Gentleman's Agreement by Laura Zametkin Hobson

Have you read Gentleman's Agreement by Laura Zametkin Hobson No? Well, you should read it! Everyone should read it! Once upon a time, lots of people did - it spent five months at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List after it published in 1947 - but it has since fallen out of favor. I'd never heard of it until a friend picked it for our book club's February selection, spurring probably the best discussion we've ever had.

The novel's current lack of visibility might be due in part to its Amazon blurb: The plot of GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT concerns the experiences of a young Gentile writer who poses as a Jew in order to secure material on anti-Semitism for a series of magazine articles. A thesis novel concerning the social and economic aspects of anti-Semitism in American life.

No, really, it's good! I wrote all over my copy of the book, and then typed up my notes. And, yet, it was fun.

It's a quick read, easy, but not shallow (except a little right at the end). And it's non-threatening, too, for a book with such a point. The main character is an ally (not prone to some of the major prejudices of his day) which casts the reader into the same role and allows us to hear hard truths and appreciate them while thinking ourselves exempt or hidden.

This is one of those books that has stuck with me and I find myself using some of its figures of speech in my everyday life weeks after completing the read. Flick, tap.

The novel is about a California-based widower and writer who gets a job with a major weekly magazine in New York City and relocates his family. The first people he meets are his new editor - who gives him the assignment of writing a series on antisemitism - and the editor's niece - who inspired the idea for the assignment and becomes the love interest/second main character. The writer gets the idea that in order to write convincingly and interestingly about antisemitism, he must experience it first-hand. So he introduces himself to everyone he meets as a Jew and undergoes a rapid transformation.

The novel deals not only with antisemitism but also with other forms of prejudice, including racism and sexism. I especially enjoyed some of the nascent feminism, as the author gently drew us along with contemporary lines like, "I'm having people over tonight. A couple of girls and people." How great is that? The role of women's work in the running of a household provides an interesting background, as do the the characters' remarks about "womanish softness" of thought and "a vague resentment that it's a man's world."

But the parts that really stuck with me were about antisemitism and are equally relevant today, with our own various -isms. Prejudice comes in little "flicks" and "taps." “Rarely was the circumstance so arranged that you could fight back.” "They gave you at once the wound and the burden of proper behavior toward it.” There's a lot of discussion about “the complacence of essentially decent people about prejudice” and the question of whether it's gauche or required to make a scene and speak out against prejudice whenever you encounter it (even if it's at a formal dinner party with an important client).

All this unfolds as part of a love story between the writer and his editor's niece. She inspired the assignment and is passionately antisemitic . . . but perhaps she
has a different understanding of what antisemitism is and means and how best to respond. What brought the couple together eventually drives a wedge between them.

If you read - or have read - this one, please let me know; I'd love to discuss it with you! And if it doesn't sound like something you're willing to read, the novel inspired a movie by the same name, starring Gregory Peck.

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@Barrie Summy

Post-Racial Society

Most people don't think they're racist.

And of course many people think that racism is so over. 

Because I occasionally have poor impulse control I click over from a St. Louis Post-Dispatch news story to its discussion tab.  And I'm always disgusted by what I find there.

For example, this morning's news brought word of a man named Lavell Collins who was shot and killed in the city of St. Louis last night.  No picture accompanied the story.  But perhaps because of his name or the neighborhood in which the shooting occurred, the five immediate responses to the news were:

1. Are they sure it is not another case of suicide, or assisted suicide? That seems to be very prominent in North St Louis it appears from all the deaths of fine, upstanding young men.
2. More thinning of the lowlife herd in NStL. It is long past time for St. Louis to DO something pro-active against the proliferation of lowlife violent crimes.
3. Was he on his way home from church or had just delivered groceries to his elderly grandmother? Just another day in the neighborhood..... lalalalalalal
4. Draw a line east-west down the center of the City. "Separate But Equal"! That's the solution.
5. WONDERFUL,MAGNIFICENT,SPLENDID,BEAUTIFUL!These are just some of the words I use to describe my feelings when I here great news in the morning.This is how you thin the heard,just hope these lowlifes don't find out that this makes most white people happy or they might quit the destruction of their own kind.

But those comments and the many many just like them on news sites across the country are not racist.  They can't be.  Because racism no longer exists.

Seen on President's Day at My Daughter's School

Some of their parents have angry bumper stickers on their cars. Some of their parents believe that health care - and food - are privileges, not rights. Some of their parents might even belong to groups that wish the President dead.

But these first graders have different priorities.



If I were President I would . . .

