Wow. That took some gall. Not balls, which is what I attribute to someone who takes a stand in the face of popular sentiment, and not nerve, which is what's required when you need to get it together to do something gutsy, but gall. Gall is that special something needed to commit an act of such outright assholery it defies rational description. And honestly, that's the only reason I can imagine someone would walk around one of the largest shopping malls in the country wearing a swastika t-shirt.
On Yom Kippur.
I admit, I've been kicking myself all day for not running right out of that restaurant and kicking you in the ass. I can only give two reasons for my inaction: one - I was busy trying to wrestle my crabby infant back into her stroller while simultaneously preventing her from grabbing a fork and knocking over a tray of glasses, and two - I was quite frankly stunned into temporary immobility. Surely, I thought, I can't be seeing somebody walking around in the fourth largest city in the United States wearing something regarded as universally offensive to all but mouth-breathing skinheads and some idiot merchants in South Korea, and on a Jewish holiday, no less. Maybe I didn't see it right, I thought, maybe it was the counterclockwise swastika, or manji, Buddhist symbol of night and magic (perhaps you're a big Blade of the Immortal fan). But no, it was unmistakeable: a black swastika in a white circle on a red t-shirt.
I hustled everything together at that point and headed out into the mall, not really sure what I was planning to do (run over your toes with the stroller?), but feeling obligated at the very least to confront you about it. Unfortunately, you and your three cohorts had disappeared. I continued to look around for the remaining hour or so we wandered around, but you had - wisely - made yourself scarce.
At the very least, I had questions. For example, what exactly were you thinking? Was this some act of teenage rebellion (I gauged you to be about 16)? In a world filled with peers piercing themselves in every conceivable place and covering every square inch of flesh with tattoos, did you feel this was the only way to express your individuality?
And what about your friends, if they can truly be described as such? Did none of them have the common sense to tell you what an ass you were about to make of yourself? Or should I blame your parents, either for not being aware of what their child was wearing or for allowing him to go out in public dressed like some jagoff white supremacist?
Or are you all simply ignorant assholes? I guess it's possible you and your friends don't know the significance of the swastika because you were behind the band hall huffing paint when they showed Schindler's List in your history class, but I tend to doubt it. Someone, somewhere along the chain of events leading to your arrival at the mall yesterday had to have known.
I hope it was worth the laugh. I can't imagine how you could be so blind to the countless people you must have shocked, outraged, and saddened with your little excursion - some of whom had to have relatives or loved ones who died in WWII or the camps, and whose reactions you must have noticed at some point.
But what I really hope, in my blackest of hearts, is that you ran into a couple of Jews in the parking garage who, already irritated from fasting for the last 18 hours, set upon you with a tire iron and let you know exactly how badly you screwed up.
Certainly Sid Vicious wore his share of swastikas, as did Siouxsie, the Skrewdrivers, and just about everybody else who was out to get attention by being shocking and publicly reviled.
I remember Sid and Siouxsie sporting theirs. Skrewdriver, of course, is/was actually a white power band, so it makes sense that they would as well. I also knew several non-racist skins in high school and college, and remember the garment rending over the movement's appropriation by Nazi punks. Made going to shows fun.
And third, there's an excellent chance that he and his buddies would have pasted your rapidly aging ass.
"You're looking at my gut, aren't ya? I'm working on it!"
That's possible, I suppose, but these weren't the most active looking of teens. I bet I could've taken down two of them before my lumbago kicked in.
The sad thing is my first reaction to this is, "I bet he had no clue it was Yom Kippur, or would even know what that meant if you told him it was." My guess is this is the sort of attire he would wear regardless of the significance of the day.
And since I've read stories about kids being asked to leave public places because of offensive t-shirts, I agree with Andy's suggestion of writing a letter to Galleria security. It just might have an effect.
Skrewdriver, of course, is/was actually a white power band, so it makes sense that they would as well.
Negatory! The original version of Skrewdriver wasn't like that. They split up, and then Donaldson ressurrected the band name with new people and a new white power agenda. This goes back to what I was talking about earlier, about the schism between the punks that rejected racism and those who embraced it. The original members of Skrewdriver aren't happy (and Donaldson is now dead). The following Wikipedia entry sums it up:
Good for you, Pete, for at least intending to confront them. While I agree with the previous comment that someday this sniveling little pissant is gonna get his, I don't agree with the "it's just a shirt" comment when it comes to Nazism.
It's not just a shirt when some little-dicked snot wearing the most evil sign of human hatred on the High Holy Day of the year for the people victimized by that evil. It's at that point an act of defiance against decency - a deliberate unwllingness to renounce hatred and genocide. It's a deliberate endorsement of it, in fact.
But, my anger aside, we all obviously would have liked to have pounded the ever-loving spit out of this little pissant. I only wish you'd have caught him.
Or are you all simply ignorant assholes?
