I always wondered how my grandparents and parents felt when Hitler ordered them to wear the yellow patch that had in its center the word ‘Jude.’ That badge made them stand out in the community as disgraced and inferior human beings. They were Jews!
I am 72 years-old, and I am in the age group that stands out as the most likely to be infected with the Coronavirus-Covid-19 and the most vulnerable to it. I am a member of that older-seniors’ group that are requested to keep safe by staying home. No outings for you, old lady.
When I am jogging or walking in the street, exercising, or shopping in the supermarket, all of a sudden I sense the daggers in people’s eyes looking at me as if I am the one endangering their life.
People offer to leave for me a plate of food behind my apartment door as if I have leprosy or the like. I feel like I am infected already! Gosh!
I now know what my grandfather, grandmother, father and mother felt when they were walking in the street of their Polish town with that humiliating yellow patch stuck on their jacket or dress, telling everyone, “I am a Jew, and I am inferior to you. I am society’s shame.”
I now wear an invisible age group patch that tells everyone, be careful of this old lady, she will be the first one to carry the Coronavirus, first one to catch it, she must be excluded.
It is no longer social distance, it is now a patch of selective discrimination.