Empty my bank account and give the money to poor people.
Stop wars.
Help homeless animals.

Every single child in this particular class wanted to be a Good Samaritan. Every single poster talked about helping people or animals in tough situations as a first priority. Every single one.

I loved the novel The Help by Kathryn Stockett. One of the most memorable parts - never elaborated on, never explained, but perfectly clear nonetheless - is black maid/nanny Aibileen's firm insistence on never caring for white children over age eight. The novel is set in Mississippi in the early 1960's and Aibileen is raising her 17th white child. She feeds them bottles and changes their diapers. She plays with them and potty trains them. She sends them off to school. But before they begin to see her as black, as other, before they start treating her as their parents do, she moves on to a new family.

We teach our children about kindness and generosity and manners and giving and thanksgiving. Inclusiveness and thoughtfulness. But we teach them other things, too. I see this in my own children. I see the way my six-year-old stomps off to be alone when she's angry. I hear the way my three-year-old can say "fiddlesticks" as though it's a vile curse. And I know: this, too, they learn at home.

On the balance: what do we teach our kids? And who will they become?

A Few Things On My Mind

1) This Great Country

The United States of America comprises over 301 million people. 8.3 million of them live in New York City. Nearly 14 million live in New England. 36 and a half million live in New York.

You know what else? Hollywood has thrust upon the nation such "liberals" as the dreaded activist and former union president Ronald Reagan. Yeah, I said it. Look here:

Nearly 60 million of us - nearly 1/5 of the population - live in places routinely denigrated by conservatives as being somehow un-American. Listen to the sneer in certain politicians' voices as they talk about New York media, Hollywood liberals, etc. Guess what? Those are Americans, people.

2) Anti-Intellectualism

I look forward to a day when we've cured cancer. I look forward to reading the next world-changing novel that becomes a classic for the next generation, an encapsulation of our time, of the entire human condition. I am anxiously awaiting the world's next big peacemaker, uniter. The world needs more smart people, more intellectuals. More people who are excited by new ideas, who seek them out and surround themselves with thinkers, who take tons of information from all over and synthesize it to form informed opinions.

I look up to and learn from the elite, the "the best of a class," educators. How on earth did we get ourselves into a place where intellectual, elite, and professor are used as insults?

3) How Long Will it Take Us to Ruin the Next Generation?

When Ellie started at a public preschool, she came home chattering about her classmates: Bilal, Shiroz, Indy, Umar, and Maddy. Her favorite giant floor puzzle features cartoon kids standing on the outside of a globe and as we're searching for the appropriate next piece, she describes what she needs: the boy in the green shirt, the woman in the white dress, the ballerina, the soccer player. It's not self-conscious political correctness; race honestly doesn't occur to her yet as a categorization for describing people. Now, that's American.

Wow.

Y'all a Bunch of Racists

By now I'm sure you've heard the main Republican attack against Barack Obama. Immediately after Obama's acceptance speech on Thursday night, CNN had the following headline: GOP says Obama's set is too much.

Seriously? That's all you got?

The attack is this: "The Temple of Obama. Barackopolis. Egobama."

And it's echoed across the internet and all conservative media outlets.

Yes, the biggest Republican attack against Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama is that he's an uppity black folk.

Seriously. You ever met a politician who didn't have a healthy sense of ego? You got any measure of how he's supposedly more confident than your average presidential candidate?

You should all be very, very ashamed of yourselves.

Celebrity Ego

I really like Oprah, and I really like Ellen. In fact, I often watch Ellen; one Tivo'ed episode lasts for quite a few lazy nursing sessions when Ada's feeling nap-nursey but doesn't want to sleep on her own.

But, like so many other celebrities, they have so much money and so many people giving them exactly what they want, telling them what they want to hear, that it's unsurprising when they lose a little perspective over time.

A couple of years ago, Oprah spent some time on her show and in the media talking about a recent and shocking experience with racism. (A nasty, but funny version is here.) The Washington Post piece does a good job of explaining the situation as I see it, especially the last line: "But after-hours shopping is a favor, a perk. Not a right. There's nothing wrong with a store saying not tonight, madame, as long as the reason doesn't have anything to do with skin color. It's okay to say no to a celebrity, even when her name is Oprah."

Unless the security guard or sales clerk at the door said or did something that suggested that race was a factor in their decision not to let Winfrey into the store after hours - something that the security video does not show - then why assume that race was the reason she was kept out? It's hard for me to imagine the sense of entitlement that goes into assuming that you'd be let into any store you want, in any country, even if they're closed.

