Reply #12: I think it's worth the risk. [View All]

[The Backlash Cometh]

In my extended family, we have one evangelical Christian. A WASP. Over the last 20 years, I've watched her pick the family apart, depending on who's on her shit list at the time. The point is, she is never happy with anybody, not even her own children. She always has something bad to say about someone. At one point, it was my brother-in-law and his family she targeted. She even took me aside and explained how we would have to rely on each other because there are problems on that side of the family and they don't quite speak to her. And that might have been true. On that side there was one out of wedlock child, and another with a marriage with a pregnant bride. And of course, these are incidents which the WASP sister-in-law couldn't help but point out, which only alienated her further.

Then when the Republican hate fest started, she found something that she could use to bind her to that side of the family. She used me as a binding force. Suddenly, I became their target because I represented liberalism to them. And they had their conservative talking points to bind them. I was dark, Hispanic and different. I became a symbol of minorities getting a free ride off their tax dollars. They even asked curiously how my son could be projected to reach 6 feet when no one on their side of the family was that tall. It was an ill-disguised attempt to suggest that my son was illegitimate.

Where I never had one qualm with the other side of the family, I suddenly found no reason to see them again. Yet, I know that their conservative talking points are on shaky ground and getting shakier. I know that I can pop their high morality balloon just by doing one thing. And that's convincing half of them, about the manipulation and negativity of the WASP bitch.

So, in conclusion, I think bringing out their hypocrisy is paramount. If for no other reason, to let them know why they're living in a house of cards.