Guest Voice: “Feeling Like†versus “Being A Member Of†A Religious Minority
NOTE: The Moderate Voice from time to time runs Guest Voice posts by readers who don’t have their own website or who do but want to present their viewpoint (or just another perspective) to TMV’s highly diverse readership.Guest Voice columns do not necessarily reflect the opinion of TMV or its writers. This is by Jill Miller Zimon who has a great blog Writes Like She Talks. She is also one of four bloggers who blogs for The Cleveland Plain Dealer. This Guest Voice post also ran on her site.
“Feeling like†versus “being a member of†a religious minority
By Jill Miller Zimon
During a series of posts at Wide Open, a few comments centered around how people in the religious majority (Christians) feel as though they are, instead, in the religious minority in our religiously pluralistic country.
How, exactly, does that feel?
Well, if you read the comments and posts, not very good at all. In fact, writers there have only identified negative feelings with being in a religious minority in the United States.
Why would that be – how could that be? Especially if the one describing how it feels to be a religious minority here has never been the minority in this country?
One response to that question is that only identifying negative feelings with being in a religious minority in the United States would seem to imply that the people doing so only imagine that being in the minority is a pretty negative experience.
And guess what? In part, they are right. I would not necessarily choose the word “negative†myself – but my life as the member of a religious minority certainly has had and continues to have challenges that people who are in the religious majority most likely have never and will never experience. And until they do, I feel very strongly that the argument about feeling like a minority needs to be kept at exactly that level: it is a feeling – a legitimate feeling, but it is in no way reality.
I made a very strong statement – and wrote it more than once in the Wide Open annals: to act as though you are an “embattled minority†when in fact it is statistically impossible for you to ever be in the minority – no matter how convinced you are by your feelings that you are embattled, as though you must be a minority – is to be delusional (specifically, persecutory).
Anyone – minority or majority – may in fact be “embattled†on a case by case basis.
But, as a sustained, persistent state of existence, not even as an American Jew, with at most 3% of the American population identifying with my religion, would I say that I belong to an “embattled minority.†(Though I am certain that many other Jews have in fact experienced being embattled, and there have been instances when I have been through that as well but, as a general proposition, I don’t carry on as though I am embattled – this, of course, sets me apart in particular from more politically conservative Jews.) Thus, logic indicates that Christians, as 80% or more of the American population, are not now nor have they ever been nor are they likely to become, in the U.S., a minority.
Of course, one quick answer to all this could be supplied if Christians want to poll the Jewish Israeli population in Israel about how they feel when it comes to the likelihood of no longer being in the majority if they were to change the rules of the land and truly be a democracy.
Or, if you really want to know what experiencing anxiety as you anticipate and then actually lose majority status? Check with white South Africans too. What did it feel like not only to know you were going to lose your majority status but to then lose it?
So, there are examples of how anxiety over losing majority status is based on real possibilities and subsequent eventualities. But Christians in the United States do not face a real possibility of losing their majority. And that’s what makes their feelings just that: feelings only. Any action based on those feelings (as opposed to acting on incidents of real bias – such as is pointed out as a possible issue at the UColorado and at Colorado Christian University, between Christians – the story below the main CU story) would be based in delusion.
Tom Blumer helped this line of logic in this post by promoting the idea that even if people feel as though they are in a recession, his read on reality, via economic measures, is that they are not. As he writes, “Y’know, 46% of people could say the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, and that won’t change the fact that it rises in the east and sets in the west.â€
Likewise, I’ve been saying, it is statistically impossible for Christians who live in the U.S. to be a member of an embattled minority because it’s a statistical impossibility and when people act on those feelings as though they are reality, they are being, clinically speaking, delusional.
Let me give some concrete examples of how life is as a member of an actual religious minority.
******Enormous disclaimer:
Before anyone goes off and starts writing about how miserable Jill says her life is, you can stop right there – or risk having me astroturf your blog with how superficial you are.
I love my life as an American Jew. Period. No qualifications. These instances or examples I cite? 80-90% of the time, mere inconvenience and a teaching moment.
