Maybe it was that “water buffalo” incident at U of Penn.
Regards,
Shodan
My experiences have been similar to those here. My generation and my immediate family are all very open-minded and fair. My mom and dad are great, and when everyone thought I was a lesbian growing up (only half-right, guys!) they all made sure to let me know it was ok. And when I dated an FTM transgendered boy in college my Dad and my Aunt were totally cool about it!
But then there’s the older generation, like my Grandma. She is awesome and loves everyone but she has clearly instilled a lot of the racist/homophobic attitudes she grew up with. I remember one Christmas my cousin brought her black friend to our family Christmas party and Gramma was worried that she might be dating him. She was ery quietly asking my aunt (cousin’s Mom) if that was the case. She seemed concerned. It was the first time I’d ever heard anyone in my immediate family show any racism.
But for someone in her 80s and 90s, my strategy is just to love her and not discuss those things with her. It’s just not going to change for her, after all this time.
But my in-laws are a bit of a different story. They all grew up in rural Maine and there’s definite racism and homophobia there. It’s not outright hate or bashing, but the subtle mistrust of other races. They’re the type to joke about “towel-heads” and “jewing” and the gays and think it’s totally fine.
Even my sister and brothers in law, which was surprising. They were all hanging out one day and one sister said something like “You remember Jane from high school, I hear she’s a lesbian now!” and the other sister says “Oh no, I had sleepovers at her house, I hope I don’t catch it!” Lots of haha-ing at that, while I felt really uncomfortable and my husband just kind of shrugged at me like “what can you do?”
It was also a bit awkward when, after my wedding, I heard that my sister in law (who I really do love!) had come up to my husband expressing concern that she didn’t know how to explain all the gay couples to her kids. It’s just so different from the way I think. I fully plan on raising my children to understand that love comes in all combinations, gender is not either/or, and religion is optional, but not required for a moral life.
I just wonder how to deal with the way that side of the family will treat these things.
Here’s one that was definately unexpected. My friends and I were in the artillery museum in Woolwich, UK. In the little cafe there was sitting the perfect stereotype pepperpot woman from Monty Python. She engaged us in conversation and when she learned that we lived in Florida, she asked, “There’s a lot of* darkies* there, aren’t there?” You have to imagine it being spoken by Terry Jones in old lady drag to really appreciate the absurdity of the moment.
I’ve been working for the US Census here in Lake County, Indiana and while most people are just people I have come across a few whoppers:
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“Thank God they didn’t send a n------ to do your job”. I decided not to mention to this “gentleman” that one of my two crewleaders and their manager were black. Made me embarrassed to be Caucasian.
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“You don’t belong in this neighborhood”. This one was from a black cop as I was canvassing a predominantly black neighborhood I think she was making a point that I didn’t live there and what the hell was I doing in the neighborhood? Since the only other white people I’d seen in those couple blocks were buying drugs maybe it wasn’t such an unreasonable suspicion on her part, I don’t know.
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“How come a black girl doesn’t have your job?” In this case I did mention my black superiors, not sure if I was believed or not.
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Numerous cautions from people of pale complexion that I should be on guard against people of dark complexion and/or those who speak Spanish as a native language.
When we address listers get together (and we do reflect the demographics in this area in regards to ethnicity) we compare outrageous statements we’ve heard while doing our jobs.
I would like to emphasize that MOST people are just people and don’t seem to care either way (well, once I explain I’m from the Census and not going to rob them or something, they’re OK, some of the neighborhoods I’ve been to do have a crime problem). It’s very much just a few, but those few can really mess up your day. Even so, since I’m an Official Federal Employee it wouldn’t surprise me if some of these folks are holding back much more than they would if I was just randomly walking down the road. Then again, there are some folks who REALLY hate anyone representing “government” at any level, I’ve encountered them, too.
The appropriate response is to point to your head like there was a dot there and kind of motion like you are stupidly saying “dank you come again”…or do a tomahawk chop with one hand while going BWA-BA-BA-BA-BA-BA-BA with the other…depending on which kind of Indian you meant.
I think there is a big difference between making fun of certain ethnic stereotypes and people who fundamentally believe that certain races are better than others.
Also, Grandma racism is the best racism ever. “Why that’s Doctor and Mrs. Washington. They are a lovely Black couple”
I’m just glad I live in a place like New York where you can make fun of all races, colors and creeds equally.
I agree that encountering it in person is different.
My uncle, oy, who upon my father mentioning that my boyfriend was from South Africa, blurted ‘he’s not black, is he?’ sigh. It’s interesting how when I mention it, a lot of people get this semi-worried look on their face, like they are thinking, ‘would it be, like, racist if I asked if he was black?’ Heh. About a third will then forge ahead with the question anyway, and usually seem a bit relieved when I say he’s not. Oy.
I’ve mentioned elsewhere encountering some real old-school ‘genteel’ anti-Semitism in the UK. That was unexpected; I actually got up and left immediately and realised I was shaking (with rage? I don’t know) when I was walking away.
If hearing someone say they “don’t really like Asians much” is a shocking example of bigotry that rocked your world, you have led a pretty sheltered life indeed.
One more reason many of us call our Rep. Jim Moron. And I voted for him as the least moronic candidate.
I grew up in a very racially biased family at a very racially charged time (I was bussed in the 60’s). My dad didn’t like a lot of kinds of people and didn’t mind tell folks about it. That’s how I grew up. These days it is off-putting to hear certain things like that.
