This is me speaking for me, obviously, but I feel like it needs to be said in this type of discussion.
Some of it is the sense, intended or not, of forced assimilation. In so many countries and cultures, Jews have been, and still are, forced to hide and forced to pass. Christianity has experienced this, too, but in U.S. society as it currently stands, I can't help sometimes thinking that the automatically said words and wishes are an unconscious press gang. It feels like the majority is all but thumping me on the head with We Are All; What You Are Doesn't Count. There isn't even the vague invitation of "be like us"; it's just all, "there is nothing that's not us." And no matter how much I know that you, hossgal, don't think same : not the same :: good : bad in this situation, and that I think you know and regret how rare that is, I honestly don't know whether you can understand how it feels to live with the way the general populace behaves on a daily basis when it comes to Judaism.
So on one hand, I know that Happy/Merry Anything said in, say, April or December is usually meant to be a general wish of goodness and health and so on, and I do my best to take it in that spirit, because thank you. On the other hand, no matter how secular a Christian may feel Easter or Christmas have become, they're still holidays of a religion that is NOT MINE. I wouldn't wish anyone who isn't Jewish a happy new year this week, any more than I would've wished someone from Japan happy new year this past February. I've been dancing around saying this, but it's insulting, frankly, in a way that I'm not sure anyone who isn't the majority could understand. It's not an exact parallel, but even in the Guy Fawkes/4th example Minnow started, you're coming at it as an American, which in this day and age puts you in the position of power, whereas I imagine a Briton might feel a bit different about it, considering the number of Canadians I've heard speak up when an American wishes them Happy Thanksgiving in November. Um, an even more inexact example, but I'm trying to help, here: it's also something like how I imagine you and others on LJ feel when anyone at the liberal end of the spectrum "speaks for everyone."
Anyway, I'm not walking around a seething ball of Offended or anything, because it's just easier to get through life if I'm not. But there are times when I have to pull back into a corner for a while, because the other alternative is to grab nearly everyone who speaks to me, and shake them while asking, "Do you even realize what it sounds like you're thinking?!"
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-09-10 02:20 pm (UTC)Some of it is the sense, intended or not, of forced assimilation. In so many countries and cultures, Jews have been, and still are, forced to hide and forced to pass. Christianity has experienced this, too, but in U.S. society as it currently stands, I can't help sometimes thinking that the automatically said words and wishes are an unconscious press gang. It feels like the majority is all but thumping me on the head with We Are All; What You Are Doesn't Count. There isn't even the vague invitation of "be like us"; it's just all, "there is nothing that's not us." And no matter how much I know that you, hossgal, don't think same : not the same :: good : bad in this situation, and that I think you know and regret how rare that is, I honestly don't know whether you can understand how it feels to live with the way the general populace behaves on a daily basis when it comes to Judaism.
So on one hand, I know that Happy/Merry Anything said in, say, April or December is usually meant to be a general wish of goodness and health and so on, and I do my best to take it in that spirit, because thank you. On the other hand, no matter how secular a Christian may feel Easter or Christmas have become, they're still holidays of a religion that is NOT MINE. I wouldn't wish anyone who isn't Jewish a happy new year this week, any more than I would've wished someone from Japan happy new year this past February. I've been dancing around saying this, but it's insulting, frankly, in a way that I'm not sure anyone who isn't the majority could understand. It's not an exact parallel, but even in the Guy Fawkes/4th example Minnow started, you're coming at it as an American, which in this day and age puts you in the position of power, whereas I imagine a Briton might feel a bit different about it, considering the number of Canadians I've heard speak up when an American wishes them Happy Thanksgiving in November. Um, an even more inexact example, but I'm trying to help, here: it's also something like how I imagine you and others on LJ feel when anyone at the liberal end of the spectrum "speaks for everyone."
Anyway, I'm not walking around a seething ball of Offended or anything, because it's just easier to get through life if I'm not. But there are times when I have to pull back into a corner for a while, because the other alternative is to grab nearly everyone who speaks to me, and shake them while asking, "Do you even realize what it sounds like you're thinking?!"