As the year 2015 comes to a close, I want to do something to show that I am putting the past behind me and looking forward to a rewarding 2016.
And where better to do it than on Facebook, which has become the electronic meeting place for so many of us.
I have decided that, with a few exceptions, I am going to take the blocks off of some of the people that I have stopped from sending messages to me--or me to them--during the past few years.
I have a total of 13 people that I have blocked for one reason or another, and I plan on removing most of the blocks over the next few days leading up to the New Year.
I don't think many of them will care one bit that I can converse with them again on Facebook, but maybe one or two will
We are in a joyous season, and one in which we are supposed to forgive and forget. The page is being turned to a blank one, and what better way to start the new year than starting from scratch.
No, not everybody will get amnesty from me. One person in particular, a nut who threatened me with bodily harm for no reason a few years back, will not get a free pass from me. He is mentally ill, and I really don't want to have anything to do with him.
There are one or two others that for various reasons, I will not unblock, but for the most part, a majority of those 13 people will be able to communicate with me if they like.
I was never one to hold grudges, and I am not going to change my ways now.
Now, there are many, many more people who have blocked me for one reason or another on their end.
Several people from my old neighborhood blocked me, because they could not believe that someone had a different opinion than they did, and did not run with the crowd.
Others from my old neighborhood blocked me because of the Reunion we had a few years back. They could not handle the truth, that one of our own was doing some funny things.
To both of those groups, I can forgive and forget, but they can't.
It's their loss.
Others simply blocked me because they don't agree with my opinions. That is fine, I have no problem with not agreeing with what I have to say, but to block me is to take away my right to free speech. Some of the people who blocked me in this category are clear racists, and you know what, I am sure they don't miss me, and I can tell you that I don't miss them.
One of those who blocked me actually put up a post saying that color photography in the movies was designed to make white people look better than blacks ... you wonder why I don't care about these people?
Anyway, I will set about doing this perhaps today, but certainly by the end of the year. It should be fun to see if I begin to get any communication from these people, and if I do, if they have changed any. Me, I am the same as I was when I blocked them; I am always going to have my opinion, but I do listen to the other side. Maybe they will now, too.
Others will probably be astounded, and yet others will never know because as I blocked them, they blocked me.
So, let's see where this goes. Personally, I don't think it will matter much, but if it impacts one of these people to maybe see the light and forgive and forget as I did, then maybe it is worth it after all.
Mr. Lapka,
ReplyDeleteFirst, this comment is not relevant to the current post, but I thought for the sake of simplicity I would post it here rather than wade down through the archives to find the relevant post from weeks ago. That said, the content of comment...
After tumbling through the rabbit hole that is the Internet, I ended up in the middle of yours and Beverly Goldberg's back and forth on Facebook regarding the Jewishness of ABC's "The Goldbergs." What struck me immediately was the generational divide between the two of you. I presume from when you graduated high school that you are around 58 years old. Mrs. Goldberg is 72. She stated that she is a first generation American. She was born in 1943, so I assume that her parents were part of the mass emigration of Jews from Europe. Mrs. Goldberg, I think, represents a more traditional and conservative approach that stresses integration and assimilation, though not necessarily forfeiture of one's ethnic identity. Your perspective seems to me closer to the racial identity politics of the post-1965 civil rights movement. I believe that this movement stressed solidarity with ones ethnic heritage and encourages factionalism over assimilation. As in all ideological struggles, there are valid arguments to made on all sides. As an old fashion conservative, I prefer Mrs. Goldberg's approach. And quite frankly, Jews as a group do fantastically well in the United States. No country outside of Israel has been more hospitable to Jews than the United States. I happen to appreciate "The Goldberg's" global approach to storytelling to the more in your face ethnic pandering of a show like "Blackish," though I do generally enjoy the writing on that show as well.
Nice to hear from you.
ReplyDeleteYes, I am 58 years of age, and for decades, I have been waiting for a TV show to show the American Jewish experience the right way, not in some type of pandering, third person way that TV usually depicts Jews.
When "The Goldbergs" hit the ABC schedule three years ago, I thought that this was finally going to be the moment where American TV finally showed, in a sitcom environment, the Jewish way.
