EPT
.Stop, it hurts (part 2)
Recently, I went to a highschool Model United Nations convention. For those that did not read the previous blog, to summarize very quickly, a lot of things happened. From the average highschool drama with friends that I try to stray from that I wrote about in the last blog, to the blatant racism that I'll talk about in this blog. The main part that I'm going to talk about here is the racism that a lot of people don't think that Jews face, but is actually very real in a lot of cases.
Racism, Stop, it hurts
To give some details about the where and why. I was at a MUN (model UN) convention becauase its a highschool extra curricular activity of mine. It's fairly popular with about 300 kids coming to this convention from all around the state and even out of my state (Tennessee). I was a chair at this convention in my sophomore year, and though I failed miserably at it (they enacted a new rule about age specifically to prevent other me's from existing) I was still the youngest and fairly good at public speaking. I'm now an old fart as a senior, and because of that I've had my fair share of run ins with people who don't like me. Thats natural, I'm civil to everyone but not everyon can be friends. Nothing out of wack at least as far as I know. However, things got out of wack around sophomore year when I met the guy that hated on me, and especially Junior year, shit got a bit more real; this year was pretty much watching what happens when one's enemy slowly slips into vice.
![[image loading]](http://d2tq98mqfjyz2l.cloudfront.net/image_cache/1352152805452494.jpg)
Yep, this is the best meme to describe what is about to happen
Two years ago, I met the guy. He is, was, and has been both a good looking individual who a lot of the persian/brown girls have liked. He is palestinian (which should kind of be ironic since this is kind of the standard palestinian hates jew relationship) and just disliked me from the start. I hadn't said a word to him by the time he was slurring me. It's disconcerting to think about, but I am by no means someone who operates in a vacuum. Especially at that age I acted, and still act to a point since I try to control it more now, like an attention whore big shot with something to prove. He didn't know that when he started calling me racial slurs, but I am no saint by any means. At that point, I was unhated, but I was the youngest leader of a committee. After screwing that pooch up pretty hard he got even more rancid towards me and he started a relationship with the cheer captain that was previously mentioned.
It really started to get bad around junior year. I remember him greeting me with a really warm, "Hey swine," and when I didn't respond he said something to the affect of, "Jewish pig," a real standup guy. These didn't end. When he would sit near me to hit on people I knew, not out of spite or anything they were definitely not fugly girls, he would throw in insults left and right; not exactly the way you would describe subtle in any way really. The insults got cruder the more high he was, in general the weed just made him a worse person - kind of ironic since most weed proponents would say that it makes any person more mellow and generally less uptight or angry. He didn't stop, it never really ended. I would get the full force of it even when I wasn't near him, since he doesn't live in my city, because the girls he hit on were in some of my classes. One of them consistently gave me the cold shoulder, which is ok because I really don't care either way for that one, but the other one just kept bringing it up. God, I hated every minute when I would have to deal with that girl laughing, like she thought I was laughing with her and not her laughing at me, when he would text her that I was a shithead; the worst part is that he would constantly lie about him being an ass to me to bystanders, saying that he was just fucking with me, when in reality he hated my guts only because I am jewish. It's kind of sad to know that I really didn't fight back because I didn't see a point to fighting back.
![[image loading]](http://data.whicdn.com/images/36405072/really-high-guy-batman-nana-120c3e5e-sz500x484-animate_large.jpg)
Yeah, not the best affects on some people
He smoked with my friend, and with his past racism I wasn't happy with that. In truth, he has hurt every friend that I knew that has known him; TL;DR he is bad news bears, yo. The fact is that I wouldn't have cared if my friend smoked with someone else, because hey I can't control other people. It was the fact that my friend had smoked with a racist, an anti-semite, and someone that not only hurt me, but took pleasure in doing so. What made things so bad was not that he was a druggie and a dealer, but that he took time out of his schedule to call me a nigger (I'm white as milk) and other racial slurs when he could have simply muttered under his breath and walked past. I felt betrayed because my friend smoked with someone that was obviously so anxious to hurt me to make himself feel good, rather than just some dealer. When he shit talked me in front of my girlfriend when the cheer captain asked her to show the team cheer, he did so while really, really high, which made his insults sound good in his head but not in real life. He has been hasty to hurt me for years, and when my friend let him do it, I was displeased.
What makes this blog not completely about me venting about him being a racist is that I found out that sometimes even hatred has a base in things that are deserved. I learned from a mutual friend that the reason that this guy hates Jews was not because he was born with some hatred that came out of nowhere, but rather because of his father's experience in the Independence War. To explain a little better, back when the british mandate of the Holy Land was still Palestine, the Jews had called for the creation of the Jewish State in that area. The British, not wanting to anger the previously harmed Jewish masses fresh off of the Holocaust, said ok but did not act on what they said. People like David ben Gurion got angry and started rades in the Independence War against the enemy (this included the British since their political agenda was to block the creation of Israel in the UN at all costs). In truth, these hostilities were somewhat precipitated since the Arab Palestinians did not like the Jewish presence and were also keen to attack Jews new to the area. During this upheaval, as history will tell you the Jewish people were victorious, this guy's dad was forced out of his home. He was attacked and sent fleeing from his home in Jerusalem to America to seek refuge. Needless to say, this man was jaded against all Jews. Though there are many Jews that hold the same grudge against Arabs for similar situations and visa versa now, this was the first time I had seen something of this magnitude in America. To be clear, this guy's dad isn't a taxi-driver, the father is a New York Times accredited author, was a leader in middle east political understanding, and is consistently known as an important person in his community.
![[image loading]](http://global3.memecdn.com/high-expectations-asian-dad_o_459246.jpg)
If his dad were younger, and not Palestinian, this would be him it seems like
When I learned this, I was speechless, I had never known that blatant racism had a background. I was so used to the stupid, useless, and baseless hatred that has infested the south since the 1600's concerning minorities. Now i've faced other forms of prejudice, but this was the first time that I could say that I was sorely sorry for why this guy hated me. I don't hate Arabs, but I can see why he hates me. I represent to him everything that is wrong with the world, upstart Jews taking shit over. I did that partially with MUN, and I can see why he went out of his way to talk to my friends, to shit talk me, to slur me, and most importantly to make fun of me in front of my girlfriend. He did this to get a sort of psuedo-revenge because he can't go back and make the one bad thing that happened to his dad at the hands of the Jews right, but he can make me feel like "swine." I am conflicted TL, too conflicted for my own good.
Well TL this might reveal the situation a bit more. I'll decide on part 3 tomorrow, but until then, I'll just leave you with these two thoughts; is he justified in following his father's bigotry, after all Jews hate Nazis but do not hate all Germans (though it should be noted there is a significant hatred for Ukrainians, but thats a different story
) and am I justified in feeling conflicted about whether or not I should hate back? 
