REBOOT "Those People" Thinking

If there is one area of life which causes a great deal of anxiety for the average human, it is facing “the unknown.” The unknown, no matter of what type, creates a degree of fear which automatically sets up a mental, emotional and physical response in our body. Very young children are not fearful of anything and, as such, what they learn to fear is whatever their family and peers fear or whatever causes them pain. FEAR IS A LEARNED BEHAVIOR and when your personal society emphasizes you should be fearful of something, most people go along with the premise that their society is doing the correct thing.

This said, we need to look at what “unknown” is normal to fear and which has no validity to continue to live in fear about it. I was born in 1947 and brought up in a conservative Jewish family. My neighborhood at the time was 97% Jewish with a few Italian families sprinkled in here and there. The only other cultures I knew anything about were the “black people” who lived in certain sections of Philadelphia and the “Chinese people” who (in my limited mind at the time) all lived in Chinatown.

After elementary school I left my neighborhood by bus for Junior High and High School both of which were in Italian and Black neighborhoods and I was told to watch out for “THOSE PEOPLE” and to stay together with my Jewish friends in case there was any “trouble.” However, the only people I had any trouble from were those of the Jewish faith. I made friends with Italian and Black kids but I was not allowed to go outside my area to visit them nor could they come in to visit me. I had a difficult time believing “WE” were the only good people and everyone else caused trouble. Like every other child, my fear of the unknown stopped me from doing many things.

When The Unknown Becomes Known,
Then We Have No Fear.

Entering A Dark House Can Be Scary,
Until You Switch On The Light.

In high school I was on the track and gym teams and most of my friends were Black. The more I got to know them, the more I became confused as to why my parents still talked about them as if they were second class citizens. I stopped attending the synagogue after my Bar Mitzvah in 1960 because I felt the people I met there were bigoted and could not give me a good reason for their feelings and behavior. It seemed to me the society which raised me did so with unnecessary fear, one which I could not continue to embrace.

Like so many teenagers of the 50’s and 60’s, I learned the unknown does not have to be fearful if you approached it as if you were not going to create pain for yourself. Why couldn’t meeting new people be enjoyable? In college I went to my first Christmas party and learned the friendships which I made there went beyond religious beliefs. To expect trouble and pain made no sense to me. Pain can happen in any good or bad situation and the prejudice we pre-ordain for ourselves comes from what we were taught as children by our family and friends. We impose this pain upon ourselves in an effort to eliminate a “possible” pain which really does not exist. We can change that behavior and we must.

Today as I approach 60, I sit as an ordained New Thought Minister and a founding member of an Interfaith Council in my city. Over the years I have learned there are more than just Jews, Italians and Blacks in this world. And I have made it my goal to learn to eliminate my ignorance about other faiths, cultures, races and religions in an effort to eliminate the “unknown” about “THOSE PEOPLE.” As I do so I stand back when I hear or read about the violence and hatred people around the world impose on others who they do not really know, and I pray each one of them takes the steps necessary to learn the similarities of all the faiths rather than relying on the facts they had been told as a child.

Almost every religious group has a version of the Golden Rule in their holy text. Yet when we see one of “THOSE PEOPLE” we only look at the few differences rather than the many similarities. When we spend time to listen to “THOSE PEOPLE,” we learn they are exactly the same as we are. In fact it was funny to hear an emcee at one of our Interfaith conferences announce how each of the Faith’s speaker had made him realize how “he was actually one of them!” Violence on this planet MUST STOP and the only way we can do this is to eliminate “THOSE PEOPLE” thinking. We are too much alike to focus only on the difference of the color of our skin or the language we speak. Yes we dress differently and we have different rituals which we use to celebrate our religion. That does not take away from all the similarities we have in common. It also does not take away from all the concerns we all have for our families and for the world.

When I wrote my book, “REBOOTING The Soul” which looks at how each religion deals with the passing of a loved one and what each faith believes happens to the Soul of the person after they die, I learned most of the world is even alike when we are in mourning. The fact is if you filled a room with dozens of people from each faith, each wearing a white tee-shirt and blue jeans, you would never know who is who. And if you entered the room knowing everyone was just as caring as you are, why would you be fearful? There would be no unknowns. The fear would be gone and you would want more time to make friends with everyone. We have to grow up and make friends.

As I said at the start of this article, children do not have the fear adults tend to have when they interact with new people. If they were placed in a room with dozens of children from other religions around the world, all wearing the same type of clothes, they would be playing games with each other within minutes. When you are not anticipating anything unknown, you begin to enjoy the interaction. In this vein I ask you to:

Act as a little child
so you can enter the kingdom of peace
with Those People.