More recently is the situation with Ellen and the adopted dog.

I have an adopted rescue pug. When we decided that we wanted to adopt a pet from the local pug rescue, I filled out an application and submitted it. Lots of people want pure-bred dogs, so our name was put onto a waiting list. After our application was considered, a representative from the rescue group came over to do a home visit and ensure that our home would be a good place for a rescue pug. It was made very clear to me that if - for any reason - we couldn't keep Lizzi, we were to contact Midwest Pug Rescue first. This is because:
- the organization is responsible for insuring the safety of the animals
- there is a waiting list for dogs
- the organization needs to know where the dogs are, be able to check up on them, and ensure that the dogs won't end up back in the shelter system

Ellen's sense of entitlement became apparent when she kept saying that the "situation still has not been resolved," when, I believe, it certainly had. The rescue organization had taken back the dog and had given him to another family - a family who'd passed the rescue organization's screening policies and had been waiting for a dog.

"Resolved," to Ellen, apparently means getting her way. In this case: violating a signed contract, and taking the dog away from its current home and family. Nice.

Celebrities do a lot of good with their money and their influence. But of those to whom much is given, much is also required. Trying to keep a sense of perspective is a good place to start.

Not the Diapers, Not the Garden Tools

On Thursday evening, Paul and I packed up the cool car, dropped Lizzi off with friends (Jessica from Daughter of Opinion, see sidebar), and headed west. We made it to Wyoming and Paul's parents' home by noon on Friday, spent a lovely weekend there, and drove back last night. 17 hours each way, about 1100 miles. It was a great weekend, and I hope to post pictures tomorrow. (I'm too lazy/tired to pull them off the camera tonight.)

Rather than no post at all, I just want to mention two brief rants about the whole Imus fiasco.

1) Racist, racist, racist. So damn true. Also, sexist, sexist, sexist. That seems to be slightly lost in the media hubbub.

2) This media gang pile on Imus annoys me. What, all the journalists and politicians who started refusing to have anything to do with Imus after his comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team, or started calling for his ouster, none of these people noticed that Imus has always been racist and sexist?

Jon Meacham from Newsweek said something about previously believing that the good of Imus's program outweighed the bad.

I'd be a little more inclined to believe the sincerity of that sentiment if there were a more public outcry against other "shock jocks" and cultural institutions that are blatantly sexist or racist.

Having just driven past probably a dozen shiny, new Hooters-type restaurants in the last 24 hours, I have a hard time believing that the Imus uproar is anything more than the self-righteous posturing of people more interested in following popular opinion than critically examining the ways in which racism and sexism are entrenched in our popular culture.

He Just Makes Me Uncomfortable

There's danger in "I feel" statements, especially when we don't examine them closely enough.

Our culture has taught us that our feelings are valid, that we should pay attention to how we feel, and that we should honor our concerns. Gone are the days of suck-it-up-and-deal. We no longer feel obligated to spend Thanksgiving sitting quietly next to the great-uncle who molested us; we can speak out and refuse to attend the family celebration if he's going to be there.

At least, that's the way it's supposed to work.

But there's a big potential downside here, too, and I noticed it at work several years ago when my company started hiring security guards to walk the office halls after hours.

These men are there, ostensibly to make the employees - mostly women at my company - who work late feel safer. They have the opposite effect for me.

For one thing, the constant presence of the security guards reminds me that there is something to fear. More importantly, the guards themselves are sometimes quite creepy.

One guard had few teeth, incredibly offensive body odor, and a really bad habit of standing too close to me, while effectively blocking the only way out of my office, and talking to me for far too long. Dude, I'm not at work at midnight because I feel like chatting. I'm here because I'm on a major deadline and I'd really like to just finish up and get home to bed as soon as possible.

He creeped me out so much that I took to carrying a metal letter opener with me when I left my office to walk to the bathroom at night and on weekends, and I kept it within easy reach at my desk when I thought he might be stopping by. I also asked Paul to come by occasionally to bring me dinner. I called home to check in regularly too.

This guard was white, and as far as I know he was never fired. (When I came back from my year off, this particular guard was gone but he'd been there quite a while and might simply have left the job for another one.)

Another guard, who started around the same time, put out a completely different vibe. He was incredibly nice. He too would talk to me when I worked late at night, and I wished he would just let me work in peace, but his air was far less threatening. He never blocked my office doorway, and he never talked about violence or danger.

