Just to prove humans and BART trains can coexist, every day hundreds of East Bay folk merrily tramp along the Ohlone Greenway, a bike trail/footpath running underneath the squeal and roar of the Richmond line.
Walking the Greenway is part of my daily commute. At any hour, school children, cyclists and dog walkers crowd the path, granting each other space and an occasional smile.
It’s as tranquil a place as you will ever find with a train speeding overhead. In fact, the worst thing I’d ever encountered there was a couple of surly skateboarders blocking the footbridge over Cerrito Creek.
That is, until a few weeks ago.
Heading home, I saw two young men in their early 20s ambling towards me, both of them handsome, white and maddeningly buff. One walked a dog on a leash, the other walked his bicycle beside him. They were deep in conversation.
As we passed each other, I caught one line of their repugnant dialogue. Said one to the other, “…I don’t understand what those f—ing sand-niggers are up to, man.”
As an adrenaline grenade exploded in my chest, I realized they were venting some racist fury over Iraq or some other Middle East hot spot.
And it was racist. Believe me, when you see racism, you know it, you feel it.
While I admit harboring hatred for the Saddams, Arafats and bin Ladens of this world, I have always tried hard to squash any racist inklings I might have felt toward Arabs or Muslims, especially since 9/11.
Such impulses are not only factually inaccurate and morally wrong, they’re also flat-out self-defeating.
I mean, the jerk easily could have said, “I don’t understand what those f—ing Jews are up to.”
And what if he had said that? What would I have done? Gone up to him and growled, “I’m Jewish and you’re a son of a bitch,” then bit his ear off like Mike Tyson? Not bloody likely. With his 20 extra pounds and my 20 extra years, someone would have had to stop that fight during the weighing-in ceremony.
Or perhaps I could have tried the King Solomon approach, beckoning the creep over and, through calm explanation, demonstrating the error of his thinking.
Whatever I might have done, I know how I would have felt had he slurred Jews. I would have felt directly attacked.
Though I am lucky enough never to have experienced anti-Semitism first-hand, I know enough about Jewish history to take such acts personally.
The very thought of it infuriated me. Thus, his venomous comment about Arabs infuriated me as well.
Despite my anger at Palestinian leaders for their devotion to wanton slaughter, despite my contempt for the Saudi religious hate factory spewing out anti-Semitic screed, and despite my desire to don a Rambo headband and personally wipe out al-Qaida, I still felt the sting of that ignorant fool’s words.
For one brief moment, I felt as if I were Arab myself.
Then it occurred to me that this feeling of woundedness was actually a by-product of being Jewish.
All those years of dipping a finger into the seder wine glass, withdrawing ten drops to remember the suffering of the Egyptians.
All those years of internalizing the sages’ admonition: “What is hateful to thee, do not do to others.”
All that sensitivity training about the rights of oppressed people around the world: All of it, I realized, had been fostered by the ancient Jewish commitment to tikkun olam.
And it had apparently rubbed off.
In that split second on the Ohlone Greenway, feeling as hurt as any Muslim would have felt, I realized I had actually internalized those lessons.
There was nothing much to be happy about that day. Israelis were still being blown up on buses; Baghdad snipers were picking off American soldiers like Dirty Harry at target practice.
And two clowns in the East Bay were talking trash about a billion people.
I’m sorry I didn’t confront them somehow. That’s always a scary proposition, even without the threat of physical conflict. But somewhere out there, those two guys, and millions more like them, continue to foment the worst kind of racist hatred. I should have tried to stop it.
Because next time, they just might try to bite off my ear.