Pimping the Jewish Hood

I got this email yesterday from a friend:
"Dearest Keisha, I loved your latest blog post and I know how you feel. Much the same way when I see myself in my mid-thirties unable to find a Jewish husband. I look at non-Jewish women married to Jewish men and it makes me shake all over. I think about how my ancestry is being erased in a single moment..."

Oh my. Did I mention my husband is Jewish? She was kind enough not to call me out specifically as someone responsible for erasing her ancestry. But I felt that sting too. I am reminded of that quote from Bulworth (yea, I watched it): "All we need is a voluntary, free-spirited, open-ended program of procreative racial deconstruction. Everybody just gotta keep ****in' everybody 'til they're all the same color."

I don't think I like that idea. This is an uncomfortable thing to admit but I think about my kids and who their partners will be. And it would bother me if my sons chose a woman who did not resemble me. It would bother me if my grandchildren looked less and less like me until there was no distinction in race. And I know that that is the ideal for some people. But not for me. Our differences need to be seen and acknowledged before they can go away. And turning everyone into beige would not solve that problem.

But back to my friend. I get her point completely. Judaism is carried through the mother. And when you turn away from a Jewish woman you turn away from having Jewish children and a Jewish home. That hurts her. And even more it hurts, in her opinion, the continuation of her people. She ended her email with this line: "I just wish they would stop pimping the Jews." Woah, I suddenly felt like J-Lo when she finished dating P-Diddy or Puffy or whatever the hell his name was at the time. She got accused of Pimping the Black Hood to advance her career.

I wrote her back: "I got you. And I thank you for not calling me out in particular, although your email relates to me directly. And I acknowledge your pain and I get feeling erased." That's all I could say. Much the same way no one can say anything to me to make things better, just air it out and acknowledge it's there. The work is just beginning tribe, get your boots on!

photo: naranjalady