I lost my identity. I was born identifying as a middle class white Jew. I no longer identify religiously nor do I identify as being white. My own family is “mixed” and, as I have come to understand, race identification is only a consequence of prejudice anyway. I am part of a human family. So, I lost the identity I grew up with or rather, I dissociated from it. Am I worse off? I don’t think so. In fact, it is quite the opposite. I now have an identity that is truly my own rather than pushed onto me by family and society. Having said that, I do realize others may identify me differently than I do myself and some of the things I am today are also things assigned to me.
But, while I am relatively secure in my identity (mind you, while keeping an open mind), my kids are still developing theirs. I think a lot about what role I will play in how they will know themselves as they mature. Should I be fostering a connection to a religion that I don’t completely believe in, if it means giving them a chance to understand their heritage or be a part of a community? Should I be promoting identity with one racial group over another even though I know that is giving ammunition to hatred, if it means enabling them to identify?
Certainly it is important to identify with a community and have a strong sense of belonging. We all strive to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. But it is just as important to be an individual with your own thoughts and reason? Can you belong and still be separate? I think that is the model for a successful community.
The specific issues I deal with in my family are Judaism and blackness. I was raised Jewish and my wife is black. There are elements from both extremes that pull at me and will pull at my kids. I certainly want them to know where they come from and their family history. I want them to learn about who they are and be proud of it. There are, however, elements that would criticize me for just being in an interracial and interfaith relationship. These are people who say I am abandoning my race or religion or that my wife is giving up her unique blackness. That is nonsense. Truthfully, creating heterogeneous generations only lessons prejudice and hate. It does not necessitate abandoning a connection to one’s heritage to do it. And, what is wrong with using our heritages to create a new shared heritage?
So many people hear the word assimilation and are frightened because they feel they will lose something that is uniquely theirs. I agree that assimilation is not the best word to use. I like integration much better because it implies a two-way process. We redefine ourselves by absorbing the good things in other cultures while still retaining our own. Although we are becoming a nation of acceptance and tolerance at a rapid rate, specifically black and Jewish identity in America has been defined by factors that hinder this type of fluid reciprocal acceptance and incorporation.
According to Harvard Sociologist Orlando Patterson, “The Act of Emancipation abolished only the first part of slavery, the master’s ownership; far from removing the concept of the ex-slave as someone who did not belong, it reinforced it.” There is no doubt we have come a long way especially since the civil rights movement and the abolishment of Jim Crow. But, even today as we worship black celebrities, our private lives are still quite segregated and, in the States, there is still a definite fear of losing our connection to our white or black “race.”
As far as Judaism, there is a strong sense of identity that takes it beyond the realm of just a religion into the sphere of “peoplehood” due to many factors, not the least of which is a struggle for a homeland and a shared history of being the victims of attempted genocide.
Therefore, if I don’t raise my kids Jewish, I am looked at as wrong by some and, if my kids don’t identify as strictly black, they will be considerer traitors to others. I won’t give in to the guilt. Our identities are what we decide and there is no reason we cannot be proud of our history and keep our heritage alive while, at the same time, defining ourselves for ourselves.
I have heard much jingoistic rhetoric railing against multiculturalism because other nations don’t have what America does or other races don’t have what “ours” does or other religions … you get the idea. Do they mean the good or the bad, the freedom or the poverty, the justice or the crime? Every culture on Earth has good and bad and every person has something to give and only ignorance and close-mindedness prevents us from learning from others and growing and changing from what we learn.
Ultimately, what I believe is that we need to teach our children to be good people who practice loving kindness and the universal values shared by all people, regardless of religious, ethnic or racial identity.




