Mixed Messages and Hopeful Journeys Gail Bienstock “That’s a BAD word.” “Don’t EVER let me hear you saying that.” Our four‐letter words were Mick (Irish) and Dago (Italian), but there were also five‐letter ones—Spick (Spanish), Chink (Chinese), and that most horrid six‐letter one, Nigger (Colored, Black, and African American). But in my neighborhood, the one that could bring the adults to a full apoplectic fit was Kike (Jewish). To my 3‐year‐old ear, they were all just different sounds. But by the age of nine or ten, they had become a double‐edged sword. I could cringe when they were directed at my neighbors all while indulging in righteous horror when the African American folks who came once a week to clean homes in the neighborhood were called Shvartzes. “Oh, Honey, that’s just the Yiddish for Black,” my Beaufort, SC born and raised mother assured me when I raged, but I recognized derogatory when I heard it. I grew up during the McCarthy era when all the adults were looking over their shoulder; Rosie the Riveter, replaced by returning military men, had been sent back to cook, spruce up the house and take care of the children; and a house in the suburbs was the Middle Class dream. Joe McCarthy, a Wisconsin Senator, was terrifying everybody by conducting hearings to determine whether people were Communists, ergo traitors, to be labeled and severely punished. (There was no “or not” to that “whether.”) Because the Chicago I grew up in involved a two‐hour drive to get from its Northern to its Southern edges and an hour to get from Lake Michigan to its Western boundary, there was plenty of room for segregation to survive without trespass or challenge. I’m not talking about Racism. Not really, although what I’m about to explain helps make sense of why we were convinced that we were too evolved for prejudice and bigotry. Chicago was large enough to accommodate the incredibly diverse nationalities and ethnicities within her borders. Each neighborhood had clear boundaries, to be invaded on peril of life and limb. Within the neighborhood lived the members of a specific nationality, ethnicity or religion. They had their own schools, restaurants, grocery stores…whatever they needed to remain totally isolated and “content” within those boundaries. In fact, when I first heard about Native American Reservations, I didn’t understand what the big deal was, since that was basically a description of our neighborhoods, and those neighborhoods were a source of pride in our diversity. Anyone who knew Chicago at all would know that my point of reference was the North Side, for the farther South you went, the more obviously delusional this description became to the inhabitants. To better understand that piece of the puzzle, it is very helpful to give oneself the gift of listening to Michelle Obama read Becoming, her amazing autobiography, which is filled with references to what it was (is?) like growing up as a “person of color” on the South Side of Chicago. As for me, my only reference points for racial diversity were Willie who came to clean my house each Friday and the Chinese family who ran the local Chinese restaurant where we kids spent our weekly allowance on a nickel bag of amazing french fries. It never occurred to us that people “smelled different” because they had taken on the scent of the chemicals they cleaned with or the lard and spices they fried with every day. We just knew that they were different, and we were to “stick to our own kind.” As I moved into adolescence, and out to the suburbs where my school was totally integrated, I was deeply confused by and conflicted about the politics of race and religion. Shunned and debased by White Anglo‐Saxon Protestant Society (WASP was an acceptable four‐letter condemnation somehow), Jews, Catholics, and “Colored Folks” embraced and formed a community. It seemed reasonable to get to know each other since, according to the WASPs, we were all going to hell for one reason or another. Yet it could turn in an instant, even before the days of our...
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May 17, 2020
Eran Magen 
Open Access