Ahh it was a chill day today with snow flurries outside. I didn’t really want to go to our annual Easter Dinner with my family. No real reason they are generally nice people I just don’t have much in common with them…I wonder why I forget every year.
I wander through the door and see my cousin. The one I used to be best friends with for years. Last time I spoke to him at length was when I delivered something to his house. He made me sit down and watch Fear Factor with him and enlightened me on the various ways to ‘kill a faggot’. I’ve avoided him now for a long long time. However greatly to my relief he wanted to talk video games with me and there was a shocking lack of racist or homophobic comments.
Dinner precedes and I’m mildly amazed I’m actually having fun this year. I’m opening up a bit (I’m usually fairly quiet during these get together’s) and we’re all laughing and having a good time. A natural topic is that my aforementioned cousin has gotten his girlfriend pregnant. He’s trying to convince her to stop smoking out of fear of a miscarriage (I wonder if he means just cigarette? I know they do pot at least as well) She says she won’t stop and if anything happens it’s ‘a sign from God’. I snap off ‘yeah it’s a sign from God to stop smoking!’. Dead silence. Then nervous laughter…I forgot I’m the silly atheist and can’t be taken seriously if I use the word god in any context. Oh well…
Dinner picks up again and they start talking about the church service they attended and all the beautifully dressed babies. Oh but there was one couple with a gray baby. Gray baby you ask? Oh she was blonde he was black so they had a gray baby. Hahaha. (oh most of my family knows by now I’m involved online with a black girl). I wonder if the baby will have a blonde afro? hahaha. Oh but black kids can actually be cute. There’s one right in the neighborhood that Uncle X (one of the more racist members of my family) buys tons of candy from. Of course the kid comes around to sell candy now but will be around when he’s grown up to rob my Uncle. HAHAHAHA! At this point I get up and leave the house. I don’t think I’ll be able to make any more Easter dinners. I called my mother who was still at the house and told her to tell the rest of my family (I was too angry to be coherent when I left or I would have said it myself before going) That if I have any gray babies I won’t bother them with them. After all I don’t want them to be robbed.
Well my mother is the one that raised me to believe such stuff was wrong. She’s the only one in the family that I’ve never heard utter anything racist at all. I can’t imagine how she grew up like she did.
If it makes you feel any better both Mr Pict and I am sure we were adopted too. Our kids, after 2 decades with the extended family, agree. How can you grow up in the same family and have NO common beliefs?
This passover, my grandmother said something awful about arabs (I can’t remember exactly, but I remember it was racist and disgusting). I told her, “I know I should respect my elders, but if you say something like that again, I’m going to leave the table.” She didn’t repeat her mistake.
Heh my mother just dropped by my house to tell me it’s ok. I just have to understand that they are (I could tell she was looking for a word other then ignorant) just unfamiliar with other people and ways of life. They just don’t know any better. And the only reason Grandma and Grandpa say stuff about Indians is because they’ve had bad experiences with Indians (my grandmother grew up on a reservation and has stories about being beaten every day from them. Funnily enough she makes the least amount of racist cracks out of all of them)
I told her there was no need for her to make apologies for them and that I was 26 and old enough to decide if I didn’t want to put up with that crap. I’m not ten listening to my uncle complain about the niggers taking over basketball anymore. Life goes on. I’m just going to drop out of the family get togethers thank you.
The last Easter I remember spending at my aunt’s house, my uncle asked me what my dissertation was about & I told him homophobia, and he said, “Oh, good! What’s wrong with all them gays anyway? Have they found out yet?” :eek:
That was the last time I subjected my little Wiccan lesbian self to THAT laugh-fest.
My sympathies, Darkhold. But good for you for taking a stand
Stockton, if you can think of a more respectful response to prejudiced remarks other than remaining silent and having one’s silence perceived as assent, please tell us. Actually, I’d be more worried if agiantdwarf could remember exactly what her grandmother had said – it would indicate to me that she (he?) was holding dwelling on her grandmother’s remarks.
Darkhold, you did the right thing, although I’m sure your family doesn’t get it, and I give you and your mother full credit. Would a “Well done” and a hug help make up for yesterday? If not, or even if so, try this for a concept. Friends of mine who’s relationships with their families aren’t always the best distinguish between Family Of Origin (FOO) and Family Of Choice (FOC). The latter are those people who you choose to associate with who become as close as or closer than family. I’ve come to regard some folks around here as a sort of extended FOC (third cousins, maybe? and I know I’ve got at least one brother in spirit). Face it, lad, you could do worse than these FOC’ers!
Failure to change their hearts. Anyone can fold their arms in self-righteous indignation, but what the hell does that accomplish? Is the world any better off now that the bigots are, well, still bigots? We already have enough sanctimonious liberals. Show me someone who makes a difference. That’s whom I want to hear from.
So he’s a failure because he didn’t stand there and lecture them about their idiotic behavior? Man, that must mean I’m the biggest loser in the world.
Darkhold did the right thing. Maybe his huffy exit gave pause to his relatives. Maybe when they saw how bothered he was, they spent a few brain cells trying to figure out why.
But it would have been pretty arrogant of Darkhold to believe he could have possibly changed their minds right then and there. They knew they were wrong. They didn’t need Darkhold telling them that.
Well, the bible tells you to associate with like-minded people. Of course, it also tells you to go be with the sinners so you can help them. I’m so confused.
Darkhold, I just realized how funny (in a not-very-funny kinda way) it was that these people were talking about the “gray” baby they saw while they were in church. Yes, that’s exactly what Jesus would have done. Made ethnic slurs about the child he saw while he was supposed to be worshipping and communing with his holy father. Your family probably even think they are Christians.
Nah, just the biggest false dichotomist. It is not the case that quiet indignation and loudmouth nagging are the only two options. Bigots are bigots because they are afraid. Show them you are not afraid and that there is nothing to fear.
Why yes I can see it now. I stand up in Easter dinner and inform everyone how wrong they have been. How it’s a fallacy to judge based off of race and instead the individual person should be judged on their own merits. I can see the looks of my family’s face. First confusion and doubt, then anger and rage, then slowly fading into horror as they realize how wrong they’ve been all their lives. The violin music would soar upward as we all stood around with tears in our eyes hugging as acceptance and forgivness was passed around for all. Then as we sat down to eat again the 16 month old child would speak his first sentance “This is the best Easter Ever!” we’d all laugh along with him as the scene faded. Sorry to break it to you but some of us live in the real world. I have roughly three choices.
Ignore it.
Badger them about it with lectures so they shut up about it around me and tell each other how weird and over sensitive I am these days.
Refuse to go to family gatherings.
I don’t think these people are afraid. I don’t even think they’re particularly hateful (even my ‘kill a faggot’ cousin thought he was just being funny). I think they were raised with these notions. They believe and support these notions and lectures by me won’t change them one bit. Also I’m sorry you only want to hear from someone that made a difference. Maybe there is some firefighter or supermen board you can go to and read some of their threads. I never confused the pit with uplifting stories of change and growth myself.
Everyone with kind words Thank you for your support. A couple of my cousins have called me up wanting to go to lunch/dinner with me. I can tell their the advance scouting party to see what my real problem is. :rolleyes:
