Dear Fellow (((White People))) Part One

Today I’d like to talk a little about something that I don’t like to talk about at all: my ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. Specifically, I’d like to talk about why I'm going to talk about them.

I'm on the record about why I don't like talking about my EGS. And yet, enough has happened since I made that statement that I'm willing to change my position. So today, I'm going to do something that I have specifically avoided in order to address something that most (((whites))) don't like to address head on.

If you've been on the internet in the last year or so, you probably know where I'm going with (((this))). I want to talk about why Jews sometimes refer to themselves as White and sometimes as non-White.

But in order to get there, first I need to talk about who I am and why I feel comfortable addressing this issue. I am 1/4 Jewish Christian, or in other words, Jewish enough for Hitler but not Jewish enough for Israel. The irony of this is not lost on me.

I grew up in West Virginia, which is one of the whitest, most Christian States in the Union. And I grew up in the 80s, when the non-White population of West Virginia was even higher than it is now. In my Elementary School class photos, I stick out like a big-nosed, dark-skinned, non-blond thumb.

One of my earliest childhood memories is one of my teachers saying that if we had been born before Jesus, everyone in my class would have been going to Hell except me. And how my classmates looked at me. That's the sort of thing that stays with you.

When I was in High School, I took part in a Competitive Preaching competition. Yes, that's a thing. I gave a fiery sermon on the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. Afterwards, one of my classmates came up to me and said that they were surprised I was willing to preach from the Gospels because I'm Jewish. This was after years of arguing the finer parts of Christian doctrine with my classmates for years. That's what we're dealing with here.

I remember working at a temp agency in college during the summers. Almost every job started with my co-workers asking "What are you?" Not "What's your ethnicity?" or "What race are you?" but, "What are you?" As if I was a thing, not a person.

And the thing about it was, I was accustomed enough to this question to find it amusing. Because frankly, it was a legitimate question in West Virginia. I grew up not knowing a single person like me who wasn't an immediate blood relative. So when someone asked me "What are you?" frankly, I sympathized. What was I?

Because again, frankly, this was something that my encounters with Judaism left me questioning.