But I live this life I love as a member of an actual religious minority and I’m sharing in this post what that means. My experiences and feelings are not based on an anxiety that I am a minority when in reality I am not.
One day last week, I picked up the phone and it was Scholastic Books. They wanted to send me “an ornament.â€
Now, suppose you are Christian and Christians were in fact less than 3% of the American population. Imagine how you would feel if Scholastic called to tell you that they want to send you a box of yahrzeit candles.
Of course, that is never going to happen now, is it?
I could have done a lot of things, but this call isn’t atypical of what appeals we get when you’re in the minority. And so I simply said, no thank you, I don’t celebrate Christmas and she ended the call.
So – Christians get a free ornament for being a good customer of Scholastic. Jews? Well, we could take the ornament too I suppose, but really – thanks but no thanks. Just doesn’t feel right. Now – if they had offered me my choice of ornament or dreidl, or if they had offered me a free anything else that was secular, that would have been cool and preferable too. But my only choice was an ornament? Thanks. But, no thanks.
I felt that the call was and it actually turned out to be a completely minor intrusion – I probably should not have picked up the phone at all, as I often do screen my calls. But for whatever reason, I picked up. So be it. No big whoop as Linda Richman used to say.
And that’s one example of how it is and how it feels, actually, to be a member of a religious minority in the U.S.
Here are some more examples of how you might actually feel when you actually are a member of an actual religious minority:
1. You get used to it.
2. You ignore it.
3. You thank people who wish you Merry Christmas, Easter etc. Depending on the circumstances, you may or may not add that you celebrate something else and/or don’t celebrate that holiday.
4. You wish people to enjoy their occasions.
5. You are happy if they’re happy (weddings, baptisms) and join them to console (wakes, funeral mass) and celebrate (confirmation, first communion).
6. You might tell people what you do that is analogous to or different from what they do (bar mitzvah versus confirmation).
Those actions, based in my reality of being a Jew in the U.S., are all easy, easy, easy and, for the most part, rewarding.
What I’ve done with the following examples – which are not as easy, easy, easy – is to state how it is in reality (in green font representing the majority religion of Christianity), and then what the equivalent situation would be if, just for debate’s sake, Jews were the majority (hence the blue font) and Christians were the minority.
7. All the books in your child’s classroom highlight Christmas. All the books in your child’s classroom highlight Chanuka.
8. When you go food shopping, all the holiday cookies are green and red Christmas trees. When you go food shopping, all the holiday cookies are blue and white dreidls.
9. The holiday concerts put on by your town, your school district and the orchestra play only Christmas music. The holiday concerts put on by your town, your school district and the orchestra play only Chanuka music.
10. You need to have a garage sale but your town’s ordinances don’t allow them on Sunday because Christian residents are concerned about having too much traffic on their day of rest. You need to have a garage sale but your town’s ordinances don’t allow them on Saturday because Jewish residents are concerned about having too much traffic on their day of rest.
11. Throughout December, when everyone is saying Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you, not once does anyone wish you “Happy Chanuka.†Througout December, when everyone is saying Happy Chanuka to you, not once does anyone wish you “Merry Christmas†or “Happy Holidays.â€
12. Sporting events – spectator and those for your kids – and neighborhood or work parties are scheduled when you need to be in Shabbat services. Sporting events – spectator and those for your kids – and neighborhood or work parties are scheduled when you need to be in worship services or mass.
13. When radio stations start to play winter holiday music, the only song they choose to play for Chanuka is a joke song by Adam Sandler. When radio stations start to play winter holiday music, the only song they choose to play for Christmas is Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.
14. When you go to buy a calendar, only the Christian holidays are marked. When you go to buy a calendar, only the Jewish holidays are marked.
The eight examples in green font are the realities of being a minority. The eight examples in blue font are the imagined scenarios that, if you want to really try to feel what it feels like to feel and be a member of a religious minority, I would encourage you to envision: close your eyes and spend as much time as it takes to see how it makes you feel as you imagine encountering each of those situations in blue.
So – how did that feel?
Here’s the range of how I feel when I live the reality of those green font examples. These feelings aren’t mutually exclusive but of course I don’t feel each of them with every scenario:
1. Happy to share
2. Like I am teaching
3. The more people I tell, the more people who can no longer say, “I’ve never met a Jew before.â€
4. Excluded.
5. Invisible.
6. Insulated.
7. Indignant.
8. Tired.
9. Annoyed.
10. Angry.
11. Wishing it was otherwise.
So – if I’m a member of an actual religious minority, and less than 20% of the time would I say I feel anything more than inconvenienced – despite all the feelings I may feel – well, there really isn’t anyway that people who live in the religious majority can ever argue with any success that they are, in fact, an “embattled minority.â€
Still unable to imagine?
Let me put it yet another way: If you were the wallflower in high school, did you ever wonder what it might be like to be the head cheerleader dating the football quarterback? Or maybe you were the woodshop guy who secretly wished he could have the lead in the school play? And you played a game with yourself, wondering – what would it BE like to actually BE that cheerleader or QB or lead in the play?
Well – how ’bout folks in the religious majority tell me: what do you imagine being in the majority should feel like? Because I am never going to know. And you are saying that you don’t feel like you are in the majority, despite the numbers.
So, then – what are you imagining being in the majority is supposed to feel like and be?
‘Cause I gotta tell ya – the only thing I can come up with, if the Happy Holidays in city hall and the no Bibles in the public school make you feel like an embattled minority, is that your vision of what a majority really would be able to do is to control everything, everyone and leave no room for ever being even the slightest bit inconvenienced.
But of course, that wouldn’t be a democracy that respects minority rights, now would it, but rather a tyranny of the majority, yes?
So – I ask: How much inconvenience are Christians willing to tolerate before the feeling of being an embattled minority kicks in? Because compared to my life as a member of an actual minority who experiences all the examples I gave above, I just cannot get a handle on what inconveniences you are willing to tolerate in this pluralistic country without saying, “We feel like an embattled minority.†Look what I put up with. And I didn’t even go into the being called a Kike and so on. Seriously.
Well – I’ve gone on long enough so I’ll end with this:
Someone who knows me pretty well told me last week that she was realizing that I really didn’t give a rat’s behind about winning. But persuasion – I want to persuade when I’m trying to make a point and I don’t give up easily, if I give up at all.
I’d say that’s a pretty accurate observation.
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15 Responses to “Guest Voice: “Feeling Like†versus “Being A Member Of†A Religious Minority”
[...] Thanks to Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice for posting a guest post by me. [...]
“Tom Blumer helped this line of logic in this post by promoting the idea that even if people feel as though they are in a recession, his read on reality, via economic measures, is that they are not. ”
Minor quibble. In fact real median wage growth *has* been pretty flat for some years now, and job security has gone down. Thus if your net wealth is the expected present value of future pay, it would be entirely possible to feel like you’ve been at best treading water and that you are likely to lose ground in the future, even though there have 23 (?) consecutive quarters of pretty robust GDP growth.
Otherwise great article.
Ah, feelings! So influential in everyone’s life..
I note that feelings can also be used like weapons to keep or gain control: you cna’t say/do that, because it will make me cry. (I have a friend who is a master at using this tactic.)
I think the ‘war on religion’ campaign is like that, to a large extent, when anything that curtails religious activiry in any context whatsoever is portrayed as an attack on religion itself. It’s assuming a victim’s role in order to dominate.
It’s insulting to real victims of persecution, even though the insult may not be intentional.
That’s something for religious (or any other) minorities to keep in mind, IMO. There’s a long distance between not being represented in the majority culture and being prevented from expressing a minority religion or culture in private life or anywhete at all.
That’s the reality check for both minorities and majorities of any kind: as long as there is a safe space to express one’s religion or culture, the rest is just inconvenience or cause for annoyance and not a major tragedy.
The fears of the Chirstian majority, I think are related to fears of change, as was pointed out in the post, How rich one feels has less to do with the actual amount of money in one’s pocket than with how that relates to the wealth of yesterday or expected wealth for tomorrow. The same is true when assessing the degree to which one can dominate, I think.
