note: an old blog that I lost my steam on and never made public, the thoughts here are kinda unfinished. what the heck.

I like to think I'm a pretty tolerant person. Pro-choice, pro-gay, proletariat, whatever. Black, white, yellow, purple, I don't care, you have your experiences, I have mine, nice to meet you. I don't take kindly however to trying to invent a place for yourself using someone else's racial background. You're blonde and blue-eyed, no matter how much Biggie you listen to you're never going to understand what it's like to grow up black in druggie-infested NY--and way to enforce negative stereotypes with the baggy jeans and bad ebonics. Visiting a reservation while on a roadtrip, watching Discovery channel, then wearing feathers in your hair doesn't mean you totally understand Native Americans and would totally go live with them off the land--you have no friggin' idea what it means to be Native, especially in the 21st century. Even the "my great great great grandma was [whatever minority], so I can relate" is totally weightless. 

I've met a handful of Jewish converts before (I'm sure more than I think I have, and the fact that they converted never came up in conversation), but most recently it's been on my mind thanks to my best friend. She started dating a new guy a few months ago named Moses--quite the biblical name--and mentioned he was Jewish. I figure most Jews are Jewish like my family is, more in theory than in practice and thought nothing of it until my friend mentioned her new boyfriend's ex-wife and baby's names--very very Hebrew names. I asked if they were from Israel (you don't hear names like theirs very often) and was shocked to find out that both Moses and his ex-wife had converted to Judaism and changed their names. What are you, teenaged vamps? Call me Lestat, and this is my girlfriend, Ophelia Scarlett. The real kicker though was when my friend piped up, "He got his conversion card and everything!"

Hold the hell up. You can adopt thousands of years of culture after taking some classes and getting a card with your name on it? I'm not a devout Jew by any means (I'll take the ethics, but hold the God please), but being Jewish has been a very defining part of my life and my family. Even though I fought it as a child ("no Bekka, you HAVE to go to Hebrew school because you have Jewish blood!") I really do see being Jewish as an ethnicity more than just a religion. Empathizing with a persecuted people does not make you one of them. Have you been banned from friends' houses because you were Jewish? Have you been teased by your entire class because you were Jewish? Have you been deemed unintelligent because you were Jewish? Have you ever been genuinely attacked and had "kike" spat at you because you were Jewish? Have you ever even had to tame a full head of unruly Jew-fro because you were friggin' Jewish? I'm more than happy to share my culture with people, introducing people to something new is such an incredible rush, but that still doesn't make it yours. Plus, from a rabbinical standpoint you can't ever really convert anyway, we're a specific "chosen people," you'll have to take that one up with the big G-dawg.

More on my mommy blog!

It seems like the cool thing to do this week is write about bullying--so I just have to share so I can be cool too, unlike all those losers who write about their feelings and stuff on the internet.

In the 4th grade I was bad. Just look how bad to the bone I was. Boys clothes, hat backwards, sloppy afro-licious haircut--you didn't want none of this! Even my creepy stalkeresque little brother didn't want none, he could only watch in awe at the awesomeness that was his older sister. When I came rolling through the school with my roller backpack, high-waters, and Lord of the Rings books you know I was the talk of the playground...even if that talk was shouts of "Dorky Bjorke!", "get a hairbrush!", "stupid haole[white girl]!", or schemes to steal my new expensive gel pens or whatever.

The ring leader of one especially nasty group of girls was named Brittany. maybe she wasn't the ringleader...maybe she wasn't even that mean to me (it's been a while, I haven't brushed up on my 4th grade history in years), but she became the brunt of my hatred. She was Samoan, so much much bigger than my scrawny, 50 lb. self, which gave me the inspiration I needed for my masterpiece--my greatest work--my comic! It started with my best friend (and fellow nerd) and I doodling about Brittany's fat, which evolved into a 3 panel strip, which turned into an entire comic book, which turned into several copies which we sneakily distributed around school. It was an elaborate, evil, and very entrepreneurial endeavor, and I was proud. I had exacted my nerdy revenge--let all meanies beware of the evil genius (I think that was actually the name & logo we stamped the comics with) that was Bekka. Pick on me and your ass is grass!

No, no your ass was actually fine. Being as it was grade school and kids can't keep their traps shut for more than 15 seconds, I'm amazed that it took all of two days for Brittany to find out who was responsible for the unflattering and monstrous comic counterpart that was making her rounds around the class. So what did she do? She beat me up.

Lesson learned. Cruelty only breeds more cruelty...so unless you're an effective evil genius don't take matters into your own hands--hire a mercenary.