As you might know, I didn’t grow up
in Long Island or New York or even the East Coast! My accent is slightly different, more
Mid-American journalist than Brooklyn heavy.
When I’m tired or when I’m not thinking, I’ll refer to sneakers as tennis
shoes, soda as pop. I’ll ask you to
pitch your trash. Plus, the word God or
Adonai never comes out in that New York kinda way.
As a kid, when I’d visit my Long
Island relatives, they’d often joke about my growing up in Ohio. They’d ask: “Did you ride your tractor to
school today? How many cornfields did
you pass by? Did you go cow tipping this
weekend?” I lived a life nothing like
that, much more suburban than rural.
Yet, they continued to jest. I
heard it all – flyover country; rural America; the Midwest, always said with a
little bit of disdain.
And it’s not only me. There are plenty in the very center of our
country who the talking heads often refer to them and their way of life with
contempt. One conversation prior to the
election that seemed to pop-up over and over again was the differences between
college educated and non-college educated whites. This was all anyone could talk about in the
weeks and months leading up to the election.
The pundits would cite polls in which Donald Trump gained support of
blue collar workers or where Hillary Clinton increased her lead with white
college educated voters. This encouraged
a true dichotomy, defining people by their educational level, not by their
political views, family concerns, or actualities.
This past weekend, Chuck Todd and
David Brooks joined together for a conversation about the election results on “Meet
the Press.” This was one of the most interesting
discussions I’ve heard post-election and a true mea culpa of their
responsibility as journalist and pundit.
David Brooks quite poignantly said that the continued reference to
non-educated whites or the working class, assumed disdainfully that they were not
only uneducated, but stupid. Chuck Todd
spoke forcefully that his father would have kicked him in the rear for making
these assumptions. By defining people by
their education or work experience, they were unfairly defined, put into a box
that wasn’t always true. They felt marginalized,
mocked for who they were and what they stood for.
Long ago, there was a similar moment
in time. Assumptions were made about a
specific group of people, of their beliefs and actions. Travel back with me to the time of Abraham
and Sarah. Our patriarch and matriarch
lived in Israel, not far from Sodom and Gomorrah. These two cities were known by their
injustice and immorality. Their unethical
and unjust behavior was so grave, that the cries of the innocent even reached
the ears of the Holy One. The Torah
teaches that God was so disgusted by their behavior that he decided to
obliterate the cities and destroy all the inhabitants of the land.
In one of Abraham’s finest moments,
he bravely approaches the Holy One and stands up for the righteous people of
these cities. “Please, God, if there are
fifty innocent people, would you destroy the entire city?” Or to put it another way: “God, you are
lumping every single person together.
Does every single person in this city believe the same thing? Does everyone follow the same path?” In that moment, Abraham reminds the Holy One,
that it is dangerous to define everyone into large categories. Abraham reminds us that we must see each
person as a person; not by their skin color, or gender; education level,
address, or even religion. We must
define each of us by who we are, by our life experience, by being us.
But, that is challenging to say the
least. It’s much easier to lump people
together. To define people into
categories, to stereotype, label, or pigeon-hole. Hopefully the pundits have realized their
mistake. They spent way too much time in
their New York and Washington bubbles, defining entire groups of people as
racists, misogynistic, and even stupid.
Instead of breaking out of the bubble, getting out into the world, they
defined people by the polls and the data and their own political assumptions.
Luckily, Abraham was able to break
free from his bubble. The people of
Sodom and Gomorrah were not Jewish. They
lived quite a distance away. They were
part of a different world. Yet, Abraham
stopped God from typecasting all of the residents as evil and horrible
individuals. Abraham attempted to know
them, to learn about them, to find out who was innocent, who was different from
the rest.
Unfortunately, Abraham didn’t succeed
in his challenge. There were not fifty
innocent people or even ten innocent people living in those cities. Abraham’s call was a failure. Yet, this moment in Torah is one of the most
famous instances of social justice, of reaching out to others, of speaking
truth to power. Abraham didn’t succeed,
but we can. We can follow his example
and try to treat people as people. We
can break out of our bubbles and attempt to understand those that have
different cultural values and world views dramatically different from us. And most importantly, we can show our respect
and appreciation for those in rural areas and in cities throughout the South
and Midwest. Instead of mocking them or
showing disdain, we can understand them and learn from them and break down the
barriers that surround us all.
