I guess I’m naïve. I knew anti-Semitism existed, but I thought only in hate filled people like Patrick Arbelo, who obviously have other issues. Last week, I was having a conversation with someone, who I had previously thought to be intelligent, when he said, “yeah, I live with a Jew, not really, but he’s ugly and cheap like one.”
How do you react to something so offensive, so ignorant? I know what I should’ve done, I should’ve immediately corrected him and said something to illustrate my obvious disapproval of such an anti-Semitic statement. I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t, instead I didn’t say anything and went back to busying myself with the work in front of me. Maybe I didn’t respond right away, because I wasn’t sure if I had heard him right. I mean we are in the year 2002, aren’t we?
I went back to my room and called my friend from home. I told him how shaken I was that such words could be spoken, especially in an academic environment where I assumed that all racism would be extinguished by the presence of knowledge of the past and the hope for something better in the future. Then I started wondering if in fact the homogeneity of Fairfield University shelters such medieval hatreds?
Obviously this is a Jesuit school. Most of the students are Catholic. I knew this when applying, I myself am Catholic. But when someone asks me to describe the school I go to, the last thing I tell the person is that Fairfield University is a Jesuit School. The truth is I don’t want my education to be judged with the false stigma that a Catholic university is where you go to be Catholic with other Catholics. It’s not! A university is where you go to get an education. I do not define myself as a Catholic, I define myself as a short girl who gets too hyper.
Thinking back on my conversation with this anti-Semite, I wondered why he would assume that such an ignorant statement would not be found offensive? I have never said anything to lead him or anyone else to believe I would condone such hatred. Did he assume that it was ok to say this because we are in an environment where there is not a proportional representation of other faiths?
Of course such a statement could’ve been made by another person at a non-Jesuit university and it would be characterized as a single case of anti-Semitism. Yet, this person made me question the choice I made to come to a less diverse school. I know that Fairfield University is a top rate education with amazing faculty and students. I also know that some, when they hear “Jesuit University”, don’t hear the university part, they only hear the word Jesuit. It is similar, isolated statements of ignorance that give people a reason to believe in those false stigmas.
This is an awkward article to write, for it seems that I myself am discrediting the value of a Jesuit education. I’m not. I write this article to state what should’ve been said when I was silent to such ignorance. In today’s world, religion has become a word that is associated with bigots, terrorists and genocide. In these skeptic times, in a school defined by a religious tradition, such an isolated case of muttered hatred casts a shadow over the entire virtue of this school. It’s not fair that we have this stigma to fight, but we do.
So I point my finger at this ignorant person, and acknowledge that you alone are spoiled, I refuse to allow such hatred to reflect on me.
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