I was always the smallest kid in Woodland School, an all-white institution of mediocre learning, in Barrington, New Jersey. One fateful day at the beginning of eighth grade, two things changed. As we sat down, we couldn’t help but notice a new, extremely small, kid in our class, and he had a dark face. “Hashim” , it turned out, was from1Pakistan!
Although these disruptions of the status quo were “historic,” they were perfectly fine with me - but not so with my peers. Having never had an opportunity to prove my manhood, the mob was able to convince me to fight the new “shortest kid in school” after the last class.
So fight we did, each one of us “defending our honor.” We ended up with blood on our shirts and it was not mine. I felt a little bad and cool initially, but just terrible over the subsequent years. On reflection, I knew absolutely nothing about this poor, no-doubt scared kid, other than he seemed different from the rest of us. But I fought him anyway - all because I was coerced and instructed to by “The Powers That Be.”
I supposedly “won” that day, but his entire family lost because of me and my insecurities. We never saw Hashim again. My lesson learned was - those with weak character find it difficult to resist the temptation to malign vulnerable people.
Five thousand years, and as many wars, are proof that we humans really struggle to get along. There’s an enduring sense that if people can’t be like us, they’re of lesser value. Kind of like, if people can’t sing the right notes in a choir because they’re too high or too low, we just kick those inferior ones out. Well, I think as a society, we have another option. We could as a melting pot of diverse humans, pursue the fine art of harmonizing with each other.
As I try to grow through my midlife crisis, I’m realizing that my biggest goal shouldn’t be joining in with the disparate voices around me. I’ve learned that with all of our different roots and life experiences, we just can’t hit the same “notes.” The purpose of our journey together, may well be, to figure out the best way to harmonize and minimize the discordance with our fellow travelers - and this amazing earth.
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His actual name is not used - to protect the innocent …Him