A few weeks ago the actor Jamie Foxx wrote the following Instagram post:
“They killed this dude name Jesus… What do you think they’ll do to you? #fake friends #fake love”
This post was pointed out to me by a friend, and a shiver ran down my spine. My first reaction, reading this post from a Jewish point of view, was to have the uncomfortable feeling that results from hearing old antisemitic tropes.
A day later, after many in the Jewish community had the same reaction as I had, the actor erased the post, and offered the following apology:
“I want to apologize to the Jewish community and everyone who was offended by my post. I now know my choice of words have caused offense and I’m sorry. That was never my intent. To clarify, I was betrayed by a fake friend and that’s what I meant with ‘they’ not anything more. I only have love in my heart for everyone. I love and support the Jewish community. My deepest apologies to anyone who was offended.”
There are so many times when antisemitism rears its ugly head…I am exhausted. I feel a moral obligation to explain how some comments that seem inoffensive to people of other faiths or of no faith are profoundly troubling for Jews. I feel that anything can be said about Jews, no matter how hurtful, without regard for our struggles and difficulties. Antisemitic comments raise the kind of epigenetic memory of persecution and annihilation that is so much a part of the Jewish experience.
I shared my indignation with my 18-year-old son, who was unaware of this incident. I only shared the post, not the apology. He looked at me and said: “Mom, you are making things up. This has nothing to do with Jews. This is about fake friends, people that act like Judas in the Christian Bible, who do not hesitate to sell their friends out.” I asked him about the word “they” in the post, and he said that it was just an expression, just like writing “name” instead of “named.” Nothing more. Then I shared with him Mr. Foxx’s apology, to which my son’s reaction was an eye roll and a resounding, “I told you so!”
At this time in our civilization, when I feel I must have my boxing gloves on, constantly defending myself and sometimes punching back hard, this was a great lesson to learn. Not everyone is out to get us, not everything is meant to hurt us. And there are cultural differences (and why not say, age differences) that unless we respect them, we run the risk of escalating conflicts to a point where peace and understanding will not be achieved. This is, apparently, a commonly used expression in the Black community to describe, exactly as explained, fake friends. Reading too much into the post, as I was doing, revealed my ignorance of the expressions of another community. If I did not have someone who could translate the incident for me, what should I do?
The best approach to tackling cultural differences is to ask the person speaking to clarify what they meant. Approaching the speaker with true curiosity and demonstrating an openness to hear the answer can help us bridge the gap between different cultures, and even open the door for organic and authentic dialogue.
There are times when words are meant to hurt, to create strife and destruction, and there are times that we just do not understand what the other is saying.
Although it is said in the same language, the culture in which we are immersed has a profound effect on the way we communicate, and the words we say signify something different than the way those words were heard. Good for Jamie Foxx for recognizing that there was a significant difference between the words he said and the words some of us in the Jewish community heard. His apology was perfect, and taught us that vigilance is needed, not always in the same way. This time, the way to be vigilant was to respect cultural differences and to be open to learning about and from others. This post is my attempt to make an apology and share with you a lesson I recently learned.
As we are in the month of Elul, the time the time to begin the process of repentance in the Jewish year, let us all learn from this incident. Sometimes we might make mistakes because by being deeply rooted in our communities we fail to imagine that there are other ways to approach and understand others. Sometimes we might make mistakes because we are so profoundly entrenched in our opinions that we fail to see that there are battles to be fought and some that are windmills, that are not really battles. Discerning which is which can be difficult, and to aid us in coming to conclusions that promote peace, we take our time to listen to others with respect and curiosity, with an open heart and compassion.