36 Responses to “How This Jewish Aspie Survived the Christmas Season”

1. 

   John Dale Lyons December 26th, 2009 at 8:10 pm

   I used to feel alienated at Christmas. Now, I think of it as a time when my Christian friends are happy. Gei gezunte heit.

2. 

   Saja December 27th, 2009 at 9:53 am

   Christmas has always been a cultural holiday to me, not a religious one. Of course I’ve always been aware of the religious mythology surrounding it, but my family didn’t buy into that part. We celebrated Christmas because that’s what our country does in December.

   Moving to Holland, whose official holidays are also largely those of Christianity, I’ve nonetheless been confronted with the loss of my major holiday. Oh, Christmas is still a holiday here–you even get two days, the 25th (“first Christmas day”) and the 26th (“second Christmas day”)–but it is essentially a non-event, culturally speaking. (I imagine devout Christians here celebrate it just as they would anywhere else.) Santa Claus comes on December 5th and in altered form, so the whole buildup there is over before I know what happened. You can’t buy a Christmas tree here before the 6th. We don’t do presents. My whole childhood experience of the month of December is culturally alien here. It’s a very weird feeling, and I have to say it’s been an adjustment, and I still grieve the loss of all that magic. Or, rather, its displacement onto another, different, tradition just as culturally alien to *me*.

   The interesting thing is that it triggers the same feeling of being “different” and of not being understood that so many everyday interactions trigger. It’s one more thing that registers as “see? they don’t get you, and that means you’re WEIRD.” I imagine other, non-autistic Americans living here have a very different interpretation of the Dutch Christmas tradition.

3. 

   Rachel December 27th, 2009 at 12:12 pm

   Saja! Great to see you back. Thank you for helping my process along on this one.

   That sense of “See, they don’t get you, and that means you’re WEIRD” is exactly what I experience at Christmas, in an intensified form, because I didn’t grow up celebrating Christmas, and I have no cultural, religious, or nostalgic attachment to it. Most people can’t seem to understand that I have no desire to hang stockings, drink egg nog, have a tree, exchange gifts, etc.

   It’s fine with me that others do. It’s just not my thing; it doesn’t fit my temperament, my sense of myself, or my sense of my cultural/religious history. It’s like trying to force a square peg into a round hole. It doesn’t work. But the message I often get is “What’s the big deal? Why can’t you just join in the fun?” I feel a lot of pressure to join in, as though it’s not okay to have my own feelings about it and take my own space.

   Hmmmm…Seems like I have that experience a lot in life. Something to do with having an autistic neurology. Fortunately, I have enough people in my life who support me that I’m consistently taking my own space these days, and I’m much happier for it.

4. 

   christine December 27th, 2009 at 5:59 pm

   I love that you’ve written this because I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.
   Just to put it out there, I celebrate Christmas but I am not Christian.
   I mean no offense by anything I say here, I really am curious and want to understand better.
   If ‘happy holidays’ isn’t a good, generic greeting to use, what would you prefer? Not just as a Jewish person, but as a person who doesn’t celebrate Christmas? My sister also celebrates Christmas but is not Christian but she doesn’t understand at all how someone who doesn’t celebrate Christmas would be offended or made uncomfortable by being wished a merry Christmas. Her argument seems to be that ‘merry Christmas’ is meant as a positive greeting, so it should be taken that way by everyone. I almost would like to have her read this post and see if it helps her understand. It’s helped me to understand, especially about ‘happy holidays.’
   I guess I’d just like to have some truly universal holiday/winter season greeting. I rarely want to greet people anyway but if I do, I’d rather not make anyone uncomfortable. Maybe it’s not possible.

5. 

   Rachel December 27th, 2009 at 7:08 pm

   If you live where there’s snow, “Stay warm!” is a good universal way of wishing a person well. I actually say that a lot to people this time of year! I guess I’m a pretty literal Aspie.

   Regarding holidays in general, I should probably clarify where I’m coming from a bit more…Except for Thanksgiving (which has its roots in a Jewish holiday called Sukkot), I don’t participate in any American holiday, secular or otherwise. I don’t do anything for New Year’s Eve, I don’t go to the fireworks on the 4th of July, and I don’t put out a flag for Memorial Day. Except for birthdays, the only holidays I celebrate are Jewish ones, and those tend to be private–either at home, or within the Jewish community. If I see a Jewish person at Rosh HaShanah, I’ll say “Shana Tova!” (“A good year!”) and when I see my Jewish therapist on Friday mornings, we always wish each other an early Shabbat Shalom (a peaceful Sabbath).