Yes, we are pretty much fully assimilated into the American culture, but the way television has depicted us has pretty much been deplorable. Stereotypes abound, using Jews as sort of an added ingredient to the basic storyline, constant intermarriage (does this make Jews acceptable to Middle America), and Jews constantly downgrading Jews to nothingness have been prevalent--I was hoping for something else from this show.
And for those not Jewish, I was hoping that a clear depiction of Jews on even a sitcom could awaken their knowledge of us, about how we are the same as they are, yet different in many ways.
Well, the first two seasons of "The Goldbergs" was a disappointment to say the least. The family might as well have been white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant, because, as the critic I quoted said, you would more likely find mention of things like a bar mitzvah on "Black-ish" than you would on "The Goldbergs."
ReplyDeleteRemember, the show is not called "The Smiths," "The Jonses," or heck, even "The Lapkas," it is called "The Goldbergs," and if you are going to use such a Jewish name, I feel that there is a responsibility there to "prove" the use of the name, if you will.
Yes, I know it is about a real family, and that this Goldberg clan is pretty much assimilated into the mainstream, but you know what? There were tell-tale signs of problems handling Hanukkah vs. Christmas on the show well before this season.
For its first two seasons, the show never had a true holiday episode. Where ABC would bloat about the Christmas episodes of its other sitcoms, "The Goldbergs" was simply lumped in there with "a new episode," and nothing more.
I remember during the first season, during an episode that was pegged for the holiday season, you saw the Christmas spirit of a mall displayed, but nothing was said of the holiday in the storyline.
Well, finally, this season comes around, the show is a hit, and I guess ABC finally said, "Yes, do a holiday episode." They did, but they hit the wrong nerve with me by making it so anti-Hanukkah, showing the non-Jewish world how boring and colorless Hanukkah "really" is.
Funny, all the other controversies in the show were resolved by the end of the 20 minutes, but they let that "anti-Hanukkah" thing hang, and it was never resolved.
But I did enjoy the middle of the show, when George Segal--Jewish himself and the grandfather on the show--ripped into his family, saying that they needed to remember and honor tradition, not dump it into a Christmas/Hanukkah mix, a mix which ended up failing miserably.
ReplyDeleteLook at many of the posts on the show's site. How many people said they were looking forward to this episode to learn something about Hanukkah? There are people in our country that will never run into somebody who is Jewish--I had a friend in college tell me flat out that I was the first Jewish person he had ever met and get to know personally--and then we have this dumping on Hanukkah.
It is the wrong message to send out to the general population.
Mrs. Goldberg herself backed her son, saying that this is the way it was in her house, and the show basically replicated this scenario. That is fine, but it is not that way in other Jewish houses.
Hanukkah is a fun holiday, full of life and spirit, and no, it does not compete with Christmas in any way, shape or form--unless you want it to, and that is the message I got from the episode and from Mrs. Goldberg.
I believe that America is a true melting pot of so many ethnic groups, religions and nationalities, and even though we are all Americans, we are shaped by our backgrounds. I know that many Jews basically have "given in" and have accepted non-Jewish ways and attitudes, and that is their burden, their problem, and so be it.
But I do believe that the Jewish experience brings a lot to the table--still does and always will--so why show it not at all or depict it as some sort of minor religion, as TV has done for generations?
I am proud to be Jewish, proud that an American TV sitcom finally portrayed my holiday--and their own Jewishness--in some type of light, but they could have done more.
When my kids were young, they would ask me why they didn't see any Hanukkah shows on TV. I told them that we are a very small part of the population, I told them that we could still enjoy the Christmas shows even though they weren't celebrating our holiday, and I told them about actors and actresses and sports figures who were Jewish, but even in their young minds, it did not compute.
And it shouldn't have, because the portrayal of Jews on network TV has been pretty much disgraceful, as has the portrayal of the Jewish experience. It seems to temper middle America, the Jewish experience has been downplayed as being unimportant.
Of course, many of those downplaying this experience are Jews themselves, which opens up another an of worms I am not going to get into here.
But at least I can look at "The Goldbergs" and say, without a shadow of a doubt, that that family on the show is a Jewish one.
I think it is a great leap for mankind in general that with numerous portrayals of ethnic groups and religions and sexual identities on American network TV, we finally have a Jewish family on television!
Thanks for hearing me out, and have a nice holiday and New Year!