100 years ago and still relevant. — News in English на ru24.pro

I can’t let 2024 end without talking about two events of 100 years ago, which are unfortunately still relevant today. In the fall of 2024 my father entered Rutgers 1 month past his 17th birthday and my future father-in-law entered Columbia wanting to become an engineer. According to my wife, he was told by a dean that either he wouldn’t be allowed to do this because a Jewish engineer would never get a job or because Jews just shouldn’t be engineers. She’s not sure which. My father never experienced anything like this at Rutgers, primarily because he was working his way through it living at home, charging people to drive people to New Brunswick, working as a waiter, putting up lightning rods with his brothers. etc., etc. Fortunately, he won the county scholarship which covered tuition which was all of $200/year back then. But he and his four brothers were aware of antisemitism, so they all charged their name from something that sounded Polish to something English.

Both men were the children of immigrants, like many in the incoming administration, so they could see America clearly.

So it is fortunate that the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice is Harmeet K Dhillon, a Sikh. She’ll have her work cut out for her at Columbia.

I can just imagine what someone similar to a family member, somewhat frail with mild cerebral palsy would face entering Columbia today, particularly if he were devout and had the cojones, like the bravest man I’ve ever met, to wear a skull cap and a 6 pointed star.

He was a German Jew who somehow got to England as a young man. Fluent in German, the English gave him a complete English identity, made him a commando, where he carried out operations in Europe before the Normandy invasion. One can only imagine what he would have faced if captured behind the lines as a German Jew. He was a very mild mannered man and never talked about it, like many vets. I only found out about it years later after he was gone.

I can see Dhillon using US Marshalls at Columbia for such a person beset by jeering mob of progressives just as Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard at Little Rock in 1957 — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Rock_Nine.

There is a tremendous amount of antisemitism in the Ivy League. Here’s a video of Elise Stefanik (Harvard 2006) grilling Harvard president Claudine Gay — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bn95MFQNPY — trying to get her to say Genocide is bad.

We’ll see a lot more of this in the coming four years, and it can’t come too soon.

Sikhs are a tiny minority (under 1% of the US Asian population) yet somehow I’ve been involved with them for around half the time since 1960. They’re a wonderful group of people — and I doubt that Americans know much about them, so here is a post written 12 years ago about them.

Sikh encounters in happier times

So sad to read about the carnage in Wisconsin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Sikh_temple_shooting#:~:text=The%20Wisconsin%20Sikh%20temple%20shooting,of%20his%20wounds%20in%202020.) . Although there aren’t very many Sikhs in the US (.1%), for some reason I’ve been interacting with them for 52 years. I like them. My personal physician is a Sikh,and as a retired doc, I could have pretty much anyone I wanted. So instead of some more chemistry or molecular biology, here are a few Sikh stories.

52 years ago I met my first Sikh in grad school. There were perhaps 2 Asian Indians in my college class of 700+. Balwant was something else — turban, full beard (never shaven), gold rimmed John Lennon glasses (this before John Lennon). A very nice guy. All the grad students liked him. After about a month he disappeared. No one had any idea where he was or what had happened to him. A month or so later, a dapper little guy came up to me and said “Don’t you recognize me? It’s me Bali !” He’d gone western and had been there the whole time, but we were all oblivious.

For some reason the Harvard chemistry department back then had lots of Sikh post-docs. I liked them a lot. Vigorous guys who kept telling me to grow a beard, that I’d look good. I took their advice in 1970 when I got out of the Air Force.

Fast forward to 1990, when I shared call with a Sikh neurologist, a Coptic Christian from Egypt, a Philippino, a Palestinian and an (American) Irish guy. The Sikh invited me to her son’s wedding, and an incredible daylong affair it was. Parts were extremely formal, as when the families of bride and groom basically formed lines to officially greet each other. The bride was completely covered in beautiful fabrics (mostly red and gold) so that her face (and everything else) was hidden. Then she was led around their holy book 7 times in this condition. I asked why the complete coverage. It apparently dates back to the time when beautiful brides to be were carried off and raped on their wedding day by conquering Muslims.

The ceremony was fascinating and lasted several hours. There was marvelous food in abundance before and after. Showing how accepting the Sikhs are, the man leading the ceremony was clearly a nice Jewish guy from Long Island (he’d converted).

That evening there was a reception. Certainly one of the best times my wife and I have ever had at a wedding. Lots of the groom’s college friends (all anglo) in attendance. He was basically an American kid, and had rowed crew in college. Everyone having a blast — all without a drop of alcohol.

There were video cameras mounted on poles 12 feet tall beaming the proceedings back to India, apparently. There was also large contingent who flew over from India.

Then a troupe of Sikh acrobats from Canada exploded out of nowhere to entertain. Amazing.

Tons of great food. They had a DJ that played the most kicking rhythmic music that just made you want to get up and dance (most did). It went on for hours.

So there will be good times again. But a terrible thing just happened to a bunch of good people

100 years ago and still relevant

Sikh encounters in happier times

Читайте на 123ru.net

Новини України

Жизнь

Документальные новости

Религия