Two events of note. I returned to the public library an interlibrary loan book that I finished a few days ago, Jewish in America by Richard Rubin, a professor emeritus from Swarthmore. It was in my possession about four weeks, read at a paced level. It gets a favorable review from me. The second event was a decision to snooze my most prolific posting FB contact. She posts a few times a day, not so much as to create screen clutter. However, the comments have drifted across the line from racially insensitive to more overtly racist, the type you would not offer in a workplace.
Related events? Indeed. Prof. Rubin's book describes the Americanization of the Jewish population into a distinctly identifiable culture. We take advantage of our political equality, if not our social equality, resulting in educational attainments that become either high income or wealth. With appreciation for this largesse, we seem culturally highly tolerant of everyone else, if not overtly helpful. In exchange for a live and let live approach to ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, physical capacity, and the like, there must also be a rebuff when this gets threatened. America can be an honor system in a way, one with two parts. Part 1: don't transgress goes pretty well. When there are anti-Semitic, racial, or other events, the response in favor of the victims is uniformly overwhelming. Part 2 in any honor system usually fails: don't tolerate improper conduct from anyone else. Live and let live has a limit. I snoozed my FB contact for 30 days.
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