Understanding Ignorance

First they they came for the gypsies,
but I did not speak up for I was not a gypsy.

Then they came for the communists,
but I did not speak up for I was not a communist.

Then they came for the Jews, but I did not speak up
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak up.

I just watched what I feel is one of the most realistic and poignant movies of my life. The Pianist is an amazing movie. I kept missing my chance to watch it in the movie theatre and simply had to watch it tonight when I invited Jorge to dinner and a movie. Luckily, Blockbusterhad a copy. Two and a half hours later I just sat on my bed in silence watching the credits roll by and sorting through all the thoughts in my head. First of all, the movie is amazing. The direction, the photography, costumes, sets, lights....everything is amazingly real, true, and moving. It is no wonder that Polanski won the Oscar for Best Director, he deserves every inch of it, and Adrien Brody for Best Actor, which he earned with every fiber of his body. His performance is at once moving, hopeful, and sad. He is truly a gifted actor. I cannot speak enough about the movie and how great it is, yet I can;t imagine bringing myself to watching it again because it is SO real and disturbing that I don't think I could face those images again.

That got me thinking about all the things those people must have seen in that time; having to witness those horrors on a daily basis and having to live that life every single day. How human beings could have done this to each other is unfathomable. It hits so close to home as genocide is a huge part of my cultural heritage; a genocide VERY few people even know occured. I just can;t wrap around my head all the atrocities that people commit in the name of who-knows-what. I don't even know why. I try to come up with a valid reason to understand them since I can;t excuse them.

Then that got me thinking about my own experiences and my culture shock and my family. I can vividly remember coming to America and being taken aback by the idea of racism and witnessing all the things that came with it. Back home I never knew there was a difference between myself and people of darker or lighter skin. My friends were my friends, people were people; all that mattered to me was who they were as a person. I simply could not understand WHY there was a difference. I can remember the shocked look of the black people at my high school when I joined the black culture club and on the first day I was stared down and questioned. I was curious about the culture, I didn;t think it was a problem. But I loved making the friends I did through that club and learning from them what it felt like for them to live life everyday. Shit, I experienced all that myself when I first came to his country during the Gulf War and became the object of prejudice....just because I "looked" like an Arab. Even the most recent events over the last 3 years have brought back those memories as I get racially profiled everywhere I go. And the same thought occurs to me? Why? Is it ignorance? Fear of the unknown? Can we blame the media and parental guidance on everything?

And then I think about my family and the numerous racially insensitive comments they have made. Comments that I used to ignore and later abhor. I never understood the concept of how minorities could hate minorities. How can a group of people who go through the same experiences inflict it on others? Is the need to feel power and to be in control so great that we have to marginalize and oppress those we see as lower than ourselves? How sick and twisted can people be? I never really understood, and I still don;t why my family made those comments about everyone from black people to Hispanics and from Jewish people to gay people. My family was the victim of the socialization and stereotyping through the worst kind of enculturation. The same things we accuse "these people" of are the same things our own people are guilty of. It is not relegated to one group of people. Not all Jewish people are money hungry; not all black people are lazy....and on and on.

I can remember meeting my first gay person when I was 16 and not even understanding what that meant. I mean, I knew what gay was, I just never understood it. It was my first exposure to it and I remember being so curious as to what it all meant and asking questions and paying attention and trying to discern the difference. Why were they hated? Why did my family warn against them so much? I just didn;t get why who a person fucked dictated their societal punishment. I can vivdly recall my mother being shocked and berating me upon seeing me hug a gay man and asking me who he was and what he thought he was doing and then thinking to myself why she was overreacting about my hugging a friend who just happened to be gay. I mean I have even suffered the abuse most gay people go through simply because of my theatrical leanings and my single life. How stupid can people and their assumptions be? And why should it ever have to make a difference? It got to the point as I grew up that I just didn;t care anymore what people thought and by defending myself I was doing the idea of independance and freedom an injustice. It meant I was bothered by it and thought it was wrong to be thought of being something I was not.

Even while I sit typing all this I still can't understand man's inhumanity towards man (excuse the sexist rhetoric). What could possibly drive us to hate that which seems to be so much different, but which is based on nothing more than benign factors? A person's skin color, societal position, or sexual preference should not have to be a death sentence or a green light for verbal and physical abuse. I wish there was more I could do apart from what I do on a daily basis. I won;t let my friends and their friends be treated like that; I won;t listen to mindless ramblings of people who just don;t get it, even if they are my family; and I won;t allow people;s looks or words to oppress who I am as a person or an individual. To allow anything less than that would be to spit on the graves of all those people who had to go through what we could not even possibly imagine. We are truly a flawed species with so much chance at redemption...and I don't mean spiritually (shit look at the Crusades). I won't not speak up because if everyone is gone, who WILL speak up for me?