By now most of New York City knows the story of Aaron Schlossberg, the Manhattan attorney who got into an argument with cashiers at a restaurant after demanding they speak English. Schlossberg threatened to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the Hispanic workers so he could have them “kicked out of my country.”
The incident was caught on video and quickly went viral. And there’s another layer to the story, which is that Schlossberg is a serial race-baiter, who has made it a practice over the past several years to accost Hispanic and other minorities and demand they speak English, or otherwise abuse and threaten them for not being sufficiently “American.”
Schlossberg is now a wanted man, persona non grata in liberal NYC. He’s facing complaints from politicians threatening to take legal action against him, his former law partner left the practice they shared, and he was kicked out of the business center where his office was located.
So what are we to make of the sad story of Aaron Schlossberg? Is he really public enemy number one in New York?
I say we all need to chill just a bit. Yes, he appears to be a racist dude. And yes, what he does is offensive to many.
But aren’t there bigger problems we have to deal with in New York City, and around the country?
Like unarmed black men being killed by the police, for starters.
Like the fact that a handful of American billionaires now own more wealth than the bottom half of the country.
Like the fact that fully half of Americans regularly don’t have enough money to pay for basic necessities such as rent as food.
I mean honestly, is it really such a big deal that this dude is a racist? Are we not being just a little oversensitive? Because let’s be honest, half the country is as racist as this dude. They’re called Trump supporters.
Schlossberg is simply reacting, on a visceral level, to the elemental fears many white Americans have about the browning of America. The influx of Mexican and Hispanic immigrants that began decades ago, and has now been joined by immigrants from Asia and other parts of the world, has scared the hell out of a lot of white Americans. It’s the dynamic that catapulted Trump to power, and it’s what allows him to maintain huge support among a large slice of white America.
Just this Wednesday, Trump referred to immigrants as “animals,” which he’s done in the past. This is obviously despicable behavior and language, but it emboldens people like Schlossberg to do what they do.
And truth be told, a lot of white people in America, including liberals — and I count myself among this demographic — are afraid of where the country is heading. Will we lose our white privilege? What will it mean for white people to live in an America that is majority-minority? These kinds of thoughts haunt the minds of whites around the country, including, clearly, one Aaron Schlossberg.
I grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, which was a largely Jewish neighborhood, with some black and Hispanic residents living mainly in housing projects. I’m Jewish, I loved the neighborhood, and I wish I could still afford to live there.
But I had to move out due to skyrocketing rents and my own career struggles. So I live in Astoria, Queens now, one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the city. Queens is in fact the most ethnically diverse county in the country.
So how do I feel about it? In all honesty, I’m mixed. There are days when I walk down the street, and I see the Middle Eastern women in their hijabs, and the sexy Mexican women in their tight jeans and spandex, and the lovely South Asian women in their Saris, and I think wow, what a beautiful tableau. Everyone is mixing and mingling together in harmony, and it’s just how God would have meant for the human race to be together, a rainbow coalition of peace and love.
But there are other days, like when the largely immigrant population of my run-down apartment building leaves garbage on the stairways, or in the hallways, or when they blast Mexican music so loud it makes the hallways vibrate, that I don’t like immigrants so much.
No one ever, and I mean ever, left garbage in the hallways of the prewar, doorman building on the Upper West Side that I grew up in. So it bothers me.
As do the stares from the South Asian men in the building, who never smile and appraise me cautiously as we pass each other on the stairs. Or the Middle Eastern dude who always growls at me. It’s like we’re from different worlds, different galaxies, in fact different universes, and the chasm between us is so large I don’t know how to bridge it.
So it’s complicated, is what I’m trying to say. Diversity and integration is a messy, scary, yet also beautiful and wondrous thing.
But it can be adversarial, as we see in the case of Mr. Schlossberg, or even violent, as we witnessed in Charlottesville, and as the Internet reveals everyday with the latest Trump supporter accosting or attacking a minority or immigrant.
The one other point that I think is worth mentioning is that, judging by his name, Mr. Schlossberg is most likely Jewish, just like me. Which means his family were immigrants themselves not so long ago, at most three or four generations past. They probably arrived in America at the turn of the century, like most of us American Jews did.
So here we have a case of a not-so-distant immigrant turning his anger — and perhaps self-hatred — on the even more recent arrivals he encounters daily in New York City.
This is in fact an interesting dynamic among Trump supporters who are Jewish. One the one hand, they’re all on board for Trump’s hate and vitriol. But on the other hand, they’re Jewish, and thus minorities themselves. And I would guess that many, many Trump supporters regard these Jewish fellow travelers with unease, if not outright anti-Semitism.
Which makes you wonder, how does the very Jewish Jared Kushner manage to live and work with Trump every day, given the numerous anti-Semitic actions and dog whistles Trump makes regularly?
Just the other day, when the US controversially moved its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Trump selected Pastor Robert Jefress to lead a prayer at the opening. Jefress is a noted anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, anti-Mormon cleric who preaches that all non-Christians are going to hell.
So how do the Jews who support Trump reconcile his anti-Semitism with their support for him? The answer is, I don’t know, I just don’t know. I imagine there must be a good deal of self-deception and denial involved, though.
But back to Mr. Schlossberg. Cleary this dude is in hot water now. Everywhere he goes in NYC he’s a marked man. Should he be? I mean the Arab dude at my local bodega who sells me my diet Coke every day sometimes gives me a nasty look, or grumbles at me. We don’t all love each other, and it cuts many ways, from group to group to group.
I think as adults we just need to accept that this new integration project America is undergoing, this browning of the country, is going to be messy. But let’s not freak out about one misguided, angry New York lawyer. So he’s racist. Who cares? We’re all racist, to greater or lesser degrees. It’s how you treat people on an individual level that really matters, and on that score clearly this dude needs to be better.
But still. Does he deserve to have his life ruined? Is he worse than Hafez al-Assad in Syria, who launches chemical weapons attacks against his own people? Or dictator Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, who systematically executes poor drug users, claiming they’re criminals and threats to the nation? Or even Trump himself, who has done so much more damage to our national mosaic than Aaron Schlossberg ever could?
I say no. If you want to get all riled up and hate this guy, go for it. But while you’re at it, maybe try and help the half of Americans who can’t pay their rent or buy enough food to eat.
Because that issue, it would seem, is just a little more important than Aaron Schlossberg and his racism.
That’s my opinion, and I’m sticking to it. Good luck with yours.
