Just a great piece about combatting bigotry:

[rasputin1952]

May I suggest one click the link, I had to snip some because of the rules. This is not a long piece, but it is a good read.


<snip>

By Marc Gellman
Newsweek
Updated: 5:12 p.m. CT Oct 12, 2007

Oct. 12, 2007 - I recently received the following question by e-mail: I’m sending you a scan of a clipping from our local newspaper. My question is, How can one respond to a horrifying letter like that? Thanks for your help. —M from Bethlehem, PA

Attached was a letter to the editor from a man who lived in Lower Macungie Township in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. This is what he said: Give me a break. Now these “Jena 6” punks are trying to get off for a crime in Louisiana. Okay, they wanted to sit under the tree that they knew was for white people. Get over it. The white kids claimed it for themselves. The Jena 6 knew their place like all nonwhites. They should get the maximum punishment allowed by law. It’s the South, and that’s how the South will be. White people are tired of all this blame, when all nonwhites are the racists. We don’t owe blacks or any nonwhites special rights. It’s time we whites join together and bring this country back to the way when our forefathers had established it. This is a WHITE CHRISTIAN COUNTRY.

This is my reply:


Dear Sir,

I see you live in Lower Macungie Township in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley. The place you live was first settled by the Lenni Lenape tribe of Native Americans. They are the ones who claimed all the trees and sat under all the trees before any white people ever stuck a plow in the good earth of the Lehigh Valley. The name Macungie is derived from one of their words and it means bear swamp, or the place where the bears feed. I guess that means that the bears claimed the trees even before they did. Before you take up the cause of whites claiming trees, you might want to remember that in America no white person was ever the first person to claim a tree.

<snip>

Three hundred and two million Americans have to share their trees; we are bound to run into some problems from time to time. But there is a better way, an American way, a moral way out of the problem of tree claiming. We can agree that the trees belong to all of us, and that any one of our fellow Americans who is seeking shade from the hot sun merits a place beneath one of them. Most grown-up Americans learn this in kindergarten or at home or in houses of worship or unaided through the power of human reason. Sadly, you have not yet learned this lesson. I wonder if you could learn it now.


<snip>

Perhaps you could learn it from Abraham Lincoln, who demanded that at his cabinet meetings the number of Confederate dead be read along with the tally of Union soldiers who had died. One member of his Cabinet protested, saying, “Who are they to us?” Lincoln answered him this way: “Thank God the world is larger than your heart.”

In the Book of Matthew, the 25th chapter (verses 34-40) we read, “Then the King (Jesus) will say … ‘I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me’.”

If you cannot learn from the ancient rabbis, and if you cannot learn from Abraham Lincoln, perhaps you can learn from the One who made the Christianity you use as a weapon and not as a salve. If you cannot learn from Jesus, your Lord and Savior, God help you and God help America.

Yours sincerely from the bear swamp,
Rabbi Marc Gellman

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21271754/site/newsweek/page/2/

[niyad]

1. k & r for this most important topic

[rasputin1952]

3. I found it amazing that Gellman could piece together such a

great piece, after seeing the subject. He does not "attack", he shows incredible wisom and dignity in dealing with this type of situation.

I am duly impressed....:)

[Wetzelbill]

2. wow that was amazing, k&r

[niyad]

4. when I encounter such fools--on boards and in person, I ask them, "does it hurt to be so ignorant

and hateful? "

[rasputin1952]

5. They feel no pain, if they did, they would never post such drivel.

People with that much hate, with that level of ignorance can no longer feel empathy, or see anything in the light. They havew shielded themselves in darkness, and will not come to grips with any form of reality.

In most cases, I feel sad for such individuals, but in thbis case, the individual who wrote that note about the "Jena 6", is so far down the path of self delusion, there is little chance for any type of reconciliation, this side of an epiphany.

[rasputin1952]

6. Unabashed kick for the night crew...

:kick:

[Terri S]

7. Thanks for the 'unabashed kick' or I would have missed it!

Wonderful response from Rabbi Gellman. I wonder if the person he was addressing could even understand it. It's scary the kind of mentality that is still out there in 'Amurka'.

[rasputin1952]

10. You're welcome...

I found his reply most enlightened...:)

Many years ago, I had a friend who's dad was a Rabbi, incredibly wise man. One of the things he told me was, "Many Christians expect prayers to be answered immediately, we all need to learn patience, and see if we can come up with an answer, that may or may not be divinely inspired."

On what was a real threat: "question this first, is it going to kill you? If the answer is 'no', you have time to work out a solution; if the answer is 'yes', you have real problem, and you have to deal with it now, time is a gift, we toss away too freely."

[NOLALady]

8. Great. Thanks for the link.

This is a keeper.

[niyad]

9. kick