Martin Luther King Day and Crown Heights

This Monday is Martin Luther King Day. Obviously it goes without saying that this master of rhetoric is responsible for a fundamental change in American society. A day that commemorates such a leader is more than deserved. When I was in yeshiva in Crown Heights we had half a day off on President’s Day, even Labor Day a nothing holiday, but Martin Luther King Day? No way. What’s so great about him? Just some shvartza.

My whole life I had never experienced or witnessed racism. Not until I came to Crown Heights. I was more shocked than appalled. My own landsmen, so ignorant and insidious? At first I was angry, insulted, and disgusted by the attitude (especially since my father [step-father technically, but that is completely irrelevant.] is black) My whole life I had been taught how America had moved past such old and hateful convictions, yet here it is, in Lubavitch of all places. It isn’t however, what I call, a malicious racism. They are not constantly going on and on about those “damn blacks” like some southern hillbilly. Malicious racism means you don’t have anything to do with them, on the contrary, you wish them harm. Rather in CR it’s more like a passive racism. It’s a general mindset of “the shvartza” and you can hear it in the everyday conversations; “the shvartzas…” “some shvartza on the subway today…” “quit acting like shvartzas and be menchin!” It’s passive racism. Once in a while if someone was really going off I would simply point out that my father is black and watch their reaction in amusement, “oh I’m not racist in fact my neighbor is black and we get along fine and I have a friend who’s black too. I’m just saying…” every time. And of course it’s always pointed out how the prison is so filled up with blacks. I don’t know maybe it is, but I also know that prisons and jails everywhere are filled up, and in places where there are very few blacks, somehow those prisons get filled up too. It is irrelevant none-the-less. I simply say that if your mind wasn’t as narrow as a pencil you’d realize that even if most people in our prison system are black, most blacks are just normal descent people.

After a while I became desensitized. I simply accepted the fact that I was just a little more civil and carried a broader perspective than the rest of CR. I began to grasp where this mindset came from. In CR, almost everyone who’s not Jewish is black and the ones who live in Brooklyn really are hoodlums- it is Brooklyn. However, since they are like that, then everyone else must be like that as well. It starts w/ parents who develop convictions (perhaps from the CR riots) and raise their kids with the same outlook. In turn the children grow up with a predetermined attitude which is bolstered by what they see in Brooklyn itself. The ill frame of mind is then sustained thanks to a lackadaisical attitude and ignorance of the world outside CR. It’s just simple narrow mindedness. It’s what really bothers me the most about CR; the “Whistle off the world” syndrome that seems to be cultivated there. To an extent such an approach is good, but not when exaggerated to the point of—to save myself from elapsing into a bashing-rant, to the point of a lot of things.

I thank G-d I was raised and think differently than most people. Unfortunately, the entire world has lost all sense of dignity and respect. A few decades ago people would actually pull off the road out of respect for a funeral procession. Now you can witness someone honk because of the irritation. What happened to people?

What is nice to take into account is the people I came across that were the most outspokenly racist were those that already seemed to me as unintelligent as it was. Nevertheless, racism is just the product of a bigger issue that irks me; Whistle off the world syndrome.