Reply #42: Thanks Bert! [View All]

[fudge stripe cookays]

Started off slow....I was appalled when she said that to me. We'd used the word in my house all the time growing up...

My dad grew up in Chicago, and mom from Belleville, IL (very German Catholic, racist place across the Mississpp from St. Louis). It was nothing new. But after that night, I was FURIOUS. FURIOUS that she had turned me into a little racist without me even realizing it.

I turned to her and snapped, "If you EVER use that word in front of me again, I'll walk OUT of the room!"

Then, I did. I was absolutely livid. I don't think I talked to her for 2 days.

From then on, whenever she said it, I'd walk out of the room. It took her awhile to realize. She'd get mad, come after me and say, "How dare you walk away! I was talking to you!"

And I'd say, "I told you that if you used that word again, I'd leave. I did."

So that was step one. Remove the offending term from her vocabulary completely, so I could discuss "black people" with her instead of some inhuman group.

So then, we moved onto the THOSE PEOPLE way of thinking. I'd say, "What about Cathy? What about the Joneses?" I'd bring up really nice neighbors we had. Or coworkers. Or people out somewhere. "Well, they're different," she'd say.

"How are they different?" I'd reply.

She could never quite come up with a good answer.

I'd start conversations with the lady behind us in line at the grocery store or our waitress in a restaurant and joke around with them. I MADE her see these people as JUST LIKE HER.

And when I moved to Dallas, and started working downtown, I was a minority. Just about everyone I worked with was black. So they taught me a lot, and I once again, I passed it on. I had a close friend who was black, and mom liked her.

Finally, she realized what I'd been talling her all along. Several years ago, when I was really depressed about things, she cheered me up by saying that she was so proud of me, because I had made her into a better person...with all my passion for justice and my activism and all that...she said she knew that if my dad could see me now, that he would be REALLY proud of me.

That's part of what keeps me going.
:cry:
FSC