Reply #109: I have about 2 people to thank for my attitudes on racism... [View All]

[Solon]

my parents. OK, let me put it this way, my parents are rather progressive in many ways(Mom's a firebrand Feminist and Socialist!). Anyways, let's see if I can explain, OK, the first time I heard the word "nigger" was in the movie "Roots", which, as a child, I was "forced" to watch(Mom's educational period). Actually, that is probably inaccurate, I probably heard the word in school first, but without any real context, I didn't understand what it meant, and I was close to 10 at the time! Anyways, after I watched Roots, I understood the context, and was frankly repulsed by the meaning of the word. All my Mom said was that it was an ugly word that bad people use against blacks for no good reason.

OK, here's a little more context into my life, my Grandmother wrote integration legislation(A matter of pride for the family) for University City, Missouri back in the 1960s or so. Not to mention that my Grandparents didn't participate in "White Flight", and when I spent the night at their house I don't remember any of their neighbors who were white. Given this history, when my Grandmother was AGAIN bugging me about getting married, I thought I'd ruffle her feathers when I talked about a woman I dated(went away for college, it sucks), who happened to have been of Japanese/African American descent, I even mentioned she was Buddhist(Grandma's a STRONG Catholic). My Grandma's only response was that she always wanted to be in a Traditional Japanese wedding! Considering the woman I was dating said the EXACT same thing on our first date, that sort of freaked me out in a deja vu sort of way! :)

Hopefully she will be back in September, though I thought her trying to cram 2 years of college into 1 is crazy, but knock on wood. :)