The day before yesterday, National Security Adviser General James Jones was speaking to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-Israel think tank. According to the New York based The Forward a Jewish newspaper, the Institute was founded by Jewish donors.
To "warm up" the crowd General Jones told the following joke, which I've condensed a little bit.
"A lost Taliban militant wanders around the desert practically dying of thirst. He finally arrives at a store run by a Jewish merchant and asks for water.
The owner tells him he doesn't have any water, but can gladly sell him a tie. That sets the Taliban off and he begins cursing and yelling. Finally the merchant, unmoved, tells the militant that there's a restaurant beyond the hill and they can sell him water.
After some more cursing the Taliban finally leaves toward the hill and an hour later comes back to tell the merchant "Your brother tells me I need a tie to get into the restaurant."
Well, it seems that the General's choice of an ice-breaker to begin his talk was worse than forgetting to wear his bullet-proof shorts when he went through basic training. He's being branded as a thoughtless, brain-dead, racist, anti-Semite who purposely chose his words to insult, smear and demean Hebraics. The guy's being slammed so hard he doesn't know which way is up, and has set off on a round of apologizing.
Now, as someone who grew up in New York City a long time ago I simply don't understand what all the noise is about. I was called more horrendous things on my way to school every day than most people in the U.S. hear in the entire course of their lives. In fact, if you didn't tear each other up as kids by screaming ethnic slurs, you didn't have a clue as to who other kids were at all. We were identified by not only religious denigration, but other more visibly fitting labels like "four eyes", "gimpy", "geek" and "whale".
Back then, if you had some kind of physical defect, or "flaw" of any kind, which often was simply that for some reason or other you were "different", and the taunts of others bothered you at all, the best place for you to remain would have been at home, under your bed. And, the major reason that it didn't matter to anyone I knew then, and still doesn't matter today regarding what other people say, is that none of them are flawless either. So, if I'm one of these, they're one of those and if they have something to say about me, I've got something to say about them, too.
Thus, as a general rule, you realize sooner or later that whether it's out loud in the street, whispered behind one's back or left unsaid at all, people are going to keep on type-casting, categorizing and labeling others until the end of time. Now, whether they do that because it makes them feel superior, or part of some "in-club" which outsiders can never join, or are just simply too stupid to understand that none of the differences matter, it's still going to go on.
But, whatever the reason for others to insult your physicality, origin or ethnic persuasion, if they can get you to respond to them they've beaten you once. On the other hand, if you really take what they say to heart and let it actually bother you at all, they've beaten you forever.
That's it for today folks.
Adios
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