Seeds

Thinking about the Martin Luther King Memorial finally being dedicated in DC soon.

Makes me also think about how I grew up in racism.

Black folks weren't openly condemned as, you know, bad; just, questionable.

Living many years with my grandparents, I heard from my grandfather every ugly descriptor one can utter about black folks.  

I won't repeat them here. 

I remember once my Grandma described a woman from church - She was 'a Nice Lady, you know, for being Colored.'

At the time I lived with my grandparents, maybe 3rd grade or so.  I had no bedroom so I slept on the couch and I had a radio, a teddy, and a box of 64 Crayolas (the one with the sharpener!).  

All I remember thinking was, Someone COLORED her? 

When I was in junior high in the late 70s I went to several dances sponsored by the CYO (Catholic Youth Organization).  That was fine with my dad until he realized the venue was in 'That side of town.'  Then he laid down the law, saying he'd spent his life getting away from .... 'that and those people'. 

Poverty?  Black people?  His own neglected, chronically hungry, beaten childhood?  I still don't know.  The one and only night he picked me up from a CYO dance, he saw who else attended and I was forbidden to go to another (not that I didn't sneak out and go anyway - that goes without saying).

In high school in the 80s, one of our cheerleaders, Edie, was very much in love with Terence, star receiver.  And he her.  It was an open secret they were involved, and when I could I'd pick them up in my old '70 Monte Carlo.  They in the back seat, me driving from Po-Dunk to the Coast.  We'd go as far as a tank of gas could take us.  We'd smoke, drink, listen to the crash of the waves, and then head back to Po-Dunk.

..........

Before I wrote this I looked up a few blogs (most out of California) to see what the Young People were saying. 

One that stood out was a wonk in their twenties, who opened a post with, "I never thought I'd live to see the day that..."

Really?  I'm sure this is a well-educated young person but s/he's been on the planet roughly two decades.  The first hardly cognizant.  Half of said life was pre-pubescent.  

Note to Young Bloggers:  Don't use a phrase like "I never thought I'd see the day" unless you've actually seen something, like, during your own lifetime.  Because if you are already chagrined at 24, the next fifty years are going to really suck for you.  To put it nicely, using such phrases undermines your credibility.  Assuming you have any beyond your diploma.

Racism is deeply woven, and often only recognized when chosen - and when open enough - to be seen.  

As is misogyny.

I try hard to be better than the person I was raised to be.  Not everyone even recognizes the racism they live with, or live by.

I want to be beyond those fifteen, twenty years of hate and judgment.  And I'm a well-educated, open, loving person, at least I like to think so.

I hope the twenty-something ivy-leagues of this affluent world, who have a policy-wonk voice, can recognize not everyone has been handed what they have been handed.

So Yay you, Privileged, Judgmental Children People.

The rest of us had to do it the hard way.

And get off my lawn!