"Schvartze."
That's the Yiddish term, meaning "Negro." In another era, that word was applied to my sister and myself in downtown Jersey City, New Jersey. We were among the darker-skinned Italians, offspring of immigrants.
And that was not the only way we were targeted. The Irish, who were very fair-skinned and had been in America longer, kept Italians out of the city jobs. In Roman Catholic schools, operated by the Irish, we tended to be second-class citizens.
That was the 1950s.
In the 1970s, tearfully I told the psychotherapist at the University of Michigan, David W. Harder, now at Tufts University, how I felt less-than. That was because I was "so dark."
Well, that therapy didn't propel me into self-acceptance - and, more importantly, self-love. The universe didn't bestow that gift on me until I finally left the highly prejudiced New York Metro area and emigrated to the Southwest. Here in the desert there is no exclusion or inclusion. We just are. Telecommuting allows me to operate my ghostwriting and speechwriting boutique.
Incidentally, the tragic fall of former McKinsey head, Rajat Gupta, might not have occurred had he not been throw off his game when he tried to navigate the New York scene. His is an immigrant from India and, yes, dark-skinned.
Currently, dark-skinned Muslims have taken on the role of society's less-than ethnic group. I fear for them. Being targeted eats away at not only economic opportunity. It also takes a huge chunk out of your soul. No, the universe does not even the score for children of a lesser god.
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