On Oppression

I recently read a book (for one of the many book clubs I'm in) about the Holocaust. 

In my youth, I was extremely into holocaust books and tbh I'm not totally sure why, but I perhaps it's something to do with my proclivity for sad stories in general. I remember reading Number the Stars by Lois Lowry in third grade, and I think that's when I really started seeking out additional holocaust books, but maybe it was even earlier than that. Also worth noting that the books I liked as a kid usually still had happy endings...the main character always survives in a children's book; there's always someone who comes in to save the day. While I think the idea behind books like this was to teach children about the horrors of the past, I think my personal infatuation with the subject may be proof that in addition to respect for the survivors of that brutality, it also had the power to instill children with a belief in a false reality where there are good guys around every corner and the persecuted will be rescued in the end. 

As an adult I got kind of burnt out on these type of stories. Maybe that corresponded to when I realized that the reason survivor stories get told is that only the people who survived the atrocities got to pass their tales down to subsequent generations; the vast majority of the victims of the holocaust didn't get that luxury. It kinda loses the heroic appeal when you can fully grasp the reality. And I've found that more recently, I am really sensitive to reading Holocaust stories because they are so often ripe with Zionism and it weighs heavily on my conscience. I gave up on a book recommended to me by a friend a few weeks ago partly because I couldn't stand to hear the main character's father repeatedly push for his children and their families to "settle" in Palestine as an alternative to staying in any European countries where they may soon be in tumult. Part of me was like, "Yeah, okay, fair enough to get the hell out of Europe!" but there was no acknowledgement in the scenes that I read (which was almost half of the book) of the Palestinians whose houses they had moved into, nothing that acknowledged the ongoing struggle of those displaced people. It made me feel weird and I couldn't do it. 

So, back to this book I actually did finish for my book club. I liked it, and it didn't praise Zionism in an icky way either, so that was a big relief. It was actually about the Holocaust in Romania, a fictionalized novel about the author's own grandmother's lived experiences during those years. It turns out the Jewish citizens weren't all sent off to concentration camps there, but were consistently isolated and alienated from society long before the Nazi's made their way there. There was also a significant push/pull from both Germany and Russia invading at different times. A truly fascinating (and simultaneously horrific) look at a place I knew very little about despite my childhood proclivity for Holocaust stories. 

But here's what did make me feel weird about it all: I looked at the author's social media and there was no acknowledgement of the atrocities still going on in Palestine now. She is apparently on a social media hiatus, which is fine, but in the caption of one of her photos from October I found this: 

Tomorrow, my novel, THE BLOOD YEARS, about my grandmother’s teenage years in Holocaust-era Romania, will be published. Today, I learned of a wheelchair-bound Holocaust survivor in Israel, kidnapped. In my book, the main character’s grandfather, her Opa, often says, “Everything is cyclical.”

Here is what I know: Murder is always terrible. My heart is broken. I love my grandmother and miss her every day, and I deeply wish I could have met her beloved Opa, Heinrich Fischmann, seen here.

This is a perfectly understandable sentiment (also, how crazy is the timing of her book release with the October attacks?) and I think it's a totally fair reaction; not reacting with additional violence or hatred, just an expression of sadness and acknowledgement of perpetuated hatred that she covers in her historical novel. But it was the complete silence on the violence following that post that got to me. Now, it is not this author's job to publicly reckon with the violence of a whole country. I know that. I don't think she's awful or anything. And I respect that everyone should be taking regular social media hiatuses (I don't think the internet is generally good for our mental health). But at this point in time, an absence of public acknowledgement that Israel is problematic seems to me pretty indicative that a person doesn't have a problem with Israel's continued displacement of Palestinian people.

I realize that this person could have previously posted stories that I missed and have since expired, and could have privately held opinions they kept off their social media as a public figure. I know that. But to be an author publishing a book in 2023 about historical Jewish oppression and not make any permanent public acknowledgement of the ongoing atrocities the nation of Israel is inflicting on another marginalized group seems...myopic at best.

