Rejection

I believe the first time I experienced a sense of rejection was on my very first day at school, in September 1954, I should think. When Instructed to wash before dinner I went to the boys' toilets and washed my face and hands. This led to howls of derision from other children present.
This sense of rejection was compounded over the coming days and weeks, when I felt so isolated, chiefly because I was terrified, and too scared to ask to go to the toilet so that I had accidents which showed vividly in the crotch of my short khaki trousers, so that I spent lunchtimes hiding alone at the far end of the school's playing field. My sense of rejection was further increased by my older sister's refusal to have anything to do with me. My punishment for hitting a boy who was persistently bullying me only made my isolation greater.
I think I sensed the rejection of my mother by my father's family, and by people in general. She had stolen my father from his family. She was a foreigner, and the enemy, a member of the derided Italians who were seen as cowards. She was insulted by shopkeepers too. 
I found an escape from rejection in books and learning, but that too led to rejection by others. My interests and passions were not their interests. I never learnt to kick, catch or throw a ball, I never learnt how to play football or cricket, because there was nobody to teach me. I grew up knowing I was an outsider.
For decades I put these feelings to the back of my mind. Similarly when my Scottish brother in law declared I was rather camp, I was hurt but just dismissed the hurt. I had already experienced similar rejection when my grandmother introduced me when about twelve years old to the village postman from Dolton who declared very loudly that I was rather effeminate. What an evil bastard, his arrogant and insensitive behaviour was hurtful and harmful. I have never forgiven him for this.
Of course this rejection also led me to find a new identity, to revel in my Italian heritage and, eventually, my Jewish heritage. I rejected their narrow, restricted world. I left for a bigger, much more exciting world. I experienced things they couldn't even imagine. I took risks, I experimented, I explored, I discovered. But I haven't forgiven these people for their hurtful lack of understanding, their narrow-minded treatment of me. In a way they were all bullies, trying to make me conform. They represented that other world, which wasn't my world. They conformed, as my siblings have done, absorbed into 'normal' society, whilst I stood apart and separate, but proud and happy.
What I write is a reflection of my own personal feelings, not a judgement on others. Nobody knows how others will react to what we say or do. I thought about what I had written as I lay in bed last night, realising that I might have hurt people by saying these things. But I also thought about how I had been hurt, by how much I am shaken by the Brexit vote, by people, including friends and family, who read and trust the Daily Mail, and who voted to leave the European Community. So 54% of adults in Britain voted to leave Europe, for whatever reason. To me they demonstrated the ignorant, petty, small-minded xenophobia of many English people. There have been demonstrations by remainers in support of refugees and in support of foreign workers in Great Britain. When I think about it, when I see the response of leavers, it is of arrogant hostility, of silence in the face of the refugee situation or the exploitation of foreign workers. They may have voted to leave Europe because they were unhappy with Tory Britain, but they were ignorant and wrong, gullible and misguided. They are of the same ilk as ordinary German people who let Nazism happen, who turned a blind eye at least to the crimes of that regime, or often actively participated. The rise of racist crimes since June 23rd, with attacks on ordinary people who weren't born here, with the acquiescence and encouragement of the right wing press, appals me. Attacks on the judiciary and on experts follow suit. Support for Trump in America is also an indication of the nastier side of human nature.
So, am I sorry for what I have written? No I'm not. Lovely, ordinary caring people can still inadvertently be hurtful. Do I have a chip on my shoulder? I don't care. That's just another classic English put down. I shall stay stubbornly and proudly European, different and not normal to the day I die.