   However, I do not say “Shana Tova” or “Shabbat Shalom” to anyone I’m not certain practices Judaism, so it’s weird to me that people would say “Merry Christmas” when they’re not certain whether I celebrate Christmas, or “Happy Holidays” when they’re not certain which holiday I actually celebrate. I mean, if I went around wishing the grocery store clerk, the mail delivery person, and all my non-Jewish neighbors “Shana Tova!” every fall for the ten days between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, they’d think I was nuts.

6. 

   Saja December 28th, 2009 at 4:54 am

   On greetings: I think “Have a nice day!” works in nearly every situation. Oh, except for evening, but then “Good evening!” should work.

   I don’t wish anyone a merry anything, but I do respond in kind (like Rachel) if they wish me one. My reaction is mostly one of “hey, new data point” (that person celebrates Christmas) — not that it’s a particularly fascinating data point. If someone said to me, “Happy Kwanzaa!”, I’d say “Happy Kwanzaa!” right back — they’re the ones celebrating it, so they deserve the good sentiment — and be intrigued by this fairly uncommon data point.

7. 

   Jennifer December 28th, 2009 at 10:43 am

   Rachel, I went to my in-laws for Christmas. I didn’t want to celebrate Christmas as Christmas but as a family reunion (which is what it was.)

   However, I felt saddened that even though every participant is not religious, I got the feeling that there was a strange attitude towards my religious choices. It would have been easier to have just called myself a vegetarian than have to explain the religious background to my choices. People would have been more accommodating. I am also trying to get my children to make those same choices…but it was conveniently forgotten and the starter was crab. I felt so uncomfortable. I’ve told my husband that I don’t want to go to Christmas get-togethers anymore. If we attend a gathering in the future it won’t be at Christmas and it’ll be at our house instead.

8. 

   misfit December 28th, 2009 at 12:56 pm

   I don’t celebrate Christmas either. As a Muslim, it just is not my cup of tea, mostly for theological reasons There is debate in the Muslim community around wishing neighbours and colleagues a Merry Christmas or not. I tend to stick with wishing folks “All the best”, I think it’s a good wish to give to anyone, of any background. If someone wishes me a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, I appreciate the good wishes, thank them and say “All the best to you too.” Rinse and repeat for Easter, Hallowe’en, etc.
   BTW I get a bit fed up of the PC folks who say Don’t offend anyone with Christmas, which is then taken to refer to Muslims and then people start snarling about us, as if we don’t already have to put up with all the “terrorism” cr@p! FWIW, I know it’s Christmas, I know what it means to many, I don’t really mind or care if you call it a “Christmas” tree (“Holiday tree” just sounds dumb, AFAIK it’s only Christians who decorate a tree for their holiday), I have no problem with anyone calling it what it is. You can say the festive C-word around me, LOL. I just wish they would NOT start blasting us with Christmas music in the stores until mid-December, and even then that would be pushing it!!! (I have Christian friends who feel the same way). Come to think of it, I would prefer not to be blasted by any type of music in the stores…
   What’s really weird is getting Christmas greetings from family and friends who are non-religious Jews or sorta-spiritual new age paganish types!

9. 

   Rachel December 28th, 2009 at 2:07 pm

   Jennifer: I’ve been there, too. My ex-husband’s family celebrates Christmas, and they didn’t seem to understand that eating ham is a food choice just as much as not eating ham is a food choice. So often, people in the majority see their practices and thought processes as “obvious” and “normal,” while minority practices become “choices” that the rest of us make “just to be different.” It’s very difficult to get people in the majority to see their culture as just another culture.

   Misfit: Such diversity we have on this blog! And it’s so interesting to hear about the discussion in the Muslim community about how to respond to Christmas greetings. I like your solution of saying “All the best to you.” That’s almost always how I sign emails and letters to people I don’t know well enough to say “Love” to.

   I also have a lot of trouble with all the Christmas music in the stores. Last year, when I was working at the thrift store at Christmas time (what was I thinking?), I asked one of the managers if I could bring in some Jewish music, just for a little diversity. She is not Jewish, but she nearly hugged me just for asking. So I brought in some CDs, and people were swaying and humming to them and having a great time. Bob and I really got a kick out of it.