Bingooo - door number THREE.
ha! I'm loving the hungry Jewish assualt in the parking garage.
:-)
The GALLERIA? I got kicked out of there once for wearing white after Labor Day!
"And third, there's an excellent chance that he and his buddies would have pasted your rapidly aging ass."
Or they might have harmed your precious little one.
By all means, Rabbi Pete - write that letter, the sooner the better. It's possible this punk doesn't realize he's crossing any lines, but I'll bet the ranch he did it out of jackassy adolescent rebelliousness. Someone needs to whup his butt - better a security guard or the police than a guy with an infant in a stroller.
Here's a little tidbit for you from a former Galleria store employee: if someone had reported that kid to the security office or if a security guard had seen him, that kid would have been "escorted" from the premises (read: kicked out on his ass)...
The company that owns the Galleria, Simon, I think its name is, they don't go for any sort of political statements, or whatever...I remember when a group of people came in protesting the war in Iraq and they were tossed out on their patoots. So, there you go.
Negatory! The original version of Skrewdriver wasn't like that. They split up, and then Donaldson ressurrected the band name with new people and a new white power agenda.
Right, but the non-racist version of Skrewdriver lasted two whole years (1977-79), while the more notorious incarnation was around for almost ten, and attracted a hell of a lot more attention.
I can't believe that the same Gallaria which tried to kick out a mom breastfeeding her infant - (because that was "offense" to some customers) - didn't route that little A-hole right out the door, or into a cop car. Or maybe they did, which is why Pete couldn't find them again right after he was done baby-wrasslin'.
And this punk chaps my ass for constitutional reasons, as well. The 1st Amendement protects freedom of speech, and thus freedom of expression. But it doesn't protect "hate-speech" or speech designed to incite violence. But when fuckers like the one Pete observed - intentionally or not - ride that line for no good reason at all it's an afront to the 1st Amendment. He's basically pissing on the very constitutional protection that arguably allows him the legal right to wear the shirt in the first place.
It's sort of like flag burning. Only on Veteran's Day. And at the Vietnam Memorial.
All our constitutional freedoms have limits. (Yes, even the 2nd one, Mr. Heston). And if this kid knew that it was Yom Kippur, I think he crossed the line into unprotected speech. His conduct went beyond bad taste. It went beyond ignorance. It went beyond hate. It was, quite simply, fundamentally Unamerican.
Your letter reminds me of a story...
So, on my brother's first day of his freshman year at college, he returns to his dorm room to find his roommate had hung an enormous Confederate flag. My brother was offended and attempted to get said roommate to remove the flag -- to no avail.
Temporarily stymied, my brother stared in stupefaction at the roommate. Inspiration struck. Put left the room and walked to the poster fair.
After he returned, he hung about three Malcom X posters. When questioned, he explained to the roommate (and anyone else who asked) that he figured that they were going for an "X" theme, and he just wanted to contribute his bit.
When punk was just getting started, it became something of a fad for bands that wished to be seen as hardcore to adopt nazi regalia. Certainly Sid Vicious wore his share of swastikas, as did Siouxsie, the Skrewdrivers, and just about everybody else who was out to get attention by being shocking and publicly reviled.
Sid got into some trouble, though, when he wore a swastika teeshirt while touring a Jewish area of France. There was a spot of discomfort in the London punk scene, and the Nazi stuff was cut back for a bit. The sense was that Sid had crossed some sort of line of acceptability, which apparently existed even for punks.
At the time reggae and punk were coexisting in London and feeding off many of the same fans. Around this point the skinhead movement had started to be coopted by white supremacists, and within the space of a few years punk and ska both were being identified with racism. There was a wave of activism at this point by the more socially conscious punkers to speak out against racism. This split the fanbase; some agreed that they needed to distance themselves from hardcore racism, while others felt this went against the grain of giving the status quo the middle finger salute. Ultimately this probably contributed to the death of punk.
Cut to the present-day. Some pinhead teen knows full well what wearing his shirt in public means, especially during the High Holy Days. This is probably a statement on his part that has nothing to do with Jews, Nazis or white supremacy. He's just a dork who has crossed the line that even the punkers wouldn't cross -- sadly, because he probably hasn't yet learned where that line might be, or that it exists, or that it *should* exist.
Good for you for not jumping up and strangling him. First of all, when you get right down to it, it's just a shirt. Second, at some point, maybe not today but at some point in the not so distant future, he's gonna get his. And third, there's an excellent chance that he and his buddies would have pasted your rapidly aging ass.
Now, I do recommend you write a letter to the Galleria. The mall is a sufficiently public-like space that certain standards for troublemaking avoidance must be upheld. Describing to them how upset you are that their security allowed this youth to walk their halls unmolested should, at the very least, get some attention. And if you happen to mention that, as a rabbi, you can no longer recommend their mall to your congregation....well, that would be wrong and I wholeheartedly support it.
L'Chaim!