Theos-Talk Archives (April 1996 Message tl00526)

PS
I think it's pretty crummy to tease anyone about what they look like. Even
if it's only a longish nose they have, they don't like to be teased about
it. (Nazis did that to Jews) People get selfconscious about their looks,
when someone else says they're odd, especially young teenagers, who're just
growing into their adult features, and aren't quite used to them.

I think most Americans don't know the difference between what a Chinese
person looks like and what a Vietnamese. I've been told that Chinese and
Japanese look different, but I can't tell, because I've never met many of
them. I'm wure I couldn't tell a Chinese and a Vietnamese apart either. Some
people can't tell black people apart. I can, because I was around them a lot
when I worked. So sometimes, you must forgive people, if they ask you about
your background, if it's done nicely, and not in a mean spirit. They may
just not know and may just be inquiring.

I don't like Polish jokes either, for the same reason. Everyone thinks their
own ethnicity is the greatest, and I think it should stay that way. I
wouldn't be surprised if Doss' Indian heritage goes all the way back to the
Mahabarata. The surgeon who operated on my arm recently was Dr. Sivakumar,
Dance of Siva, and the Kumaras who brought mind to mankind. I know that I'm
proud of my German Jewish heritage. I belonged to a small clique of
Frankfurt Jews who prided themselves on having lived in the middle ages in
the same little ghetto street as the Rothchilds who lateron became famous
bankers. We were an ambitious, prosperous and cultured lot. When I get too
enthusiastic about my ancestry, I call myself a patrician Frankfurter. (hot
dogs, boloney, and sausages, were invented in Frankfurt. We had a whole city
block of sausage makers downtown.) I think the American mosaic is built on
all those diverse ethnicities.

liesel