10. 

    Jennifer December 28th, 2009 at 5:47 pm

    ” They didn’t seem to understand that eating ham is a food choice just as much as not eating ham is a food choice. So often, people in the majority see their practices and thought processes as “obvious” and “normal,” while minority practices become “choices” that the rest of us make “just to be different.”

    Rachel, you described it perfectly! I’m so glad that you understood what I was trying to express!

    What I’m against is calling school celebrations the “Christmas party” or the “Easter bazaar”: even though the school is non-denominational.

    In the Netherlands, I cringe every year at the racist stereotype of a ubiquitous figure (at the beginning of December) called Zwarte Piet who is a slave/servant delivering the presents on behalf of Sinter Klaas (Santa claus.)

    People think that modern society is civilised, but there’s so much room for improvement in society.

11. 

    Ben December 28th, 2009 at 8:44 pm

    i thought i was the only person to say ‘stay warm!’

12. 

    Rachel December 28th, 2009 at 9:34 pm

    Great Aspie visual minds think alike!

13. 

    Saja December 29th, 2009 at 4:54 am

    Jennifer, your interpretation of Zwarte Piet is very much an American interpretation. (My husband and I have had a lot of laughs over how poorly the Sinterklaas tradition would fly in my native country–I’m originally from North Carolina.) The Zwarte Piets (Black Petes) are originally Moors from Spain, and Sinterklaas lives in Spain outside the present-giving season. The Petes are far from slaves; they are much closer to employees in an employee-run business, if you will. There are higher Petes, sort of right-hand men for Sinterklaas, and each Pete has a talent: Chef Pete, Gardener Pete, Just Married Pete (yes, Petes can be girls, too), Poet Pete, and the list goes on, truly endless.

    After my initial horror at the American implications of these coal-black faces dancing around the tall white guy receded, I’ve grown to prefer the merriment of the Sinterklaas tradition over the Santa Claus one. The elves, it must be said, are not very exciting. The Petes are mischievous, fun-loving, funny pranksters. The Sinterklaas tradition is very New Orleans, shall we say, rather than New England.

14. 

    misfit December 30th, 2009 at 1:54 pm

    hmmm… the Moors were Muslims. This is getting confusing! And maybe we shouldn’t get into what happened to the Muslim and Jews in Spain…
    Rachel, I go through agonies of what to write when I don’t feel comfortable writing “Love” on a note or whatever. I finally settled on “best wishes” or “all the best” too.

15. 

    Rachel December 30th, 2009 at 2:20 pm

    Re: the Zwarte Pete tradition…Jennifer, AFAIK, is not American, so I don’t believe her interpretation is coming from there. The fact that the Moors were Muslims makes the whole tradition quite troubling to me, for the reasons that Misfit mentions. The Jews and Muslims did not fare well in Spain, or in Christian Europe in general, to put it mildly. My ancestors were expelled from Spain in 1492 and, along with their entire community, settled in what became Lithuania. And they were the lucky ones. They lived.

16. 

    Jennifer December 30th, 2009 at 5:58 pm

    Sorry, I didn’t read the rest of the responses until now. Originally Sinter Klaas was on his own. The black Petes arrived on the scene at the time that the Netherlands abolished slavery. It was almost as if they needed to have an image of black people being inferior and subservient. The Petes are portrayed as stupid but physically very supple. They need the wisdom of the wise white man. Their image is always child-size small, even though they are technically adults. They sometimes speak with a Surinam or Antillian accent (places with a slave history.) The exaggerated red lips and enormous white eyes and afro hair- this is not simply chimney soot blackness. And why can’t there be white Petes?

    I would recommend a thought-provoking film called Bamboozled by Spike Lee which gives a great perspective.

    The problem is that the Dutch connect the Petes with their own childhood, and they are reluctant to criticise their own upbringing (at such happy, present-receiving moments). A couple of artists who wanted to have a demonstration against the Zwarte Piet concept had to abandon their plans because they received death threats. There’s no real freedom of speech here when it comes to Zwarte Piet.

17. 

    Saja December 31st, 2009 at 6:28 am

    I think it is possible to over-politicize something that is not oppressive, even if it may have had oppressive origins. Whatever it may have once been, the Sinterklaas + Zwarte Piet tradition in Holland today is a fun-loving tradition that nowhere implies dark-skinned people are subservient to light-skinned people. Ask any Dutch child: they’ll look at you like you’re speaking a foreign language. The Petes are just Santa’s helpers, and they wear goofy clothes, and they bring along a lot of laughter and merriment. We could call this progress: what was once a reference to slavery no longer carries that meaning.

