Monday

Deborah Lipp

"Merry Christmas. And Happy Chanukkah to all our Jewish friends."

One of the local TV stations used to say, this time of year, "Merry Christmas. And Happy Chanukkah to all our Jewish friends."


Gods, I hated that. It's the very epitome of unconscious marginalization. I mean, more than half the people to whom I expressed disgust just didn't get it. "It's nice," they'd say, "It's inclusive." Not so much. The implicit statement is: There's an Us and a Them. Merry Christmas to Us. Happy Chanukah to Those Others.


When they changed the message, maybe ten years ago, I felt vindicated. It proved I wasn't a whacko who was offended for no good reason; someone else saw the problem and made the change.


Technorati Tag:

No comments: