g force. As a child I identified with the Jewish perspective. I felt, deep inside myself, that Jews had the right to be prejudiced against all Germans and Austrians. I knew I had not been born during the Holocaust. I knew even more deeply that six million Jews had been murdered. In high school, I completely understood the Jewish classmate who told me that he could not possibly take me home to his parents. It had nothing to do with rMy parents grew up in Nazi Austria. My father was nine in 1939, when the Nazis came to power in Austria (part invasion, but local support as well). After the war, he found out what had happened to the Jews – including to the lone Jewish family in his village. Death.

In 1955, he emigrated to Canada. By then he had a wife and two small daughters. To show he wasn't anti-Semitic, my father chose an apartment in the middle of an Orthodox Jewish community.

As you may well imagine, my sister and I were not welcomed with open arms. My father could not hear that at all – it was out of his range of understanding. According to him, people who have been the victims of prejudice know all too well how much prejudice hurts, and so could never do unto others what has been done to them.

My sister and I survived.

****

My unusual experience has had a lifelong impact, however – an acute sensitivity to how wrong and hurtful prejudice is, for one thing. Anti-racist movements, feminism, gay rights movements – the importance of these movements was so very obvious to me.

But there was more I took with me, though this further impact took far longer for me to acknowledge and express.

I grew up just as the separatist movement was gaining momentum in Quebec – a time when many French Canadians were against anyone not French Canadian. It didn't matter that I spoke French (with an accent), or that my ancestors were thousands of miles away when the British conquered the French, or that I had no English background at all. It mattered that I wasn't one of "them." Counter-prejudice, once again.

Now, looking back, I am amazed that it took me decades to recognize counter-prejudice as a powerful and damaging force. As a child I identified with the Jewish perspective. I felt, deep inside myself, that Jews had the right to be prejudiced against all Germans and Austrians. I knew I had not been born during the Holocaust. I knew even more deeply that six million Jews had been murdered. In high school, I completely understood the Jewish classmate who told me that he could not possibly take me home to his parents. It had nothing to do with re

thodox Jewish community.

As you may well imagine, my sister and I were not welcomed with open arms. My father could not hear that at all – it was out of his range of understanding. According to him, people who have been the victims of prejudice know all too well how much prejudice hurts, and so could never do unto others what has been done to them.

My sister and I survived.

****

My unusual experience has had a lifelong impact, however – an acute sensitivity to how wrong and hurtful prejudice is, for one thing. Anti-racist movements, feminism, gay rights movements – the importance of these movements was so very obvious to me.

But there was more I took with me, though this further impact took far longer for me to acknowledge and express.

I grew up just as the separatist movement was gaining momentum in Quebec – a time when many French Canadians were against anyone not French Canadian. It didn't matter that I spoke French (with an accent), or that my ancestors were thousands of miles away when the British conquered the French, or that I had no English background at all. It mattered that I wasn't one of "them." Counter-prejudice, once again.

Now, looking back, I am amazed that it took me decades to recognize counter-prejudice as a powerful and damaging force. As a child I identified with the Jewish perspective. I felt, deep inside myself, that Jews had the right to be prejudiced against all Germans and Austrians. I knew I had not been born during the Holocaust. I knew even more deeply that six million Jews had been murdered. In high school, I completely understood the Jewish classmate who told me that he could not possibly take me home to his parents. It had nothing to do with r

a lifelong impact, however – an acute sensitivity to how wrong and hurtful prejudice is, for one thing. Anti-racist movements, feminism, gay rights movements – the importance of these movements was so very obvious to me.

But there was more I took with me, though this further impact took far longer for me to acknowledge and express.

I grew up just as the separatist movement was gaining momentum in Quebec – a time when many French Canadians were against anyone not French Canadian. It didn't matter that I spoke French (with an accent), or that my ancestors were thousands of miles away when the British conquered the French, or that I had no English background at all. It mattered that I wasn't one of "them." Counter-prejudice, once again.

Now, looking back, I am amazed that it took me decades to recognize counter-prejudice as a powerful and damaging force. As a child I identified with the Jewish perspective. I felt, deep inside myself, that Jews had the right to be prejudiced against all Germans and Austrians. I knew I had not been born during the Holocaust. I knew even more deeply that six million Jews had been murdered. In high school, I completely understood the Jewish classmate who told me that he could not possibly take me home to his parents. It had nothing to do with r

French Canadians were against anyone not French Canadian. It didn't matter that I spoke French (with an accent), or that my ancestors were thousands of miles away when the British conquered the French, or that I had no English background at all. It mattered that I wasn't one of "them." Counter-prejudice, once again.

Now, looking back, I am amazed that it took me decades to recognize counter-prejudice as a powerful and damaging force. As a child I identified with the Jewish perspective. I felt, deep inside myself, that Jews had the right to be prejudiced against all Germans and Austrians. I knew I had not been born during the Holocaust. I knew even more deeply that six million Jews had been murdered. In high school, I completely understood the Jewish classmate who told me that he could not possibly take me home to his parents. It had nothing to do with r

g force. As a child I identified with the Jewish perspective. I felt, deep inside myself, that Jews had the right to be prejudiced against all Germans and Austrians. I knew I had not been born during the Holocaust. I knew even more deeply that six million Jews had been murdered. In high school, I completely understood the Jewish classmate who told me that he could not possibly take me home to his parents. It had nothing to do with religion. I was one of "them."

****

Quebec has changed over the past several decades. It's a mellower place. I no longer feel (very rarely, anyway) hostility coming at me from French Canadians because I am not French Canadian.

But I have become more and more aware of what I call the rage of the so-called righteous. Muslims in rage against anyone who dares do or say what they don't done or said. Blacks contemptuous of whites as "crackers". And so on.

I taught Women's Studies for years. It's relatively easy in our society to support the rights of the oppressed. True, many people don't want discrimination to change, and even more people deny it exists. But by and large, when one talks about prejudice and discrimination, one is talking about something where one gets a lot more support than if one also pays attention to counter-hostility.

There are, of course, those ready to find counter-hostility anywhere and everywhere, whether it exists or not. "Watch out. They just want to put the shoe on the other foot." A common charge leveled at anyone who works against discrimination. People on the hunt for slightest hint of counter-prejudice aren't people I want to align myself with. In my experience, they don't want equality. Instead, they're hunting for anything that could be a weapon to use against people who want a fair deal.

On the other hand, the people against discrimination are often ready to attack if one alludes to anything like counter-prejudice.

So one is tredding into a tangled messy patch of thorns and brambles if one brings it up.

Those least eager to hear about counter-prejudice, in my experience, have been black students caught in the grip of it against whites. And t