The questions were not a good-natured. They were not sincerely seeking to learn more about another culture.
When I was asked about the family structure I was being, well, interrogated.
And those doing the investigation were letting me know, indirectly, that my very being didn't measure up to theirs.
But unlike the shooting victims in Pittsburgh and Poway, my ordeal didn't make the global media.
The suffering was that of anyone anywhere who is perceived as "different." Once I left the New York Metro area in 2014 to start a new (lower cost) life in the west, the identity of "different" was designated as Jewish.
Call it "Accidental Jewish" or "Anti-Semitism Lite."
To the insiders I was and am an outsider.
To them I fit the specs for being Jewish.
After all, the maternal side of the family is Eastern European.
The body style is stocky, not chiseled-boned WASP.
The complexion is dark, not American porcelain.
The accent is New York-heavy.
Since I have been an entrepreneur since the end of the 1980s, the mindset is hustle.
However, bias per se was not new for me.
In the 1950s, in immigrant-dense Jersey City, New Jersey, the Irish had the power. That included the leadership in the Roman Catholic Church and the parish schools. Other ethnic groups were treated as less-than. The little Irish girls with their blond hair, high cheek bones, and light skin sat in the front rows and were selected to help the nuns with law and order.
I assumed I had fled all that when I finally got into an out-of-state college on scholarship. The Promised Land, right. But the head of the English department, you got it, had been Irish. Here was my Pittsburgh/Potway moment.
Ironically, management consultants tell businesses: Differentiate yourself from the competition.
But in social life the message is clearly: Blend in, perfectly.
There is a wonderful best-selling book "The Stranger in the Woods." By Michael Finkel it narrates the true story of Christopher Knight. From the get-go of early adulthood he got it that he couldn't fit in. Because of that he anticipated that he would be made to suffer.
So, for 27 years he lived isolated in a homemade refuge in the Maine woods. That suited him just fine. Here it can be ordered from Amazon.
Is the solution for being emotionally safe and protected in a biased world establishing The Social System of One off the grid? Telecommuting allows us to do that and still earn a living.
It's catching on, at least in mindsets.
In this very traditional residential complex, a neighbor who is, yes, different pretends she is based in a remote cabin miles and miles from any road. That has given her a sense of being okay.
Exactly the right tone and content for all your communications. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com.
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