OKAY WTAF

[cimorene]

Today, I was once again reduced to wordless rage!

SOME KID: But why was Jesus crucified?
TEACHER: Well, that was because, you see, the Jews didn't really like the way that Jesus said he was the son of God. The Jews were waiting for the Messiah who would save them and they didn't think the Messiah would be that kind of person, like an ordinary human being like Jesus.

ÖALSKDJJJJJ BBQ

This is the same one who jumped in to answer the clueless one who wanted to know what Jews think about "our" Jesus (mostly correctly but without any special knowledge of the respect he's sometimes been held in since his death) - so volubly that I wasn't able to get a word in in order to come out as a Jew.

Now, it's not that I couldn't rebut this. It's more that I barely know where to start, let alone how it's hard to formulate Swedish when overcome with rage. Also any comeback would have to be both brief, and simple enough to not seem weird in the second-grade context, if you see what I mean. What SHOULD I have said, calmly and in brief, to correct this misrepresentation for a second-grade audience?

Comments

[cimorene]

LOL. Yeah. It was easier as a kid; if I got mad I didn't usually have many compunctions about correcting people vociferously and sometimes quite harshly. I've been rarely had to argue, as it were, with someone in a position of authority. I've argued with my teachers about politics and things as a child, so more than other people perhaps, but this still feels more agonizing. I think that as an adult, and also having had my consciousness somewhat raised also even since adulthood, I feel more responsibility (in multiple ways that is)to correct these things. And then, too, anti-semitism is more painful to me, and feels more like a personal insult, where the political arguments, even if I felt as passionately about them as I was capable of doing as a child, were still not as emotionally charged.

[foursweatervests]

Then it sounds like you're the perfect person to help educate these students. You're personally invested and passionate, but you also know how to be diplomatic.

[cimorene]

How to be diplomatic?! I don't know if I know how to form sentences about it in Swedish, let alone diplomatic ones. The only sentences I have come up with in English so far have devolved quickly into shouting.

[foursweatervests]

Really?? Wow, that's totally not the impression I get from your posts. Maybe it's because you have more time to think out your posts than you do to verbally respond. Maybe you could make a powerpoint that'll work at a (second? third?) grade level and just use that for talking points so you don't get angry.

[cimorene]

Hahah. I'm glad I come off as more together than I am! But yeah, the posts come after several hours worth of thinking about what to say and putting it into words. I definitely suck at face-to-face confrontations due to the becoming speechless whenever I'm infuriated. :/

[foursweatervests]

Ah, the verbal form of impotence. My problem is my mouth tends to run when I get angry, which often complicates situations unnecessarily. Sometimes I get silent, but I'm sure that's just as useful as when it happens to you. :-\