    There are no white Petes because there are no white Petes. It is not a conspiracy; it isn’t a comment on slavery; it’s just a tradition. Why are there only reindeer and no buffalo, or birds, pulling Santa’s sleigh? It is possible to go too far in trying to make the world a place of equality; equal does NOT mean exactly the same. It means equally free to express oneself, equally free to make choices. Santa chose reindeer; that doesn’t make him an anti-birdist.

18. 

    Saja December 31st, 2009 at 6:31 am

    I might add that, growing up in the American South, I am intensely sensitive to racism (and very much against it), especially as it plays out in its white-vs-black form, so it’s saying something that the Dutch Sinterklaas tradition does not evoke that sense in me.

19. 

    Rachel December 31st, 2009 at 3:12 pm

    Saja, a tradition with oppressive origins looks different to people in a minority culture than it does to even the most sensitive people in the majority. It takes centuries to heal the wounds of a people, and those wounds can’t heal if they are ignored by people who see only the fun side of a tradition.

    For me, personally, Christmas and Easter are very difficult times of the year, in part because those were the times of the worst anti-Semitic pogroms in eastern Europe. The priests would whip the people into an anti-Semitic fury, with unutterably violent results. I have people in my family tree who were raped and murdered, and who witnessed rape and murder, at those times of the year. The anguish of one’s ancestors becomes the legacy of an oppressed minority, anywhere, and it takes a long, long time to heal. For us, history is a living force, not something in the distant past.

20. 

    misfit December 31st, 2009 at 6:15 pm

    Interesting to read all the different points of view here. I had heard that “Santa Claus” came from a Dutch tradition (Sinterklaas) but had not known so much about it. I agree that peoples can take a long time to heal from lengthy traumas, if you think of the history of the Jews, and Black people in the “New World”, and Muslims after the Crusades and centuries of colonialism. And things certainly do look different depending on which lens you are looking through.

21. 

    Jennifer December 31st, 2009 at 6:23 pm

    My then 3 year old pointed to an African man in the bus in April and said “look there’s Zwarte Piet.”

    That’s why I know for sure that it IS racist, and is NOT harmless. That was when I investigated into it. It’s NOT normal for people to associate a racist stereotype with an ordinary person.

22. 

    Jennifer Gardner December 31st, 2009 at 10:11 pm

    Yep. My husband goes into shut down mode for the month. This is the most difficult time of the year.
    I have never witnessed someone so terrified of waiting in line at the store. We haven’t shopped at a Walmart in over 7 months because of the anxiety and fear. When Christmas is over I am so glad for the sake of Jason.

23. 

    Saja January 1st, 2010 at 8:38 am

    I realized after my last comment that this probably was not going to go well, because it’s an emotion-laden issue. We do all see things differently, and our histories (personal and familial/cultural) have a lot to do with how we react to any given input. I have other things I could say to explain my point of view, but I don’t think that would be useful; so the only thing I really want to say before I stop talking about Sinterklaas is: I never meant to downplay anyone’s experience, and I hope we are all still friends.

24. 

    Rachel January 1st, 2010 at 10:04 am

    I didn’t take this discussion personally, so as far as I’m concerned, we’re still friends. Unity in diversity!

25. 

    Stat Mama January 2nd, 2010 at 4:50 am

    Yeah, about the Merry Christmas issue, I can relate. I find it almost insulting that people just assume I am a Christmas celebrating Christian, but I have to remind myself they do not do this out of anything but kindness. I usually return the greeting, not because I am a Christian (I’m not), but because the person greeting me apparently is. I do celebrate the holiday in a secular manner, and as a solstice celebration. Santa visits, we have a tree, and so on. These things are not Christian, they were adopted by Christianity. I kind of like Happy Holidays, because it feels more inclusive to me. Many faiths celebrate a winter holiday.

    I’m with you on the avoidance of shopping between Thanksgiving and New Years. I did pretty much all of my shopping online, and had it all delivered right to my door. I would have spent the shipping money in fuel anyhow, so it didn’t matter there. It was nice to actually relax and enjoy the time with my children and husband instead of dealing with the exhausting and mentally painful mess of being in horrendous crowds of people.

