Dear Diary . . . day by day

Thursday, September 20th, 2001 - Turning the other cheek

Yesterday, on my way to my interview (I have two this week! Hooray!) I stopped to say hi to Yaz, my favorite flower-vendor. I asked him how he was doing; Yaz is from Iran, and told him I wanted to make sure people were being nice to him (not that I could do anything about it, but I worry). He said it wasn't so bad, that it's better at his Berkeley shop (not surprising) than it was here in Oakland. He seemed to accept that some harrassment was a part of it all, he said he understood why people felt that way. This was very surprising to me, that he wasn't angry or upset by some people yelling epitets at him just because of his skin color/ apparent nationality.
It occurs to me that he's not exactly free right now to show any anger he might have over this show of hostility. As a white girl, I can be as righteous as I like about some of my fellow white Americans being big ignoramouses and treating all Muslims/brown people as potential terrorists in their fear. But what can Yaz say? I wonder if he feels that any anger he may feel would be inappropriate, insensitive to the events of 9/11?
Somehow, though, I just don't think Yaz is hiding any anger. I think he really understands.
His mild response of understanding the hate that is being directed towards him and others like him seemed to me to be a show of respect for the suffering we've all been through because of this tragedy. It struck me that this is what they mean by "turning the other cheek"; understanding where the anger is coming from, not taking it personally. I was touched.
Later, on my way back from my interview, Yaz stopped me to ask how it went. After we chatted and I was about to leave, he told me to wait a moment. He went behind his counter and pulled out an already-prepared nosegay of pink orchids and handed them to me. "For you" he said.
He is truly one of the sweetest people I know.

Exercise log:
Grumble, mumble.
Writing log:
See above.
Current Publications:
San Francisco City Guide at EGrad.com. Written by me, edited by someone else.
I'm currently reading:
Earthquake Weather by Tim Powers
The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl by Tim Pratt
Okay, so I'm just reading the very rough first draft of the chapters fresh off the 'puter, but damn, it's already good!
My new PO Box is:
Heather Shaw
P.O. Box 13222
Berkeley, CA 94712-4222

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