THEY HATE ME BUT DON’T EVEN KNOW ME With Howard Brown

Hello, it's Howard Brown Shining, Brightly Podcast

show. Welcome. This is show 50. I'm really excited about it. And

it's gonna be a solo show today. And we're going to be going a

little deep here, a little introspection. So the title of

the show is, they hate me. They don't even know me. There's a

lot of a lot of stuff going on in the world. It's sort of

imploded and exploded all at the same time. We've got, you know,

a war in the Ukraine, we've got a war in the Middle East between

Israel and Gaza. We had a shooting of a six year old boy

and his mom, by a landlord in a hate crime in Chicago. It's

awful. It is really awful. So I will tell you that, you know, I

grew up in the suburbs of Boston in Framingham, Massachusetts,

and we just had a lot of diversity growing up. African

American, Puerto Rican, we had Portuguese, a little bit of

Asian, Jews and Christians, all in the suburbs. And I will tell

you, I was an athlete. So in sports, sometimes, you'd hear a

derogatory name or comment. So for the for the Jews, you'd be

called a Kike, which is a dirty Jew, or for Puerto Rican,

they'll be called spec, and an Irish person to MC. And for

African American, or black person, the N word.

can't even say it. Don't want to say, once in a while, I would

see suas stickers. But most of that was bullying. still

unacceptable. But most of that was bullying. And so I learned

from a young age that there were lots of differences. And on the

athletic field we had to play together in order to succeed.

And so sports brought a lot of competitiveness and camaraderie,

some discipline, mental and physical toughness. And I

learned to play sports and play basketball with lots of

different people.

And that was a good life lesson for learning some respect. And

my parents obviously taught me that respect, because it starts

in the household. And it has to be something that you want to

do. You can choose not to hate, you can choose to learn to hate.

So this episode's about hate and why I am for peace, for

kindness, forgiving for resiliency and for healing and

gratitude. So, anti semitism all time high. People don't like the

Jews. Islamophobia. Again, all time high. People don't like

Islam or Muslims. Asians, especially during COVID, Asian

hate, all time high. Always been in a bias against gay, lesbian,

transgender. And since the times of Africans coming to this

country in slavery, there's been African American black skin

colour hate.

So there's all forms and all types. And I'm not going to

solve that in this podcast. But I'm going to highlight that you

can choose to hate, you can also choose to be kind. What's in

your heart. So as I grew up, and I learned through my parents

about charity, and helping others raising money for those

in need, getting clothing for those in need, learning that

lesson of sadaqa giving in Hebrew, we really need to teach

that it's It begins in the home, and then it extends to our

neighbourhoods, then it extends to our communities, then it

extends to the globe. But the violence, the pure vitriol and

hate is it's really it's bothersome to many including me.

And it's just Uh How do we fix it? And I'll share some ways

that I think we can fix it as well. And I went to school at

Babson College 45,000 alumni in 132 different countries. It's

like the United Nations. We had all walks of life on the campus.

Now, some were very small minorities. But I least I didn't

witness just outright hate on the campus. And maybe I missed

that because there were some.

And, you know, I don't put my head in the sand. I understand

that. People don't exactly understand each other. But what

I do know, from my Jewish upbringing, is that there's the

number 18. L'chaim, we say that when we actually raise our, or

glass of wine, look, I am and it means to life. And there is also

what a Jewish law but the Coolock nefesh, Nisha, and that

I probably said it wrong because I'm just my mind is going crazy

right now. But that is we choose life. We choose to live God's

seed becoming a human life. We choose life. We choose kindness.

We choose giving. We choose healing this broken world.

There's such a fissure out there. So it's funny, I was

doing research for this podcast about hate. And one of the first

things that came up was a gentleman named rod smart. You

probably don't even know who he is. Rod smart, was a NFL and ex

NFL football player. And on the back of his jersey, he put he

hate me. And people asked him, Why did he do that? And he

basically playfully said that when I go by a defender, he hate

me. When I score a touchdown. He hate me. When I win a game, he

hate me. What a brilliant marketing ploy. And he

trademarked it. He trademarked he hate me. So when I say they

hate me, but they don't even know me.

They don't even know that I'm a two time stage cancer survivor.

They don't know that. I want to become a servant leader and

always work on serving others. They don't know me. But because

I'm Jewish, they throw me into this big massive bucket. And

they hate me.

And I feel sad about that. I really do. I've worked very hard

in moving here to Michigan for the last 18 years on interfaith

relations. And we work from the Jewish community outward to the

Muslim community, the Hindu community, the Asian community,

the Mexican community, the Christian community, and way

more any country that has a consul general here, an honoree

console, it has to do with a car business. We meet with them, we

talk to them about issues. And I've developed deep friendships,

deep trusting friendships. In this interfaith world, so much

so that I wrote a chapter on interfaith bridge building, in

shining brightly, it's the second the last chapter. And I

actually have some tips, and I'm gonna include this in the show

notes and as well as on the when the podcast releases. Why do you

want to take the time to get to know the other and these are

just some of the reasons and hopefully you'll think of some

from yourself.

When we're united, and we know each other, you actually don't

think of hate because you have some type of commonality, some

type of connection, some type of relationship and understanding.

Now, we also when we learn to trust our neighbours, okay,

whatever faith they are, we build stronger bonds. It's

healthy, to interact with others. It broadens your

perspective. You don't have to agree But it's proven social

determinants of health. Plus, it could be fun. When you build

these bonds with other religions, people, other

colours, people have other opinions. People have other

backgrounds. In the good times, you're able to still maintain a

level of communication and trust in the bad times. And I will

tell you this, that I am in contact daily with my Muslim

friends. And they are in contact with me. We are checking on each

other. We are keeping each other in our prayers. And we're trying

to decide when to put out a statement of your unanimity and

support each other.

As a risk to that, but I'm willing to take that risk, in

the name of peace, in the name of kindness, in the name of

human relations and humanity. We all have different roots. We all

come from somewhere different. And the ancient patriarch of

many religions is Abraham. Abraham was the father of

Judaism, and also gave offspring to Christianity. And Moses and

Abraham are in the Koran. Abraham had two sons, Isaac, and

Ishmael, Muslim, and a Jew. And one of the things that Abraham

and Sarah did was they welcomed the stranger into their tent.

This is in Scripture. We are taught this as Muslims, Jews,

Christians, to welcome the stranger into our tent into our

home, into our place of business into our social settings.

Now, in Judaism, we teach something called tikkun olam and

to QUnit LOM is repairing and healing a broken world. How

genuine, how beautiful. The Muslims teach us in the Quran,

that God made us all different so that we could learn from each

other. Christians teach us that we are to protect vulnerable

minorities. And when one minority is threatened, all

minorities are threatened. Buddhists, Hindus, all the other

great religions teach the word harmony and karma and peace.

Hospitality toward others is an opportunity to live out our core

values in our own faith. They all intersect they're similar.

love thy neighbour it's one of the 10 commandments. Be my

brother and I'll add sister's keeper take care of each other.

Now, I can tell you this that this interfaith work builds the

bridges. And we can re discover this unique value that each

brings to the table including our own. As we learn about other

faiths, it actually can reinforce our own faith. We're

supposed to be godlike, and walk in the image of God. Hate is not

godlike. When we open ourselves, to meet people of other faiths,

and colours, and geographies and points of view, we really get to

actually learn and share our own traditions with them and it

broadens you Brian's your worldview, and your perspective.

And this is not just for adults, this is for the kids. Kids

should know that we're growing up in a diverse world, not

everybody looks like you. Diversity. We're working on it.

But we got to get better for our kids. What type of world do we

want to create for our kids? I will tell you this, that the

beauty of at least my interfaith work and why I do this is this

trusted friendships. learning about other cultures is cool.

Learning about new foods is delicious. And building deep and

long lasting friendships, gives you a well rounded life.

COVID made us live in a box. People are craving, the ability

to interact, to hug to shake hands to be together. We were

deprived of that over three years. And now we come out. And

we are on opposite sides of the field. And we don't even know

who we're playing. We know nothing about them. We've not

even taken the time to get to know them or walk five steps in

their shoes. Well way, I think about this, that you know how

really similar we are. How our holidays are all about

celebrating life. Diwali, the Festival of Lights, Annika the

Festival of Lights, the Festival of the harvest, the festival of

fasting, to ask for forgiveness, and atonement. The Festival of

freedom to slavery. There's so much learning and opportunity in

front of us. And I'm not trying to be preachy. I'm just saying

from what's in my heart right now.

I'm hurting, many people are hurting. shining brightly. The

book was written to show people. And it starts with kindness and

giving and healing. And all through the stories in my book

are all about ways to live a resilient life. Build happiness,

build strength. Find your happy place with others. Second last

chapters are interfaith relations. And the last chapter

is hope. Because we've all taken a bit of a backseat on hope for

this world. And I really do think we need to bring it back.

We need to join hands and become a force multiplier for good and

positive change. We can change do you want to change? I do. Not

an easy solution. But as I took you through my discussion guide,

you might think of other ideas. I'm making a call to action to

share those with me. And I'll share them with others. And

that's how we do our part each day. So episode 50 They hate me

yet don't even know me.

I hope you'll take the opportunity to get to know me

and learn that I am carrying I'm loving. I'm a good person. And

I'm open to learning about you and your customs and your

culture and your history and see where it goes. So join me and

let's let's pray together that this world can be a better

place. I end every show by saying that if you shine

brightly A little bit each day for yourself and for others and

our communities.

The world will be a better place. Thank you and amen.