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Edited on Fri Dec-24-04 12:27 PM by neebob
because a substantial portion of the population - I don't believe half, but maybe a third - is completely brainwashed and incapable of seeing, in my opinion, considering some of the things they believe. Plus I think that in order to really understand that other people are not so different and scary, you have to get out and meet and interact with them. Most of the people whose beliefs cause the problem never get that opportunity.
Take my mother, for example. Last night I was complaining to my her that my ex-husband had written a racial slur in my work email, which the network admin is not shy about reading. We were going back and forth about my adding our 15-year-old son and a vehicle his dad is planning to give him to my insurance. My ex mentioned that he still had this policy that I'd bought in 1980-whenever from an Allstate agent named Nguyen, and then felt compelled to remind me that's "the gooky guy" I bought the policy from. He is so uncool.
Well, you'd think I'd have learned by now, but my mom and I have been managing pleasant conversations for like a whole month and I was just keeping it going. She played dumb, forcing me to explain why this is problem when I'm convinced she knows. It's a tactic that she uses to insert opinions for which she expects disapproval. Then she can claim she doesn't understand my position and play the victim if it starts an argument.
"Oh, are you trying to be correct?" she said. "Politically correct?" Then she set about defending my ex because it's a generational thing and - get this - he was born during the Korean war. Yeah, he was born in 1952. Then she went on to say that my dad had called all the Southeast Asians who came to America after the Vietnam war the Viet Cong.
Well, all righty then.
My mom's never going to change her mind.
Oh, and she's tired of being politically correct. Somehow I managed to resist the urge to ask her when she had tried it.
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