    I hope you had a Happy Chanuka and New Year

26. 

    Jennifer January 2nd, 2010 at 3:05 pm

    It is emotionally-laden and with good reason. It relates to people.
    Black people and white people are not comparable to birds and reindeer.
    A fairy tale figure like an elf is innocuous, but an obvious reference to slavery as providing abit of merriment is insulting. It was a despicably cruel episode in human history. And no-one would consider portraying concentration camp entities as amusement- so why do it with slaves?

    The Dutch were one of the last countries to abolish slavery. If I remember rightly, there’s approximately a hundred years difference between when Britain abolished slavery and when the Netherlands did. It just shows how one society can be wrong and take so long to do the right thing. I feel convinced that I’m right in this and it makes my heart bleed to think that it might take such a long time before the pressure of the Netherlands being part of the world global village forces them to behave in a way that treats black people in their society with respect.

27. 

    Saja January 3rd, 2010 at 10:57 am

    Jennifer, I’m sorry your experience of the Netherlands is so vastly different from mine. I’m sorry that you feel any reference to a black person is a reference to slavery. This is clearly an issue you are very passionate about, and I am sorry I offended you with my, different, interpretation of the Sinterklaas tradition. I wish you all the best in 2010, and hope this year, the world moves a little closer to the egalitarian, humanitarian place we would both like it to be.

28. 

    Jennifer January 3rd, 2010 at 1:14 pm

    Saja, I might have been sympathetic to your reply had it not been for when you wrote “I’m sorry that you feel any reference to a black person is a reference to slavery.” It’s inaccurate and condescending.

    That’s a cheap shot because, as you know, I have not said that all references to black people are references to slavery. I have given my reasons. Sinter Klaas was originally alone, then helped by a solitary white boy, then helped by chained slaves. The slaves are still dressed in 17th century clothing that stems from the time of the European and American slave trade.

    Every year children in the Netherlands see a play held at their schools with the following plot of the story: Sinter Klaas wants that all children receive presents. The physically acrobatic child-like Petes are responsible for delivering the presents, but due to their stupidity they nearly mess the whole delivery up jeopardising that children get their presents. But the wise white Sinter Klaas steps in and saves the day, with his powers of delegation.
    I was horrified that my 3 year old made an association between an African man and Zwarte Piet (Black Pete). It’s the equivalent of associating all white people with the main characters in Dumb and Dumber. That’s the power of that sort of imagery marketed to children.

    Rachel, there is a community association in my city, and this year they asked my Rabbi if she (on behalif of the Jewish community) would decorate a ball to put in a large Christmas tree that would be placed at the centre of the neighbourhood. The tree would be symbolic of peace in diversity. She declined and so did the Muslims. Later the community association printed a newsletter reproaching the actions of the Jewish and Muslim representatives. They just don’t understand that non-Christian people don’t do Christmas. The Christmas tree is a symbol of Christianity but must they use a Christian symbol to represent peace? It’s like asking a vegetarian to eat meat for charity but if they refuse accusing them of indifference. Respect is a two-way thing. Luckily the local Christian parish priest joined forces with the Rabbi and they wrote a joint letter to explain why the symbol of a Christmas ball was entirely inappropriate.
    Before you wrote about your irritation at the phrase “Happy Holidays”, I hadn’t thought of it before as a great lie. But it is. It is indeed just a politically correct way of saying “Merry Christmas.” But you saw that Happy holidays was the invisible clothing that the Chritmas-Emperor wore….

29. 

    Rachel January 3rd, 2010 at 2:01 pm

    Jennifer, from what you’ve said about the Zwarte Piets, the plot of the story, and the historical connections to slavery, it sounds racist to me. Imagine if the Zwarte Piets were all little Jews bumbling around with their peyes (side curls) and black hats. If I saw something like that, you couldn’t shut me up.

    I’m amazed by what you say about a group of Christians wanting the Jews and Muslims to contribute to a Christian symbol of peace. When will people get it through their heads that Christmas is NOT a universal holiday, and that Christian symbols are NOT universal symbols? Christian culture is just one of many cultures, all equally deserving of respect.

    We’ve got a long way to go, and I’m getting tired.