He was black, and he got fired after a few months. Some of my coworkers complained (anonymously, of course) that he made them "uncomfortable." When pressed, no one could provide an example of exactly what this guy had done wrong, but just being alone in the office with him at night was "uncomfortable" for some of my suburban, white, female coworkers.

Maybe he stood in the hallway and chatted with another male employee (also black, also fired) where they had a clear view of the women's restroom. Of course, there's a clear view of the women's restroom from just about anywhere in the main hallway. But that was enough.

A weekend janitor was recently fired for a similar reason, and, in fact, it turns out that an awful lot of the black men in maintenance, janitorial services, and security are fired because of employee complaints of "discomfort." The official reason given is usually something about chatting in the hallways at work, though we all do that, or no reason at all for the sub-contractors like the security guards and janitors.

This is insidious and hard to prove, but it's racism all the same. Why does this particular security guard bug you? Does he stand too close? Spend too much time gleefully reminding you of how vulnerable you are? Regale you with tales of strange cars parked near yours in the parking lot? Remind you of how he knows your license plate number, and point out that you two are the only ones in the office this late? No? Hmm.

I wish I knew how to fight this. I wish I knew what to do other than to get futilely furious.

Epidemic

37% of Americans believe that they can get HIV through kissing.

Yet we should not discuss condoms in school.

16% of Americans believe that they can catch HIV from toilet seats.

Yet we should not discuss condoms in school.

Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, has repeatedly said that the HIV can "easily pass through" condoms. He's not been publicly reprimanded or contradicted by the Roman Catholic Church.

Yet we should not discuss condoms in school.

13% of Americans are African-American. 51% of new American HIV diagnoses are of African-Americans.

Yet we should not discuss condoms in school.

Do we (quietly) think that we know how to avoid getting it, so we can (quietly) keep our loved ones safe from HIV/AIDS, and that's why we (quietly) don't care about this epidemic? It's not people like us who are dying. Is that why there's still reluctance to do what's necessary to stop the spread of this disease? Do we still, after all this time, wait to hear how someone was infected before (quietly) deciding whether or not they deserved to get HIV/AIDS? Do we (quietly) think that this is a Darwinian plague?

We should all be ashamed. We are not doing enough. We could be be doing much, much better.

Peer Group Diversity

Applying to college was a multi-year experience for me. I can't remember a time when I didn't think I would go to college, and when I didn't think about where I'd go. My mom's oldest brother has something like 7 kids (2 by birth, one adopted at birth, and at least 4 foster "kids" with whom he and his wife maintain a life-long relationship). His philosophy about paying for college was, "Sign every piece of paper they put in front of you, and it will all work out somehow."

My parents' philosophy about paying for college was sort of similar - don't talk about it. Perhaps they talked between themselves, but they encouraged us girls to make our decisions without worrying too much about the price tag. We all went to private colleges, we all had scholarships, we all came out with hefty student loans that we might never pay off, and our parents remortgaged the house. It all worked out.

Since I wasn't paying much attention to tuition costs, that freed me up to focus on other criteria.

I looked closely at national ranking, of course. And some of the Fisk quality-of-life type ratings. I also looked very closely at what percentage of the student body lived on campus (high was desirable) and what percentage of the student body was Greek (low was desirable). And I paid a lot of attention to sex and race ratios. I wanted to go to a school that had a good amount of diversity.

I'd grown up in a community where "minorities" were the majority. Late in my sophomore year of high school, we moved to an extremely white and (upper) middle class community where there was very little diversity of any kind.

A high school friend of mine worked with a black guy from a neighboring community. His co-worker came to pick him up one day, in their job's van. He got a little lost. A black guy in a van driving around the block a couple of times in broad daylight? Someone called the cops. That's the kind of community where I finished high school.

But it's hard to tell a lot about a school from rankings and rating and guidebooks and brief campus visits.

Wash U has a lot of racial, ethnic, and religious diversity. But, at least at the time I went there, it wasn't very well integrated. My dorms, most of my classes, my co-ed service fraternity, my friends - mostly white.

Then I graduated and got a job in the community. Almost all of my coworkers are white.

My husband and I drove around town and visited lots of communities. We saw one that looked perfect, and seemed to be pretty nicely integrated. We bought a house. It's a lovely community. Very poorly integrated. The many students of color in the local schools are part of an active bussing program from the inner city.

In short, most of the people at our jobs, our church, or neighborhood, and our peer group look just like us.

Laziness helped this to happen. Going along with the flow, choosing an easy path and not stretching out of our comfort zone. Periodically, Paul and I discuss finding ways to fix this, but we don't know where to begin.