It would be interesting to read how a Budhist or a Native Amrican copes with his minorty religion status, BTW. Religious minorties could learn from one another. The majority Christians could learn something from all minotities.
Robert – thanks for the comment. I agree with you on the quibble. Part of what is frustrating to me is what I perceive to be the refusal of some people to acknowledge that we can all have different, legitimate feelings raised by the exact same circumstances – and that’s okay. It’s figuring out why that would be and whether the feelings need to be addressed that’s what’s most important – not whose feelings are “right” or “more right.”
Thanks for reading and commenting.
domajot – you wrote it really well! Thank you. I agree with pretty much everything you say in your comment – so much so that I wish I’d been able to put it that way! Thanks for reading and commenting.
Here’s another example of a “religious” minority, having no faith at all. Let’s try a few common phrases:
1. “All Americans are praying for….” Apparently it is inconcievable that an American might not pray.
2. “We are open to people of all faiths” People of no faith need not apply.
3. “God bless you” “God given rights” “In God we trust” “One nation, under God” etc. etc.
Now, like the author of the post, I’ve never actually felt persecuted at all for being atheist (though I know of people in less liberal areas who have), and feel no indignation whatsoever when someone wishes me a Merry Christmas (which I do myself) or says “God bless” (which I don’t do), but the saturation of religion and the elevation of faith as the greatest of virtues really does bring to the fore that you are a minority, one of the last ones it appears to be OK to mistrust and stereotype.
In general I don’t really mind, but it seems kind of amusing when amongst the Christmas mania (which to be fair has rather little to do with Christianity) some news caster takes about thirty seconds to remember “our Jewish friends” (how big of them, eh?) who are about 3% of the population, while atheists (about 10%) are never mentioned at all.
Of course then you hear that some Christians feel “persecuted” and that’s simply hillarious. To be fair though, I think that probably only a small proportion of Christians would say this. Most probably never have to think about their religious status at all, which is normal, when you’re in the majority.
Lynx – I agree with everything you wrote – thanks for sharing how it is for you and how you see the interplay here.
I definitely get a sinking feeling when those kinds of pat phrases with God in it get used – to me, it demeans the real value that, to people who do believe in God, have for the word. And for those for whom it lacks that meaning, the sinking feeling must be even worse – or anger – I won’t speak for you and others. But again, I empathize.
I never really knew any atheists and still don’t, exactly, but there’s a woman in Columbus who kept an excellent blog called The Atheist Mama. We exchanged emails and comments often. i really liked her writing and her anecdotes and questions and opinions.
Her being atheist had zero to do with the fact that we both are mothers and often talked about education – sometimes from the separation of church and state perspective, but also just as being parents who want their kids to be happy and learn – period. Why can’t universal hopes like that be pursued without becoming about religion in the public discource? Among individuals – great – I love to examine religion and all the corollaries (like atheism, would that be fair to say?). But why must such discussions have to be, for some people, determinative of public policy in a country with 300 million people?
Thanks again for reading and commenting.
Jill – As a fellow Jew in America I don’t find my religious minority status to be any bother at all. All my Christian neighbors are nice people and quite tolerant and understanding. My children attending public schools had no problems with Christmas pagents or carols. To me it’s no different from being a Minnesota Twins fan in NY Yankee land.
The only time I feel like a minority is with fellow Jews. I have spent most of my Life as Conservative but my views on a just peace of the Palestinian conflict drove me out of the congregation. Being described as a self-hating Jew and questioning my attachment to my religion led me to a quiet Reform Temple.
I have 35 relatives living in various settlements on the West Bank and I have been an annual visitor to Israel for the last 41 years. My peace views make me unwelcome in settlement synogogues. Too many Jews make me feel like I am not Jewish enough since I am the only one in my extended family not making aliyah.
I’ll take Christian America everyday of the week. We may not speak the same way to G-d, but at least they don’t hate me.
jdledell – I know exactly what you mean.