Having this stuck in my head all week has been reminding me of a conversation I witnessed between some coworkers many many years ago. So now, story time! My coworkers were having a conversation bemoaning the fact that Black Lives Matter organizers had a protest at the Mall of America and disrupted holiday shopping. These coworkers, though they weren't there and hadn't been personally affected by this protest, were horrified by the actions of the protesters and infuriated about how it would (in their opinion) unduly affect people trying to buy christmas presents for their kids without causing any real change and how tragic that was. The sentence that has stuck with me for a decade now was "As a Christian in America, I feel oppressed!" I had literally nothing to say about this comment at the time (because I was rendered speechless, but also because I wasn't part of this conversation, just nearby). I also can't recall if there was any explanation or insight to what said oppression was, though if I had to guess, it'd be something along the lines of Christian-owned businesses not being allowed to decide for themselves if they will refuse service to LGBT folks.  Ya know, the ole oppression of not having a legal justification for discrimination- you've heard of that, right? But I realized not that long after overhearing that conversation is that what I should have said was "Not being allowed to oppress other people is NOT the same thing as being oppressed!" I've thought about this many many times in the almost decade since it happened and I stand by that assertion so I'll say it again:

Not being allowed to oppress others is NOT a form of oppression.

Here's how I think this relates to Israel's genocide right now: Israel is oppressing displaced Palestinians and have been doing so for the better part of a century now. They are currently committing a months-long ethnic cleansing that is being pretty well documented in real time for the rest of the world, and a significant amount of the population is still not acknowledging it. I think that's partly because people are afraid of being labelled anti-Semitic. And I understand not wanting to say triggering things about a country populated by a people group who has been so marginalized historically throughout the western world. 

But again, I say: not being allowed to oppress others does not mean you are yourself being oppressed. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of real antisemitism in the world today; I am not at all saying that Jewish folks don't face the reality of discrimination and hate crimes themselves. I know they do. And I know that hatred is perpetuated by the garbage spewed by the kind of creeps who sometimes run for President here in America. But what I am saying is that pretending that what Israel is doing to Palestine isn't racism is morally questionable at best. And calling a spade a spade (or a genocide a genocide) isn't the same thing as oppression (or antisemitism). We can call out and condemn violence and racism from a country, we can decry the continued murder and disenfranchisement of Palestinians, and we can also call out hate speech directed toward Jews because of their race and religion. Being opposed to Israeli occupation of Palestine is not equivalent to hating Jews. 

I think standing up for the marginalized means both calling out Israel AND advocating against antisemitism. I think the actions of Israel as a modern nation are a blight on Judaism; Jews deserve a sense of pride and self-worth untainted by the war crimes of Israel. This, in my opinion, gives Jews in the rest of the world an even bigger incentive to stand with Palestine. I wish "not in our name" was the rallying cry of every single Jew in America. I wish our government could acknowledge that they are choosing to back oppression (then again, when have they ever acknowledged such a thing in the entire history of our country?) and cease financing genocide. I wish nobody considered it controversial to speak out against war.

Life Lately.

 The summer has been hurtling past me, as it always seems to do in adulthood. It's especially weird in Texas since the days are so hot that going outside means risking my entire body becoming drenched in sweat, so unless I'm wearing clothing that will be forgiving of that and/or have plans to go swimming, I tend to stay inside.

Regardless, I've carved out some time to do delightful things with people I care about like see the summer musical at Zilker Park (it was Legally Blonde this year, and it was fantastic) and finally watch the bats fly out from under the Congress Ave bridge at dusk (incredible experience, 10/10 would recommend). 

Possibly my favorite part of August though (at least the one that I can't seem to stop bringing up every time I talk to anybody) is reading a new favorite book. Listen, I realize that NOBODY is shocked that I would want to talk about books. I'm in 6.5 book clubs, so I definitely talk about books during those, which means I'm doing that one or two evenings of any given week. But outside of my book clubs I actually think I don't talk about books all that much considering the sheer volume of books and audiobooks I go through. Sure, there are a handful of people that I know also like to read and I'll pass along a book rec if it's something I think they'll like. But I average about three books a week (and I truly like most of them!) and I'm definitely not telling most people about books that often! So I want a little bit of credit here for reigning in the impulse to gush about books all the time. 

BUT. 

Last week I listened to the audiobook of Rainbow Rowell's new book, Slow Dance, and I absolutely adored it. I have been completely unable to reign in my impulse to tell everyone I talk to about it. I wanted to take my time and savor the first read (I was pretty sure before I even started that I'd want to do re-reads down the road, like I do for all of Rainbow Rowell's books) because you only get ONE first read of a new book! I worked really hard to take breaks from the audiobook, to savor scenes that I loved, to pause and rewind if I found that I'd missed a little bit by getting distracted. 

