A small wooden box sits on the corner of my desk. Open the shiny rosewood cube, and there is a clear sphere containing a clock. In the top, a shiny round plaque reads “The CAIR-Chicago 2010 Award for Courage in Journalism: Neil Steinberg, Chicago Sun-Times. For Fair, Accurate And Inclusive Media Representation of Minorities.”
That last word clunks, doesn’t it? Nowadays “minorities” has a discordant 1970s ring and has fallen out of favor. Associated Press style discourages use of the word as a noun because the truth is, we are all in some minority.
Any suggestion otherwise — oh, for instance that this is a white, Christian, straight nation, and anyone else is somewhere between a tolerated guest and an unwelcome intruder, exists only in the minds of a minority of Americans, ironically — a large minority, alas — requiring them to go through increasingly vigorous distortions of fact.
I mention the award, not to brag, but because of something I said receiving it at the ceremony. Looking out over 1,500 attendees in west suburban Oak Brook Terrace, women in headscarves, men with full beards and embroidered round caps — “CAIR” stands for the Council on American-Islamic Relations — I spoke from the heart.
“I’ve been a consistent supporter of Muslim rights for one simple reason,” I said, or words to that effect. “Because I’m Jewish, and see you as another loathed minority trying to get through the day.”
That seems fairly simple. Belonging to a group that has suffered, historically, from the most hideous persecutions, should make a person more attuned to suffering of others. Because to sympathize only with yourself and people exactly like you is neither profound nor courageous. Just the opposite: it’s a failure of humanity, common as dirt and leads to many of the problems we see around us today.
You can look at the wrongs done to your people and try to ensure they never happen to others. Or be inspired by those wrongs to try to emulate them.
On the last Saturday in October, a 39-year old Jewish man, on his way to synagogue in West Ridge, was shot, police allege, by a 22-year-old, Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, who, according to Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling, “planned the shooting and specifically targeted people of Jewish faith.” Abdallahi was charged with attempted murder and, once authorities went through his phone, with hate crime and terrorism charges.
Terrorism charges seem apt, as some Jews do seem terrified. Which is why I’m writing this, to convey a simple message: Don’t be. Not just because that’s why this crime was committed in the first place — to make a certain population feels afraid. To react by being afraid just plays into haters’ hands.
But also because this is not representative. The opposite; it’s a freakish exception, and the way to keep it that way is to remember the bedrock promise of America is that we are a country where you don’t get gunned down in the street because of the kind of hat you’re wearing.
Yes, Chicago has bad neighborhoods where people are shot daily for no reason. But those, too, are exceptions. Crime is still down. Drive along Devon Avenue — stopping, if you can, at Tahoora Sweets & Bakery, for their most excellent, scalding hot milky chai tea — and stretches of sari shops give way to synagogues and schools.
If it’s Saturday you might get knots of Hasidic families in their white shirts and wigs and the kids running everywhere. Nobody shoots at them, generally, and when it happens, our response should not be to collapse in a heap and declare ourselves terrorized. I refuse.
Rather, we need to remind ourselves what we have. Yes, a highly fraught political moment. Which I would describe as those who can empathize with people unlike themselves versus those who can’t, so refuse to recognize any mode of existence other than their own. The rest, as Hillel says, is commentary.
Sure, you can react to hate crimes by being afraid and viewing society as an even more awful place than it can be. Or you can view these crimes as reminders of where allowing the pain of your own people to overwhelm you can lead.
That 22-year old accused of the shooting —what does his future look like? Proof of the old adage that hatred is like taking poison and expecting someone else to die.
The aforementioned Jewish sage, Hillel, put it another way: Asked to summarize the Torah in a sentence, he replied, “What is hateful to you, do not do to others.”
That’s very simple. Yet some people have such trouble with it.