It was so cute when I lived in Kansas for a while and everyone wanted to tell me how awful the racism was in the south. There was one black guy in the whole place that I knew of, and he was pretty damned white, but that didn’t stop people from telling me all about how they had a black friend. Not like those people who live in the south, I guess. This was eye-opening to me. One woman even asked my why we make black people wear those things on their heads…turns out she was talking about do-rags!
Exactly! It’s like, she’s trying really hard to not offend.
This also applies to religion, for Grandma. “I bumped into Aunt Margaret at the store yesterday. Her daughter married a nice Jewish boy.”
Sounds like Joe Biden describing Barak Obama during the run up to the primaries in 2007!
Yes. It’s stunning because the comments come from people who think they are very open-minded, and then they reveal their heads are up their asses.
A fun mutation of grandma racism is Random Old People Prejudice: ROPP is when the elderly make up stereotypes nobody else has ever heard of. For example, my middle brother once complained in front of our grandparents that his future college roommate (who he hadn’t met yet) had misspelled a bunch of words in an email.
“Is he black?” my grandmother asked immediately.
Apparently everybody knows black people can’t spell, so quick and logical was her assumption, but I’ve never heard of this.
I could answer, but you are too pure and sanctified, growing up as you did in the magical land of the Pacific Northwest, to hear about the ignominious lives that we poor benighted rubes in the Midwest and the South and the East Coast have to endure.
Honestly, does everyone from where you come from think their shit doesn’t stink they way you do?
Back when I was a teenager, I was hanging around with an acquaintance who was starting to become a friend – or so I thought. Until I happened to mention that I was Jewish. “Oh our family doesn’t like Jews,” he said.
This was in Montreal in the mid 70s.
Then in the Bay Area in the mid 90s I heard someone refer to Dianne Feinstein as “that kike”.
Ed
My father has always been the most extremely liberal, Democrat-voting, The Nation-subscribing, ACLU member you could possibly want, and even tried to start a major campaign against a local paper when they printed a cartoon with a stereotyped picture of a Mexican.
When I first started teaching as a graduate student, I was on the phone with him and we were comparing our classroom experiences on the first day and this exchange occurred.
Him: “Seeing my class today was really depressing.”
Me: “What was depressing about it?”
Him: “Oh, you know, the students are all obese, half of them are minorities, there’s three Muslim girls with headscarves.”
My Dad was always pretty liberal, although his older sister once told me that Puerto Ricans were 1/2 black and 1/2 Mexican. And then a few years ago my mom told me she’d rather see a black & white together than two men – as if either had anything to do with her! Now my niece is planning to attend University of Detroit in the fall – a really good school – and all my mom had to say was “There are a lot of blacks there.” I just said so what and moved on. Geez.
Oh, even worse, I used to work at a very large multinational company who spent all kinds of $$ on diversity. Once in a meeting about getting a supplier to lower their price, a supervisor offered to try to “Jew them down”. And he said this to a Jewish colleague, not even batting an eye. Double Geez.
It seems that the little stuff can be the most jarring.
10 years ago, we owned a house in the Chicago suburbs, which we put up for sale.
After the sign went up, our neighbor stopped by to chat. She said something about how she had enjoyed living next to us, would miss us, and hoped we would watch who we sold the house to. She would prefer not to live next to “them”.
My mind stopped working. This was the pleasant neighbor, who had helped us figure out how to deal with crappy water from our well. Who had loaned us yard tools, and talked about plants.
I still don’t know if she meant blacks, hispanics or “other”. I didn’t want to know. I just wanted away from her. I think living next to Archie Bunker would have been less surprising to me.
The woman did in fact have a dot on her forehead.
Where I’m from, we have many ethnicities, and everybody is half Chinese or a quarter Portuguese or an eighth Hawaiian. We still manage to crack racist jokes and perpetuate racist stereotypes. It’s practically a form of bonding. But racism spans across all colors, sometimes within colors. I know of several Chinese mothers who were very displeased that their sons married Korean or Japanese girls.
Amusingly, the one time I expected racism, I didn’t get it. My SO’s grandparents are older Midwesterners, who, according to my SO, would call blacks niggers and Asians gooks. He told me this to prepare me for the possibility I’d hear it when I met them. (I’m of Japanese descent.) But I heard none of it. They were very nice. His grandpa even flirted with me. He was probably my favorite person I met there.
I was at a networking function where a potential vender was trying to woo me. He at least had the courtesy to ask the group of us if any of us were Jewish presumably before uttering something similar. Basically I’m like with a totally straight face “are you some kind of fucking moron?”
I have to confront my own prejudice and say that my first thought would be to hope he was black. What with all the boycotting South Africa and my Dad’s utter prejudice against Afrikaner people, I have a completely irrational bias against white South Africans. I would hope I’d have the common decency not to enquire. I do my best not to let the irrational bias direct my actions. I do my best not to harbor the irrational bias in the first place; it’s a legacy I really don’t need!
It’s a weird one. My parents were very right-on, ra-ra, anti-racism, pro-equality, except for Afrikaners and Netherlanders. I have no idea why. And now my Mum is driving me totally crazy, because her best friend is Jewish and that seems to have turned my hippy mama into a raving anti-semite. No, that doesn’t make any sense at all. Yes, I do call her on it all the time.