June 2006
I never gave much thought to taxis. I don't take them that often but, when I do, it's usually just a matter of raising my arm, waiting patiently, and one eventually comes. (The exception is if it's 5 pm, or raining, or, God forbid, both, but, after ten years of living in New York City, I've learned to not even try).
After I had been in New York City for five years, however, I still didn't immediately understand why my new, African-American husband suggested that I hail a taxi back to Harlem for his ninety-year-old grandmother while they stood in the background. I also didn't immediately get why the driver, who thought he was stopping for me, looked so furious when he saw who he would really be picking up and found out where he would be driving to.
Nobody likes to think of herself as stupid or insensitive, but I'll admit, I'm one of those people who tend to find excuses for the bad behavior of others. When my husband Scott and I were selling our apartment, I thought there had to be a good reason why, when he, a black man, showed the place to an appraiser, the figure was $50,000 lower than the number when I, a white woman, showed it.
Scott agreed there was a reason. It simply was one I didn't want to believe.
Though that isn't true, exactly. It's not that I don't want to believe that racism exists. That would be foolish and, besides, of course I believe that it exists. In the abstract. It's easy to believe that things exist in the abstract. The hard part is believing that they exist in people who are standing right in front of you, people who are supposed to be too educated, too cosmopolitan, too "evolved" to dwell on such things. Being married to an African-American man has helped--or forced, depending on your point of view--me to see the world through fresh eyes.
A peculiar side effect of my new sensitivity is my tendency to respond to a given issue with the genuine conviction that I am black. (I realize that I am not; I still check the appropriate box on the census form, but I've so internalized Scott's view of the world that I feel black, nonetheless). Sometimes I get so carried away in a discussion, that when the person I'm talking to responds in an unexpected way, I actually find myself thinking: "What is she talking about, can't she see that I'm saying this because I'm black?" It's especially disconcerting when other African-Americans fail to recognize our similarity. (Once again, I would like to stress that this blurring of identity has not devolved into psychosis, but is merely a deep identification due to my love for my husband and our two African-American Jewish sons).
Conversely, thanks to his exposure and (one would hope) love for me, Scott, too, has picked up a new ethnic identity. He's become Jewish. So Jewish, that some people don't believe he's Black!
Let me back up a little.
Scott grew up in New York City, which, in his words, "Is the same as being Jewish already." (He is technically a Christian, but was not raised in a church, and it rarely plays a part in his daily life). He had Jewish friends in high school and college, dated some Jewish women before me, and generally felt pretty comfortable with people of The Tribe.
And yet, it wasn't until we got together that Scott, thanks to my unabashed Zionism, became interested in Israel and Israeli issues. And, thanks to me and my Soviet immigrant family, Scott came to admit he'd never realized that racism affects anyone else but black people. Previously, he'd internalized stereotypes (Jews are clannish and don't accept converts because they think they're better than everyone else) and popular proclamations (Zionism is racism) without realizing it, even as he genuinely had the right to claim, "Some of my best friends are Jewish."
Best friends, maybe. But when your wife is Jewish and you unveil one of those gems, you're going to get a strict talking to. And talking to. And talking to. Until the Stockholm Syndrome kicks in and you become a convert.
To be honest, it didn't take all that much talking. Scott has always held opinions seemingly at odds with what many believe an African-American man should espouse.
And it was those opinions, along with his support for Israel, that prompted fellow posters on a political listserv Scott belongs to, to jump to conclusions about who he was, based on what he believed, and to accuse him of "not understanding what it means to be a black man in America."
It was at that point that Scott and I realized that our fusion as a couple was complete. I'd become black and he'd become Jewish. Just like our kids.
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