30. 

    misfit January 3rd, 2010 at 4:16 pm

    I remember when Eid al-Fitr was around the time of Christmas/Chanukkah/Diwali and one of the teachers was going on about how they are all “festivals of light”. Well, I know about the Menorah and the lights the Hindus have at Diwali and I know about lights on Christmas trees and the occasional NT reference to the “light of the world”, so I can she how she would make such a connection, but Eid al-Fitr is NOT a festival of light, it’s a celebration of the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. Light as a spiritual concept is important in Islam, but it’s not the main focus of the festival. So I told her it’s not a festival of lights and she said “YES IT IS, it’s a festival of lights.” Sheesh. She was trying to put us all in the same box and I said I’m not playing and she got mad. She couldn’t accept a real live Muslim standing there telling her that what she was saying about the Muslim festival wasn’t really how it is. Why can’t we accept each other for what we are? There is some common ground but she was really pushing it!

31. 

    Jennifer January 4th, 2010 at 5:36 am

    Rachel, I didn’t like it when I first arrived here, but I hoped that they would be regarded as fairy tale figures who didn’t get associated with real people. When my daughter Rosa pointed to an African man in the bus, months after the Sinterklaas celebration and said out loud “Zwarte Piet” I felt so ashamed. I started to investigate the origins. Even recently in a quality newspaper here called the Volkskrant there was an article in which a historian called Van der Zeijden at the Dutch Centre of Folktradition (Nederlands Centrum voor Volkscultuur said that “because of Dutch colonial history black people suit people’s perception of what a servant is, than white people.”
    The irony is that he said earlier that because the Sint had once had a white boy servant, the current tradition wasn’t racist!
    Rachel, I wrote a letter to the parents teachers association of my school merely asking for an opportunity to discuss alternatives to having those Petes. They wrote me a letter back saying that they didn’t want to discuss it. I wasn’t allowed to have a meeting with anyone. I contacted the headmistress, and she said that there was nothing she could do. It was bizarre. My husband told me that if I were to write to newspapers or something similar, there would be a chance that I’d be putting myself in danger. He was really afraid. Even though it’s an entirely meaningless festivity beyond the materialistic giving and receiving of gifts, most Dutch people are very defensive. On a personal level I do tell people how I feel about it, when the occasion arises.

    I wonder to what extent racist caricatures of Jewish people seeped into the consciousness of people, allowing Jewish people to be demonised before the Shoah. I once read an article about how genocides begin. The prfessor of Genocide studies wrote that it could happen in any country. He said that gnocides begin by a group being demonised. At this moment I see that happening with Muslims.
    There’s a (joke of a ) political party in the Netherlands called the PVV. They are anti- Islam. The sad thing is that according to polls they could get as much as 30 percent of the vote. They even proposed a tax on Muslim women who wore a head-covering. Can you imagine Rachel, if people wanted to impose a tax on Jewish men who wore a yarmulke or Jewish women with a snood etc? The whole concept seems ludicrous. Too ludicrous to ever really happen… but then again, the Swiss recently banned the building of minarets????

    Misfit, it’s a crying shame that people like that your teacher gave such a poor example of how to learn.
    It was foolish of her to just dismiss out of hand, what somebody tells you, without evidence. It was good that you spoke up. It’s the first time that I’ve seen the official Arabic name of Eid al-Fitr. Here it’s referred to in Dutch as the sugar feast.

    Saja, it’s nice to know that despite our differences in opinion we both want a better world.

32. 

    Jennifer January 4th, 2010 at 5:41 am

    The above post needs a lot of editing. Sorry that it’s so difficult to read! I hope that you got the gist of it though!

33. 

    Saja January 4th, 2010 at 7:23 am

    Jennifer, I didn’t express my second thought very well, and afterward I wished I could edit it. What I meant was that I was sorry your daughter’s equating the black man on the bus with a Zwarte Piet seemed like a reference to slavery, because I am sure your daughter did not mean it that way (even if the tradition has its roots there).

    I definitely understand your horror in that moment, given your point of view on the tradition. It’s like when a child says, “Look at that really fat person, mommy.” (I know racism is worse than that.) But from my viewpoint, your daughter’s comment is more like looking at an old, bearded man on the bus and saying, “Look, it’s Sinterklaas!” An attempt to relate something unusual to a previous category of unusual it seems to match.

    Skin color is a difference, and it’s natural for little children to pick up on it and point it out (just like pointing out really fat people, or someone in a wheelchair). When little kids say these things, it usually doesn’t carry a negative judgement, just an “oh, that’s different” or an “oh, that reminds me of “. Of course, the situation is completely different if the child says (and usually they’re older by then), “Hey, look at the DISGUSTING fat guy” or “Hey, look at the RETARD in the wheelchair”. But that wasn’t what your daughter was doing (I assume).

