Do you notice that whenever there’s a Hollywood movie where there’s a white guy and black guy disagreeing about something, it always ends up in racial name-calling (Crash, 48 Hours, every movie by Spike Lee)?
Last night, I went to the movies with my friend J. He is an African-American. I am a Jewish Caucasian. We decided to see the new nature documentary The March of the Penguins because penguins are both black and white, and we figured the subject matter was so uncontroversial that no racials tensions could possibly develop.
We met early to have some dinner. As J. drove, we discussed what we wanted to eat. J. wanted Italian. I wanted Chinese. Neither of us would budge. Tensions rose and the racial epitaphs started to fly. J. told me that when he came to my seder last year, that my mother’s gefilte fish "sucked." I mocked his culture’s weird attraction to eating chicken and waffles together! It got ugly.
I told him to stop the car immediately. I knew we needed some help, and I knew there was only one person who could bring us back together — Barbra Streisand.
I took out my laptop (as a blogger, I always carry it around) and stole some wi-fi from some home in Beverly Hills. I clicked on Barbra Streisand’s website, where she publishes many of her political ideas (yes, Sophia, TWM, Rachel, and others — all very liberal). I showed J. one of the posts dated June 18, 2003.
I see people trying to divide the unity of Blacks and Jews, in particular. We can’t allow this to happen, because we have too much in common to be divided. With a shared history of oppression and slavery, as well as a common ingrained culture of social justice, Blacks and Jews, over the years and still today, have been natural allies.
In fact, Blacks and Jews have a long and important history of working together… recently, Blacks and Jews worked together in Florida after the 2000 election when both groups were disenfranchised after their votes were disregarded – Blacks because they were wrongly purged from voter lists and Jews in Palm Beach County who had mistakenly voted for Buchanan due to a poorly designed ballot. It was wonderful to watch Jews and African-Americans come together at rallies during that important time in our history.
J. and I looked at each other, ashamed of ourselves. Despite our differences, didn’t we learn anything from that 2000 election year?
Suddenly, we understood what Barbra was saying to us. Blacks and Jews have so much in common — both groups are idiots!
Blacks forgot to register to vote and Jews were too blind to read the ballot.
J. and I compromised and we went out for Thai food.
(story truth quotient 8%) (chance that fellow blogger Alley is not going to realize that it’s a joke and lecture me about politics 100%)
(by the way, maybe this is a Jewish thing, but I’ve always found Barbara Streisand incredibly sexy and beautiful — but I have a feeling James Brolin has one high maintenance woman on his hands)
