no idea about what a Jew is, although Mel Gibson feels free to direct a snuff film, a homoerotic one at that, which exudes anti-Semitism.
Although I hold no brief for Obama, he did explicate black rage in his speech and not all that his pastor advocated or described is untrue; what white America has difficulty with is black rage which is considerable and in many instances justifiable. We’d rather not see, rather not look at it. We are still debating and discussing the bombings of Dresden during W.W. II. Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse Five about his experience during the allied raids. I have come far afield from a minor event in Weight Watchers.
Summing up: no one likes to be excluded, no one likes to be more than dismissed — not to be recognized; no one likes to feel that his or her existence is of no importance; no one likes to sense that neutral sense of superiority which does not declare itself but assumes everyone experiences in the same way. I may come back to this, for I do not like any kind of diminishment, subtle, direct or simply obtuse. I don’t feel that I have to go about educating people about becoming and staying human beings — that is their task. I was galled about the implicit premise that Tuesday that Passover did not exist. When that holiday rolls around, I suppose I’ll get a few Jews together and capture a Christian child to devour. . .How many points is that?
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