    We do have differences. If we see a person wearing a yarmulke and my children say, “Oh, that’s a Jewish person,” there is no racism and certainly no anti-Semitism there. Just recognition of a Jewish custom. If people hear my accent and say, “Oh, you must be American,” there’s no -ism there. Well, of course, there might be, depending on the person who’s doing the talking. But it isn’t inherent in the comment itself.

    I would like to see a lot more tolerance in societies. Of course there’s always a line somewhere; what’s tolerance, and what’s allowing atrocities to occur? (I’m thinking of female genital mutilation here, which some immigrants to NL still practice; clearly an atrocity, but if we ban it we’re “intolerant”.) I think it’s pretty clear, though, that wearing clothing of whatever kind and building places of worship are not damaging to one’s fellow man, and in my book, as long as it is not harmful to others, people should be allowed to do whatever calls to them. This trend toward “not offending” (bus drivers: no Muslim headwear! No Christian jewelry! Nothing that could possibly offend some bus rider somewhere!) is, in my opinion, a step in the wrong direction, away from diversity and toward enforced sameness. And the innate, primal fear so many people seem to have of those who think and act differently needs to leave the gene pool as soon as possible .

    Well, I think I’m wandering around with my attempts to explain this…I hope it makes some sense.

34. 

    Jennifer January 4th, 2010 at 3:55 pm

    Saja, what do you think that my daughter meant? Do you think that you know what my daughter meant better than I do? Would you like to be associated with unintelligent dim beings?

    What about people from Suriname or the Antilles who get “Zwarte Piet” called out to them as a way of insulting them? Did you know that they existed? Because they do, and would knowing that cause you think twice?

    What about yearly play about the Zwarte Piets who are in schools, does that sound kosher to you? Would you like to be associated with unintelligent dim beings, only fit to be subservient to another?

    Forgive my bluntness but most of your comments above are irrelevant to the Zwarte Piet discussion- nobody was arguing about introducing sameness, or applauding female genital mutilation. I’m interested in hearing why you’re so sure that people shouldn’t be offended about the plot of that play or about racist stereotypes.
    If you answered my questions in this reply, I could begin to understand why you think Zwarte Piet is ok.

35. 

    Angel January 5th, 2010 at 7:22 pm

    I really enjoyed this post. It has taken me this long to get to your blog and catch up on my reading because of the holiday season. I find it very interesting how I wrote several posts about the holidays only from a different perspective but actually meaning the same thing. I am a Christian that finds Christmas offensive in a lot of ways. I go insane from Thanksgiving to Christmas and just want it over with as quickly as possible.

    I do teach my kids about the different holidays during December, actually all year round and I feel that it is very important that they understand and respect different holidays and religions. The funny thing is that I have a problem with saying “Merry Christmas”. I feel “Happy Holidays” is more appropriate; however in the U.S. it is such an issue that I just say back whatever they say first, unless it is really bad. I can’t stand the lights, the trees, all the people, the songs, oh my goodness the songs! Every year we end up staying home more and more and just making our own family solitude. I do appreciate your perspective and of others it makes me think.

    Every year I find myself obsessing about this holiday and finding more and more information to fill my mind. It drives me crazy that throughout Christian history they have stolen other religious celebrations, taken their rituals or traditions meshed them with Christianized things and claim they had it first. Although, I think I am getting to the point where I can let it go but as long as I am going to church I don’t know if I can. I get so angry during this time; I have to keep my mouth shut a lot and try not to be sarcastic when people are saying “Jesus is the reason”. Um…really? Sorry, I do try to stay positive because I can celebrate the joy with my family and seeing my kids have fun. That is what I am trying to keep my focus on and that most people do mean well.

36. 

    Saja January 6th, 2010 at 9:23 am

    Rachel, I have given thought to your insightful comment that even well-meaning, sensitive people who are not members of an oppressed minority are sometimes unaware of the degree to which, and ways in which, that minority is oppressed. I found a paper I think expands on this idea in the context of skin color in America: http://www.case.edu/president/aaction/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf.

    I wanted to thank you for introducing me to this concept; I have always known I have a particular bias (as we all do), but never realized that it extends further than my thoughts, beliefs, and actions of which I am aware.