Just the other day Grandma told a story about Mona's apartment building. Poor, poor, lovely, blonde Mona! The apartment complex where she lives has black people living there (heaven forbid!), and some of them are unemployed, which (naturally!) explains why much of the building is subsidized. Grandma looked at me like all of this was supposed to make plain sense. I think my mouth might have been open. Grandma goes on to explain that this is why Mona brings her "precious unmentionables" to our house to wash. My disgust must have looked a lot like confusion because Grandma filled in with this revelatory grain of wisdom: "they're not a very clean people, you know." And that was that. Mona can't wash her panties because of the blacks. Simple.
I think I was supposed to sympathize with Mona? The poor darling girl in this perilous place! According to Grandma "They" make life quite unpleasant for Mona. I keep wondering maybe if Grandma paid her more she wouldn't have to live in subsidized housing and could bleach her undies wherever she wanted? Problem solved?
Only, not, because it's not concern for Mona that's driving Grandma's comments, it's her compulsive need to give voice to every hateful thought she has for any minority she encounters. I would love to confront her about it, but because she's out of touch enough to imagine that I'll sympathize or agree, even, it's difficult for me to expect that she would be accepting of anything "other" (up to and including a granddaughter who disagrees with her!) The institutionalized intolerance to everything that isn't what she is really really really pisses me off and makes me want to bring an enormously tall, ripped collection of racially diverse drag queens over for tea parties, which is my Happy Thought anytime any of this comes up.
I feel like this post is the first that says you're going to get some type of award at the Weblog awards next year.
ReplyDeleteThough in your Grandmother's defense, this is perfectly acceptable behavior. Just remember, that our grand parents were raised on this, and that in their formative, and even most of their adult lives, these were acceptable words, and manners of thinking. One can't be expected to change a way of thought after 70 years. This, of course, translates to the real world as well. Though current and future generations would not tolerate these terms/thoughts, there is a very very large portion of the current world's population who have this ingrained in them, and change is, in most cases, psychologically impossible. It's like asking someone who has been right handed their entire life to change, and admit that using their right hand was wrong, or improper. It's when this behavior effects others that we should be worried. And if she just runs off at home, meh, I say. Meh.
ReplyDeleteYes our grandparents were raised in a different era, but I think it is unfair to them to assume they are unable to change with the times. Baby steps, maybe having someone in the house that doesn’t agree with her, even if you don’t outright correct her, will be good.
ReplyDeleteOk, so my grandparents are just as laughably racist, and I do chalk it up to being part of a different era (doesn't make it excusable, but it's at least a semi-logical reason)... BUT... this reminded me of an incident in which my horrible stepmother (who is half Korean, by the way), entered my poor little sister Grace into one of those atrocious mall beauty pageants (Grace was five at the time). Anywho, the stepmonster was livid that Grace didn't win "best hair"; instead the title went to a little African-American girl who apparently had very intricate braids and curls on her head. Now, Grace's hair is a BEAUTIFUL shade of red, but it wasn't styled in any special way for the "pageant".
ReplyDeleteSo as stepmother was venting to my older sis, Jessica, about how she couldn't believe "this little black girl" won best hair, Jess said sarcastically, "and we all know none of THOSE people (i.e., color-eds) have nice hair", the stepmother replied, "I KNOW!!! I can't believe they even let a black girl into the pageant!!!"
Ugh. So as much as it's sorta expected for our seniors to have their racist tendencies, let me assure you that ignorance is alive and well in the form of my evil stepmother.