Treating People as People

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.