Freedom From Fear?

 In the wake of the Texas synagogue hostage situation, I thought today would be a good time to write about safety. Some people are lucky not to not have physical security on the forefront of their mind most of the time; others are constantly in legitimate fear. It may be hard to understand what it’s like to be grateful that your building has a security guard… or how terrifying it might be to fear security personnel because of historical brutality. It used to be hard for me, and though I miss that innocence, my impact can be stronger because I understand more than before.

I remember not really thinking about safety in my early days...the glow of my earliest memories is filled with family and music and animals. It's filled with spinning helicopter dances in the living room with the greatest worry being the swirling colors of a turning world when I fell down. But life isn't limited to a living room with a cozy fire and lots of pillows.

Growing up, we all learn that the world is not always safe. However, we learn this lesson in different ways and to different degrees. On a personal level, I learned it through simple scrapes when falling in a kickball game and be rougher moments when dealing with verbal and physical bullying. But I also learned it by watching the Challenger blow up while the school watched in the auditorium, and by reading about crashes and muggings and war. I believe in learning, but along with increased knowledge is increased awareness of the world's woes. Growing up is, in part, learning that the world is not inherently safe, and learning how to cope with that. It is learning to carry the belief of protection, like a turtle's shell, but venturing out in the world anyway.

As I grew, I learned that we all have different experiences of safety and danger. Garden City in the 70s and 80s was a relatively safe place to grow up-- its square blocks and tended lawns offered beautiful walks and our schools didn't need security guards or lockdown drills. Although I was ethnically an outsider in the town, I was of a socioeconomic status and (sigh) skin color that had added protections. We are all alive in an era where children are expected to live past infancy and it is the unusual and awful tragedy when disease strikes young. Our medical knowledge as a society is growing. Until 2001, we perceived that war was something that happened elsewhere. I grew up lucky, and knowing I was lucky.

Colleges days both reaffirmed my sense of security and threatened it. I felt safe--too safe-- on the suburban Seven Sister school campus, and didn't take all the precautions I needed to when coming back from late night rehearsals. I learned the hard way that women can be targets more than just schoolyard bullying. In France, the catcalls were infuriating, but above all, in Romania, I realized that (besides the bag lady), I was the only female walking alone in Bucharest's equivalent of Central Park in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. Still, a huge portion of the world is cisgender female. What about the people who are gender nonconforming in a conservative, or flamboyant in a world that seeks to keep people in boxes of certainty? My days at Bryn Mawr also made me see so many different lifestyles that were so much less safe than my bookworm, musician, future-teacher self.

Then, of course, there was being safe as a teacher in a parochial girls' school in New Jersey before April 20th, the day of the Columbine shootings, or at a public middle school on the December day of the Newtown Massacre or on the dates of so many other mass shootings. My students are growing up in a world where lockdown drills are normal. They don't ask anymore, like we used to at the beginning, "What if there's a fire alarm during a lockdown drill?" It's part of their life now. It isn't just the schools; movie theaters, shopping centers, anywhere is game. It isn't just gun violence, either. It is crazy to think we live in an age where major streets in Manhattan need to have large cement barriers to prevent cars from intentionally running over pedestrians.

After 9/11, the world paused in a moment of transparency about our collective lack of security. But that was short lived. A few months later, I was in Kansas and out west, everything seemed normal. Meanwhile, NY and NJ were still dealing with the fall-out of friends who had survived being in the towers, or family who had been lost. Safety was shaken... but it was easier for some of us than for others.

There has always been prejudice and racism, but in my childhood, it wasn't as transparent as it became after 9/11. It was because of the prejudice against my Persian friends that I decided to learn Farsi; I didn't want my magical 8 and 10 year old friends to become ashamed of their native tongue. I had foreign friends who escaped the towers, and they were accused of surviving because they had an "in" with the terrorists. It wasn't just Muslims who bore the brunt of the 9/11 scapegoating. There were murders of Sikhs and so many other acts of targeted violence. On a personal note, I had my car searched three times when commuting to my parents' house. Eventually, the Verrazano Bridge police let me know that it was part of racial profiling. (I believe I look more Eastern European than Middle Eastern, but that shouldn't matter.) There are people who are victims of racial profiling every day. It breaks my heart. The past few years have brought necessary advocacy for minority groups that have suffered great hatred; change happens too slowly and any progress must continually be maintained by activists and allies.

This pandemic has changed our society's experience of safety because skin color, religion, nationality and gender do not protect anyone from its toll. Yes, different communities are more affected because of socioeconomic reasons or age or prior health status. But the virus is mostly colorblind. Just about everyone knows someone who has succumbed to it. And now, with the Omicron, although its danger may be less for the vaccinated, the numbers of infected people are mind-boggling. Nobody is fully safe-- not that anybody ever was-- but not we know it. We try to take care of ourselves and of others. But Covid has awakened an awareness of our fragility in a way I have not heretofore experienced.

Yesterday's hostage-taking in Texas made me think about safety. Although it took place in a synagogue, it is yet unclear whether this was targeted toward Jews because of their Judaism or just because of location or career or personal connection. We may never know. But I do know that I am an active member of a temple and of a church. That's part of the life of a Jewnitarian, haha. Both communities have safety protocols. However, the discussions about security-- and the costs for hiring police, cameras, security alarms etc-- are so much greater for the Jewish community. When I'm at the Old Stone Church, practicing alone on the piano, I don't feel like I could be a victim of a hate crime. I don't feel like I could at my temple, either, but that's because there are strong and necessary protections in place.

There are strong and necessary protections in place, and my community can afford them, and the protections work.

There are so many people, and so many communities, that can't afford or can't find necessary protections. When anyone can be prejudiced against you for your appearance, or when you are surrounded by war or gang violence or unescapable illness, no place is really safe.

If we understand this, it can lead us to help the world. We can look out for one another more, and we can appreciate our own freedoms. FDR spoke of four freedoms, and one of them is the Freedom from Fear. How can we help one another feel safe, and be safe, regardless of where and how we live?