Racism, Again

Racism. It has been on my mind, Bush, as you know. I have been writing about Daniel Mendelsohn's "The Lost." I was disturbed by the Michael Richards rant and the response to it. I wrote about his apology on the David Letterman show and have taken note of the many dismissive reactions I have heard to that apology. I heard a report last night about his session with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and was pleased that Jackson himself saw in it an opportunity for national self-examination and discussion. I frankly see little chance of that happening, but I do agree that it's way past time for us to acknowledge the systemic racism that persists in America to this day, and to begin to find ways to heal. The first step of those famous twelve is to come out of denial.

As I've said only recently, Bush, I do acknowledge the racism in myself. I know that it's buried deep in the unconscious mind, that that it surfaces only rarely. I try to be watchful, and take note when it does. And I try to at least be attentive to the racism in others. And I have to say that I'm not a little dismayed--no, angered--when I see the state of Israel compared to Nazi Germany in the comment section of these pages. I censor no one, but there are times when the comments are so wildly out of whack with my own thinking that I almost wish I could. This one reader--and I do welcome him and thank him for his loyalty to The Bush Diaires--has recently contributed such vitriolic comments that I simply can't let them pass without some response.

First, I do not by any means believe that the state of Israel should receive a free pass. No nation is above criticism, and Israel surely comes in for its share. But to label an entire nation "Zionist" and to lay the blame for virtually every tension with its neighbors at its door is to ignore the history even of the recent past. Since the Oslo agreement, every effort toward peace on the part of Israel, every concession offered or made has been met only with increased hostility and violence. What are you to do when your small piece of territory is bombarded daily by a hail of rockets? When children and, most recently, old women are used to carry bombs into your populated areas and blow your innocent citizens to kingdom come? When most of your neighbors loudly proclaim their belief that you should be wiped from the face of the earth? When governments embrace this as thier policy?

If my reader who is so insensed about Israel that he compares it with the Nazi state in Germany, let him read "The Lost." Let him understand what institutionalized racism looks like. Let him experience from the other side, the victims' side, the meaning of discrimination, what the life of an ordinary citizen might be in a state whose official policy is their extermination. When not only the Germans but the Poles and Ukrainians who had for centuries been their neighbors, turn suddenly cruel and hateful when given the opportunity to unleash the basest of their racist instincts. I anticipate that his response will be to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians, and certainly there is much work to be done--and, yes, by Israel as well as by their own leadership--to address the very real issues that plague them.

Of course there is a racist element in Israeli society. How could it be otherwise? They are human beings, and all human beings, I would argue, do harbor these ignoble feelings. But institutional racism? I don't see it. The national policy has more to do with self-defense, survival, preservation of the state, its protection from attack and eventual destruction than with any racial prejudice against their neighbors and their own non-Jewish population. The racial hatred, as I see it, spouts from the mouths of the Ahmedinejad's of this world, from the leaders of organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah who preach it as the policy they embrace.

Beyond my disagreements with him, though, I am bothered almost as much by the tone of my reader's comments. I love passion, and I believe he is passionate in his opinions. But the line is thin between passion and vitriol, and my reader crosses that line to his own detriment. His arguments are offered in the guise of rational discussion, but they would carry more weight with me if they came less freighted in their tone with an anger and narrowness of vision whose source, I suspect, is unconscious and unintended racism. I acknowledge my own prejudices, and am willing to be called on them when they appear. My hope is that my readers would do the same.

And given that latest fatal shooting in New York, Bush, The Rev. Jesse Jackson has it right. It's time for a national dialogue on the reality of racism in our own society.