I grew up in an Orange, CT synagogue (I think I’ve been through this with Joe before) and it was Reform and I was very Reform, and I went to Georgetown – very Catholic – and loved it, went to Israel – loved it. Never saw myself as a Zionist the way others used it but I didn’t see why I would get sneers from other Jews.
Now – I live in Ohio and am represented in my statehouse by a Republican Conservative Jew who is a Marine and volunteered, a few months after being elected to the statehouse for the first time (and only working toward trying to force Ohio pensions to divest from Iran – it didn’t go through), to go back to Iraq. I am very much in the minority at my synagogue here even though I’m on the board. I feel very outcast when it comes to speaking up about Israel being far from perfect.
HOWEVER – I am often saying that I want moderates to speak up – on either side of the aisle, rather than just hearing the extremes. And so, in that sense, I feel I need to stick to my guns in my conservative shul. I don’t really want to go back to a Reform shul anyway – but the political divide on Israel? Yes – very very difficult to manuever.
Thanks for reading and sharing.
Jill – I certainly hope we get an I/P peace agreement in my lifetime. Then Jews can go back to arguing about the Torah instead of Israel. When everyone in my family was considering aliyah in 1965/1966 we had rousing arguments about Orthodox vs Conservative (Reform was out of the question at the time). I enjoyed those discussions and was stimulated into a deeper faith.
Now the only talk is Israel. Even at my sister’s memorial service (cancer) last November, my sister was memorialized not for who she was – her devotion to family and synogogue – but for her commitment to Samaria and producing IDF sons and new settlers for Eretz Israel.
I know what goes on in the West Bank and it makes me fear for the soul of our people.
Of course Israel’s not perfect and nobody at my shul would tell you so. We are, however, proud and grateful to be Zionists.
jdledell – again – I feel very sympatico with what you describe. And where I live, I honestly cannot recall ever, in almost 20 years, speaking with another Jew who felt that way. I don’t understand why that is. I know my generation (b. 1962) heard about how, starting with 1980, we would see the permanent decline in our population and the rise of interfaith marriage and it would be the end of us.
But, although some of that has come to pass, I just don’t feel that those eventualities should lead to – as you point out – the exclusion of all topics except Israel. That’s kind of a generalization, but it does feel that way sometimes.
And it’s odd – because Christians I know actually think I should be more obsessed with Israel than I am. If I’m obsessed with any part of being Jewish, it’s just teachign my kids what I love about being a Jew and keeping up the traditions, such as they are. Though we are going on a trip to Israel next August – it will be family’s first time, and my first since 1985!
Anyway – thanks again for reading and commenting. See – I knew there was a reason I like this blog so much. Look at who I get to meet!
Hi Holly – I think I don’t really even know what it means to say one is a Zionist anymore – that is NOT a judgment on saying one is or isn’t – I don’t mean it that way at all. I mean it in the sense that I grew up thinking it was one thing, but now I think it might be another – and I’m not really sure where my feelings about Israel fit in.
Do you know how women of a certain age – we may not even be sure that the word “feminism” represents anything anymore – that the concept it started out denoting has morphed and the word now is used in a different way – and so if I go and try to use the word now, it won’t mean what I thought it meant?
That’s kind of how I feel about Zionist.
mostly though – I probably need to do a lot more studying!
Holly – I have long since abandoned Zionism. I have seen too much hatred and violence. I have seen my IDF nephews shoot Palestinian grazing animals for target practice. I have seen settlers target practice cutting limbs off olive trees absolutely indifferent to the effect missing bullets had on the village below. I have watched settlers cut olive trees and steal sheep of Palestinians.
I have seen soldiers pissing on the feet of Palestinians waiting at checkpoints. I have seen the soldier step back and almost cut a young man in two with bullets when the Palestinian objected to the pissing.
I have watched the IDF set up roadblocks every 100 yards so that as soon as Palestinians got through one they encountered another – all in an effort to make life miserable.
Holly – spend some time in the West Bank and then come back and tell me what you hear is the same religion we grew up in.
[...] #1, from The Moderate Voice comment section of my guest column there, posted yesterday, this passage in particular: Jill – As a fellow Jew in America I don’t [...]