His Offense?

 I am not a fan of parades.  I’ve marched in a few, mainly because of social pressures. In some cases, like the Pride March (formerly known as the “Gay Pride Parade), I was in solidarity with the people, and wanted to commemorate the occasions, it represented. But I don’t like being forced to be on display, or part of a crowd, and nonstop loud noise drives me crazy. Also, I question the motives of many, especially politicians and other celebrities, for showing up.  Call me a cynic, but I think their appearances are mainly for photo ops and, in the case of politicians, endorsements and votes.

That said, I can understand why some were upset when the Mayor of my hometown didn’t appear at its Israel Day parade. I won’t get into what I think of the country’s leadership during the past few decades—that is well beyond the scope of this blog—but, having visited the sites of Jewish arrests, deportations and executions, I can understand the desire, and arguments for the need, of a Jewish state.  On the other hand, having seen people who are now Muslims, Arabs, Turks, Armenians and of other Middle Eastern religions and ethnicities on lands occupied by their ancestors before they were called Muslims, Arabs or any of their other names by which we call them today, I also understand their ties, and their rights, to those lands. And because I have experienced decency, kindness and hospitality from members of all of the groups I’ve mentioned, I can bear no ill will toward any of them.

Having said all of that, I can also understand some of the criticism of Mamdani (for whom I voted) for being the first New York City mayor to skip the Israel Day Parade since it was first held, in 1964. After all, New York City has the second-largest Jewish population of any city or metro area in the world. (Interestingly, the only city and urban area among the top ten that isn’t in Israel or the United States is Paris, France. And the only two others in the top fifteen are London, UK and Buenos Aires, Argentina.) And Mamdani is Muslim, albeit of Indian heritage and Ugandan birth.

Therein lies one of the complications in making his “no-show” at the Israel Day Parade into a Muslim-Jewish conflict. For one thing, his background (and that he doesn’t seem to be an overtly devout Muslim) doesn’t place him in the typical narratives about such a conflict.  Also, the only US metropolitan areas with larger Muslim populations than New York’s are Los Angeles and Detroit. Moreover,  Muslims in New York come from a wide variety of sects and cultural backgrounds spanning every continent except Antarctica.  (Just blocks from my apartment resides one of the largest West African Muslim communities outside of West Africa, and barely a mile from that is the largest Yemeni Muslim community outside of Yemen.) Thus, someone practicing, or simply descending from, Islamic roots is more likely to have something in common with someone like Mamdani than the young men who flew planes into the Twin Towers and Pentagon.

So…what to make of Mamdani not showing his face at the Israel Day Parade? Perhaps better minds than mine can answer that one. But the New York Post did what you can always depend on it to do: get it wrong.

I mean, they would have you believe that going for a bike ride on a beautiful Sunday afternoon was as big, or an even bigger, offense.

For Olivia Hooker, And Those I Never Will Know

 Nearly a decade ago, I wrote something that, whatever its merits or lack thereof, is far more important than anything I’ve written on this blog.  I am mentioning it here,  not to promote it or myself, but to help keep the memory of its subject.

When I wrote that article, I, like many other people, was just learning about the incident I described. Though only a decade has passed, the day it was published seems like a lifetime, even an historical era, ago. During the previous few years, historians, public officials and the few remaining survivors of that tragedy were doing everything they could to ensure that it isn’t forgotten.  Now in the US, we have officials at every level, from the President to school board members, who are trying to keep it—and anything else that makes them uncomfortable—from being taught or even mentioned.

I am referring to the Tulsa Race Massacre, which took place 105 years ago today.  Like too many other tragedies, a false rumor sparked it. And, like too many of the most horrific episodes in history, it resulted in the destruction of, not only individual lives (the exact number will, most likely, never be known) but of a community: Mobs of white residents, deputized by the governor himself, wiped the Greenwood district off the face of the earth.

I have told my students they should take history personally. Possibly my worst failing or, at least, one of my biggest disappointments, was knowing that none of the students in a Women’s Studies class I taught seemed to understand as much.  In fact, some resisted the idea:  They were required to take the course as part of a program and, I now realize, were resistant simply out of resentment.  Then again, I remember when my mother, even when she did paid work, couldn’t open a checking account or get a credit card without my father’s signature. I also remember girls smarter and more talented and ambitious than I was being discouraged from, or outright denied the opportunity to, attend college because “It would be a waste of time, you’re going to get married anyway.” 

And when I wrote that article, a few survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre remained. I came into contact with one:  Olivia Hooker, who witnessed the pogrom as a little girl and was 101 years old when that article was published. She passed away two years later. I hope that, if I have done nothing else, I have honored her memory—and those of hundreds, possibly thousands, of others whose names neither I nor the rest of the world may ever know.

A Lesson Refreshed, Decades Later

 Some of the lessons you learn while you’re in school have nothing to do with school itself—or, at least anything that happens in a classroom or laboratory.

Sometimes you don’t realize you’ve learned those lessons—or they don’t make sense—until much later.  The reason could be that you forget, or don’t think about, whatever brought about those lessons for a long time.

Yesterday I took an afternoon ride to Randall’s Island and came back via a series of paths and streets that more or less parallel the Harlem River. As I passed Yankee Stadium, I thought I saw a somewhat familiar face. Indeed he was: a neighbor with whom I’ve exchanged friendly greetings. He was selling baseball caps and other souvenirs of the baseball team and New York City, he said, not because he needs the money, but to “get out of the house.”

I told him I understood: It’s one of the many reasons I ride my bicycle.

“And you look so strong, so confident,” he said. 

I demurred. “ Well, I’m not so strong…”

“You are. And you look so happy.”

Vicki told me the same thing, almost verbatim. She’d seen me spinning my pedals—on my Nishiki International, if I remember correctly—from Buccleuch (Rumor had it that spelling it correctly was a requirement for graduating from Rutgers) onto College Avenue.

We met in a class and went for a beer. (You could do that as an 18 year old in those days.) The attraction wasn’t sexual, at least as best as I could tell, nor was it “spiritual” or even platonic. We simply “got” each other: We were exploring creative and intellectual endeavors, and learning about ourselves in ways we never could have in the milieux each of us left.

One thing she immediately noticed about me was my lack of confidence in myself: something I still struggle with.  “But I saw a whole different person on your bike.”

“Nobody ever told me I wasn’t good enough to ride my bike.”

“The way you rode your bike, you’re good enough for anything.”

I thanked her, even though I didn’t believe what she said. I don’t think she was trying to give me false hope; she simply was describing who she saw riding by the Rutgers campus.

I hadn’t thought about that moment, or Vicki, in decades. And it took a random encounter with a neighbor selling baseball caps by Yankee Stadium to give me a “refresher.”