My dad, who, for the record, is 76 years old (not that this is an excuse, just a point of reference) will often make the most obnoxious remarks and then say something like, “This is probably just my latent racism talking…”
Which…yeah. Dude, what he’s saying is NOT latent racism. It’s BLATANT, in your freaking face racism. And it’s making me crazy.
It is also giving me points of discussion with my girls once he leaves the house.
Most recently, he said, “I took the test to be a postal worker. It wasn’t a hard test. But the only way anyone was going to get hired as a postal worker in the seventies was if they were a woman or black.”
I just stared at him, kind is squinting. I mean, seriously? Seriously! He honestly believes what he said to be the case. He truly, sincerely believes that he was discriminated against in the seventies because he was a white man.
The insanity boggles my mind. He truly does not understand his place of privilege and I’m not sure at his age I can teach him.
But I want to try, if only to show my girls that we shouldn’t just stand there and listen to bullshit, even when it’s being spouted by someone we love and should respect.
My brother posts the most radical, insane things on Facebook. His stance on gun control and his hatred of one of the presidential candidates boggles my mind.
My mom tries to talk him down from time to time but he doesn’t want to hear it.
It makes me sad that there are people about whom I care who feel and think the ways my dad and brother feel and think. I can’t fathom how they got to this point, how I came from my dad and how I was raised in the same house as my brother and we’re so far apart in these areas of thinking.
I do believe I’m not going to be able to ignore my brother’s posts for long. And I fear that I’ll make an enemy of him when I stop just ‘liking’ my mom’s replies to him and start adding my own replies.
I mean, if I can’t speak up when my dad and brother are being assholes, when can I speak up? These are two men who are supposed to love me and perhaps even take what I’m saying seriously. If I don’t start with them, I won’t start anywhere and that’s not acceptable.
A mom, a dad and two daughters. We're living ordinary lives with a twist of 5p- (Cri du Chat) for spice. But we're about so much more than our younger daughter's genetic diagnosis.
1 comment:
I have been so surprised and upset to see people I love saying things I consider absolutely repellent. It is a hard thing to mash together: "person I love" with "words/ideas I hate."
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