In response to someone from the email.....Yes! Ever since the iron infusion my urine HAS been a happy-go-lucky sunny yellow instead of a dull, drab color! Thanks for asking!
They finally caught the dude that shot the Atlanta judge. Is this the new fad or something? How dare those judges come down on criminal activity! Its so unfair. *rolls eyes* Let's hope this is one fad that gets squashed before it catches on.
Over at Christina's blog http://www.wherepigsfly.blogspot.com/ , she has been dealing with some kind of racism issue that she can't give specifics on but whatever happened has her very upset. It got me to thinking about racism and the incidents I've come across in the years of my life. There's two in particular I'd like to share with you.
My dad always got up early, like 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning. I don't know what his problem was, but he'd always get up early like that to go get a newspaper or whatever it was he did. Well, one weekend morning when I was about 14 he comes in and drags me out of bed like at 6:00 in the morning (on a WEEKEND!) and I'm like, "oh my God, why, WHY?" We had to go somewhere and buy cans of black spray paint because during the night someone had come into our neighborhood and painted "GO HOME [N-Word]!" really big on the road in front of our new neighbor's home, who just happened to be black in our all-white neighborhood. I'm like "Dad, I didn't do it, why do I have to get up early and clean it up?" but he wasn't hearing any of it. We got out there in the road and spray painted over every bit of it with black paint. Then we had to go up to the people's door, explain what had happened (because THEY weren't even up yet) and that not everyone in the neighborhood felt that way. Well, I was rolling my eyes and mad as hell and totally NOT CARING, but looking back on it I swell up with pride that my Dad was so good inside and that he made me be good inside until I could care enough to be good inside on my own.
The next story I'm not nearly so proud of. I was a grown gal when this happened, which makes it even worse. Up the street from here (different neighborhood) one of our neighbor's house caught on fire, who just happened to be black in our nearly all-white neighborhood. We don't see too many fires in these here parts, so Sparkle and I and everyone else for a mile around went up there to rubberneck. It was really burning and our poor neighbors were all to pieces. They'd been cooking and something got out of control and POOF! But the good news was that everyone was out safe and they had insurance and stuff. Everything was going to be okay. The fire department got things under control and Sparkle and I (she was just a little thing then) decided to head back home.
We're walking back and a sweet little old lady, like 85 years old, like my GRANDMOTHER'S AGE, pulls over and gently asks me what happened. I told her the tale and that everything was okay. She looks over at the house for a second and then says, really sweetly, "well I guess it don't matter much anyway, don't nothing but a bunch of [n-word]s live over there no how."
People, you could have knocked me over with a feather! I think I went into shock....I absolutely could not believe those nasty-ass words came out of that sweet little old lady's mouth. The first thing I did was look to make sure Sparkle wasn't listening and she wasn't. I looked back at her and she was just smiling at me. I'm sure I probably had the damnedest look on my face. I remember feeling outraged and like I was going to cry all at the same time. And God help me, I didn't know what to say to the woman. I was like "Okay, gotta go now, buh-bye!"
And its torn at my soul ever since. I should have called that old woman out, somehow I should have found a way. It shouldn't have mattered how old she was....I should have let her know her manners and her point of view were unforgivable. How dare she assume she could say something like that me, just because I'm white? But then another part of me says....I was probably right to just let it go....the woman was old as hell (and surely dead by now), that's the way she grew up thinking and no dressing down from me was going to change it. I STILL don't know what would have been the right way to handle the situation and it will probably gnaw at me till the day I'm dead and gone.
So there you go. Not nearly as dramatic as I am sure others have faced, but still Racism in its purest forms. If you have a racist story, tell it on your blog and be sure to let me know.