It took me four days (pretty long for an audiobook I was REALLY enjoying) and by the time I got to the end I was so completely invested in the world of Shilo and Cary that I couldn't even imagine starting a different book and I just rolled it back to the beginning and started the whole thing again. In all the audiobooks I've listened to I have never felt compelled to do that before! I don't think I've ever immediately restarted a physical book after finishing it either. I definitely do rereads of favorites, but I usually wait upwards of a year before undertaking a reread. It only took me slightly over 24 hours to listen through the second time. And then I went out the next day and bought a physical copy because I wanted to be able to do close readings of the specific scenes I liked (it's really difficult to find specific scenes in audiobooks) and also because I was down to the last few hours of my library audiobook loan.

Slow Dance is Rainbow Rowell's first adult novel published since Landline about a decade ago. Landline has been one of my favorite books since I first listened to it back in 2016 and I've been listening to it every year at Christmastime for the past several years (I don't really consider it a Christmas book, but it is technically set over Christmas and I use that as an excuse to revisit annually). I haven't yet decided if I like Slow Dance even more than Landline...it feels too soon to tell. But what I do know is that it has been a very long time since I read something that made me feel like I was just EXPLODING with love for it at the end, and that is exactly how I felt about Slow Dance. I posted on instagram about it, I stopped by the library to personally recommend it to any and all of my librarian friends who might be working (I found two, but I think I convinced them both to put it on hold!) and I've been passing along the rec to basically everyone I see in person all week. That's a lot more than I usually do; a lot more than I've done for any of the other 105 books I've finished so far this year!

33.

 I skipped a couple weeks here, just because life has been very busy. I actually did have things to write about both weeks, but didn't carve out the time to process and write them all out. 

But yesterday I turned 33. It's kind of wild and kind of scary and also kind of mundane at the same time. I threw myself a big Last Supper themed birthday party last weekend which was a blast but also made it feel like I'd already had my birthday so the actual day was pretty low key. I didn't really end up making any plans for it, and mostly spent the day alone, doing things that I enjoy and taking a much needed rest. The weeks leading up to my party were filled with planning, prepping, baking, and all sorts of work getting ready to host a 13 person dinner.

In my time alone, though, I kept thinking about the ways that my life is different at 33 than I ever thought it would be and the ways it is different than the lives my parents had at this age. In many ways my life is full and rich and everything I want it to be. I get to spend my free time doing exactly what I want. I spend time on crafts, reading books and attending entirely too many book clubs, I hang out at the springfed pool regularly in the summers here and get to sleep in on the weekends. Very little beyond my own whims and fancies dictates how I spend my free time and I love that. But there are other things about my life that still don't feel realized. There are still parts of "being an adult" that feel beyond my capabilities and I'm not really sure why because I look around me and see other people navigating similar situations with seeming ease. 

I was talking with a friend recently about how interesting I find the word "bravery" because it is so extremely up to interpretation. My mother has told me that she thinks I'm brave, and many other people have said the same over the years. I also willingly admit that what I might be is stupid; I am perfectly willing to go for a walk alone at night, which is something I know scares many people, especially many women. I think mostly I've been lucky enough to never be personally traumatised by any terrible outcomes from my brave/stupid decisions because surely if I'd ever been attacked or something equally untoward I would be far less willing to risk my bodily safety on the regular. But as it is, nothing has ever really gone wrong for me and I refuse to let the possibility of something bad happening someday determine how I live my life. But like I said, I don't think that's brave...probably just stupid. And I don't feel brave. I don't think most people feel brave. Which brings me back to my original point on this topic, which is that we assess bravery on a deeply personal level. We see others as brave when they are able to do things that seem scary or intimidating to us regardless of how those people feel about the things they are doing. One of my mother's examples for my bravery was moving across the country alone a couple of times. And for my mom, who has lived in Maine for her whole life, I can see how that would come across as bravery. But it didn't feel like something that required bravery of me; it just felt like the next right step in my life each time I did it. And yes, uprooting my life multiple times has been challenging, but not in a way that felt insurmountable. There are plenty of mundane things that feel completely beyond my comfort level and I avoid those things. There are things that are a breeze to others that fill me with existential dread to the point where I just never deal with them. And I think everybody has things that feel completely beyond their capacity. We've all got boundaries for things that are scary or too hard or too tedious and we all have things that feel routine and easily achievable. The specifics are just different for each person, yet we perceive the ability to face our insurmountable challenges as bravery in others. Which makes sense! I just find it really interesting. 

One of the things I decided while I spent time alone reflecting on my birthday is that this year I want to start tackling more of the obstacles that have felt overwhelming to me. Getting things done that feel scary or hard and that I've simply avoided because of that. It feels like time to face those demons. Maybe that's just because it's fully spring here and I'm slowly emerging from my troll-like winter state. Maybe 33 is the year I finally turn into a real adult? I guess we'll see.