LBPD Commander and hate expert Josef Levy with VP of Long Beach Rotary Cindy Allen.
11:30am | This past Wednesday, the Long Beach Rotary continued its Museum of Tolerance speaker series that focuses on bringing to both the club and the public lectures that deal with diversity, cultural concepts, and how to handle otherness within our own human community.
Josef Levy, commander for the Long Beach Police Department for 26 years, presented a lecture on how to make Long Beach more safe, inclusive, and respectful through not necessarily ending things like discrimination and prejudice (for him, such an endeavor is impossible), but simply recognizing that these are human traits and learning to consciously respond to them.
“I would say everyone, whether they want to admit it or not, is prejudice,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Every single one of us. It’s unavoidable.”
His approach — one of candor, a lack of political correctness, and a simplicity that is overtly refreshing — is not one of the humanist “love everyone” philosophy. In fact, he warns against this form of thinking, which he finds dangerous. “There are those who claim,” he says, “‘Joe, I don’t have a prejudice bone in my body. I love everybody. I even have black friends.’ Those are the one you have to watch out for. Because… I don’t love everybody and not everybody loves me. And that’s okay. You don’t need to love everybody.”
A woman moved by Commander Levy’s presentation hugs him.
Already recognized for his work by the Anti-Defamation League for what they called “combatting hate,” Levy plays off of people’s own misconceptions about him in order to teach them that privilege and power have little to do with truths or even grounded concepts.
He points to a list of adjectives — white, male, straight, middle-aged, middle class — and, with a simple image of a fence with grass on both sides, says, “There is something we need to fight that is alive and well in this city and across our country. There is, in design, a system of advantage whereby a person depending on what they look like and who they are… Are walking on a different side of the fence.” The juxtaposition of a self-admittedly privileged man, in a uniform of power no less, discussing the ideas of marginalization made the impact more tangible.
“If you are white, if you are male, if you are straight, if you are middle-aged, and if you are middle-class, you are instantly provided with opportunity and accessibility with little barriers or hurdles. Privilege comes your way. In fact, I have this privilege because people think I’m white. I am actually Middle-Eastern.”
He breaks down hate to an almost systematic approach: one has stereotypes, or what he calls the thoughts; one has prejudice, the feelings attached to those thoughts; one has discrimination, feelings and thoughts put to action; and one has oppression, the control of these systems of hate.
And in the end, his point is poignant. “Hate is there. Prejudice, discrimination, oppression — it’s there. But I liken it to cancer: it’s there, we all have it — but hopefully it remains dormant. So when I say I check myself, I check myself everyday to make sure it hasn’t spread.”
The Rotary’s Museum of Tolerance series continues next Wednesday, with former Neo-Nazi skinhead TJ Leyden. The event will be held at the Grand Salon aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach. Tickets to attend the event are $25.00. For more information please contact Karen Wyrick, Executive Director Long Beach Rotary (562) 436-8181 or email karen@rotarylongbeach.org