crossthreaded

I made it through the last forty minutes of “A Gentleman’s Agreement” last night, and it was great. The movie speaks to getting up and doing something to correct something when we see it isn’t right.

The best part of the whole movie occurs when Gregory Peck’s character’s son comes home upset from playing with some kids. Peck is arguing with his fiance about why she passively allows anti-semitism to occur around her. Peck leaves her, and he tends to his son. He asks him what happened, and the boy says he was called names by some other kids for being Jewish. He never once let on that he was, in fact, not Jewish. His dad said that that it was a good thing he didn’t. It was good, even if his son was hurt, because, if he did admit that he was not Jewish, he would be admitting to the world that there is something superior in not being Jewish. He could have done so to make the kids get off his case, but he didn’t.

I want to be that kid when I grow up.