When my mom was 8 she broke a 15 year old boy's arm when he would not stop bullying her siblings for being Jewish, including trying to drown my uncle. Not as a joke, he was actively trying to kill him. Being 19 and on my second year of jiujitsu and breaking my antisemitic instructor's shoulder because his dumb ass thought he could thrash me with illegal moves repeatedly without consequences feels like a defining moment in my life. I really am my mother's son. My 5"3 ass can and will beat your 6"4 one despite the 100 lb weight differential. And I don't even need to make illegal moves to do it.
This is what it's like to be Jewish. You deal with people twice your size who don't play by the rules and you fight fairly and yet even when you're defending yourself, eyewitnesses get antisemitic and say your response was disproportionate. He had me in a lethal chokehold. I'm the one who had to talk to police for assault. He doesn't even get a reprimand from the university even though he's employed by them and murder on the campus is, even now, a bad look.
The police were, fortunately, swayed by the video footage. They said my lack of guilt was disturbing. I stared at them in disbelief. "I'm not going to feel guilty for not wanting to die," I told them incredulously, "I have elderly parents to support, a girlfriend to propose to and a dog to take care of. I'm 20, I have shit left to live for!"
I'm being forced into therapy by the university. I look forward to it. Sure would be a shame if I'd, I don't know, hypothetically, scoured the internet to find other accounts of people he'd used illegal moves on. It'd sure suck if I brought those up and had those entered into the school record. Sure would be awful if those accounts found their way into his RateMyProfessor listing in addition to, say, theoretically, being sent to local dojos and other dojos throughout the state, thus ruining his ability to find work or fight competitively.
All sarcasm aside I am not afraid to nuke his career. I am my mother's son but I am also my grandmother's grandson. When a KKK member tried to kill her dad, my great-granddad, she wrestled the man's gun off of him and shot him in the knee. He never walked again.
Nobody in my family starts fights. But I don't mind finishing them.
This is what it's like to be Jewish. Someone tries to kill you. You do exactly what's required to get out alive. They get angry at you. They want you to feel guilty for wanting to live. You get up and go to class hours later with bruises on your neck and refuse to feel guilty. I have as much of a right to be alive as anyone else. I will not be gaslit into thinking I don't deserve to live.
The school said I wouldn't have to do therapy if I apologized. I will not apologize for surviving or defending myself.
I have as much of a right to be alive as anyone else.
"I'm not going to feel guilty for not wanting to die. I have elderly parents to support, a girlfriend to propose to and a dog to take care of."
You have no idea just how much I respect you for these two sentences.