Last night, I was humbled to have a discussion with a friend who's found herself in a similar situation. She sits down a couple of times a year to try to figure out ways to break through the way that this community tends to segregate itself.

She has signed her three-year-old up for classes at public parks in parts of the city that have higher populations of African Americans and other racial and ethnic groups. She's made an effort to take her child places on the bus, when their own car would be more far convenient.

And they do a lot of volunteering, but that's what's really bothering her lately. Most of the people of color who her young son sees are people he's helping, not friends of his parents. And she's very concerned about the message that's sending.

This is someone who's making a real effort. She's a great friend, a great person, and a new role model for me.

Black and White

Now that my mind is rehashing the blank old days, I've got a couple more college stories in my head. But first I have another post about racism. I know, I know, it's not Blog Against Racism Day, but blogging against racism only on its designated day is like studying Malcolm X only in February. The only thing worse would be to never do it at all.

I tend to hang out with mostly progressive folk, and sometimes I forget how it's still OK to be unapologetically racist in some circles. And I'm not talking about Klan circles.

I am part of a network of parents of kids with Down syndrome who offer support to new parents of babies with Down syndrome. The volunteers get together at least quarterly for training and to talk about the issues our families are dealing with.

In our group, there's one white man and one black woman; the rest of us are white women. Two of the new mamas we're supporting are African American teen mothers living with their own parents. Both were assigned to the African American support parent. What does she have in common with these two new moms? Not so much more than the rest of us; she too is an educated, middle class, happily married suburbanite. She was an adult, already established in her career before she had children.

Another volunteer was assigned to a new mom who lives in a bad neighborhood. She was quite open about just not feeling safe visiting this new mom. No biggie; pick a nearby park or McDonald's, right? But maybe she brought it up because she was hoping to be excused from working with this new mom? Surely not.

A third volunteer reneged on one of her families - an inner-city black family - because they "didn't have anything in common" and wouldn't be able to relate to each other. We all have children with Down syndrome. That's what we have in common. Who else did she think might relate better to this new mom in need of support?

I'm not shocked that people feel this way. I'm shocked that people just say stuff like that, right out loud, without cringing. Man. I'm used to a generous dose of liberal guilt with situations like this.

But before I get too high on my horse, I have a confession about my own racism.

When I was a kid, I went to a school that was extremely racially diverse for central Kansas - or anywhere. In 5th grade, the girls were into playing hand clapping games on the playground. The dirtier the lyrics the better.

There was one song, Rockin' Robin, to be played by 4 participants, that was a group favorite. I always liked it because it was so dirty, with lots of cussing. Forbidden. It was years and years and years later that I realized that it is also incredibly racist. Among other verses:

Went downtown, to buy a stick of butter
Saw James Brown, sh*tting in the gutter

[Note that I had no idea who James Brown was at this point. And even when I did know, it took a long, long time to put it together.]

Saw a piece of glass
Stuck it up his *ss
Never seen a MotherF*cker run so fast

Mama's in the kitchen, stirring that rice
Daddy's in the attic, shooting them dice
Brother's in jail, raising hell
And Sister's on the corner selling Fruit-Cock-Tail.

Nice, yes? What does it mean that it's apparently a traditionally African American rhyme (and this is the context in which I learned it)? I'm thinking that's a bit different than if a group of suburban white girls were singing it. Also, it seems that we added bad words to our version to make it worse.

But the context is no excuse for my continued ignorance.

Tomorrow, more pranks and pics.

Racism

Apparently, I missed Blog Against Racism Day. Thanks to PK for the wonderful post about it, and to Charlie in her post's comments, demonstrating how far we have to go.

My thoughts branched out from there, thinking about the stereotype that southerners are more racist than northerners.

I don't think that's exactly true.

Sure, the Klan was and is more active in the South, and some of the most loquacious and unapologetic racists hail from down yonder. But one big reason for that is that there are a whole lot more African Americans down south than there are in the Midwest, or most anywhere else in the country (excepting large cities).

Yeah, there are a lot of racists in the South, and many of them are at best unashamed of and at worst proud of themselves and their racist heritage.

But you know what's up with racists in the North? We just hide it a little better.

We talk a better game, but we don't worship with, play with, or have children with very many people of color, by and large. Most of our spouses and best friends look a lot like us. And that's just as racist, in its own way.

I've seen southern racists interact quite comfortably with African Americans.

And I've seen (liberal) northern (hidden) racists acting really really uncomfortable if the subject of race comes up when there's a person of color in the room. I've seen my friends, coworkers, self try to avoid talking about race and race issues at all.