The Future of Race
"I hate niggers," said my ten year old son, forking up potatoes.
"You can’t hate black people," I told him, "your skin is the same color."
Although my wife and I are medium-tone white, all our children are adopted and have dark skin. Sure enough, they have had to endure all the bad words coined for others over the years, coming from the mouths of hostile strangers...and even friends, temporarily in the throes of spite. Truth is: in America, if you are not white, you are black.
My son proceeded thoughtfully with his dinner. After a bit he returned to what was an important topic to him.
"Well, I hate Pollacks." "You can’t hate Polish people," I said, flipping wildly through the jumble of un-thought-out beliefs which compose my mental processes– even more so at dinner time. "Aunt Helen is Polish," it came to me.
My father’s Welsh ancestors married into his German ancestors after both had left their homelands. My mother’s people all spoke the same dialect of Italian and looked upon the other Italians as true foreigners. My extended kin also includes Pennsylvania Dutch, Czech, Greek, Mexican, dot-Indian, Irish, Russian Jew, Philippino and DAR colonial. It is true, "No man is an island..." as John Donne observed. A jungle in a swamp may be the appropriate image. No typhoon or hurricane occurs anywhere that we do not have to worry about. Most wars find our ethnic affiliates involved on at least one side, sometimes both.
They tell me Grandmom cried bitterly at the wedding of her eldest daughter to a Jew from Kiev. What was so upsetting to her was not that the intended was Jewish– who knew from Jewish? He was not Italian, that was the problem! She carried on until great grandmother, her mother, took charge of the situation. Mammone had come over in the hold of a ship, hardly glimpsing the sea. She was an enduring figure, without the limits of false aspirations. "It’s a wedding," she hissed authoritatively at her daughter, "not a funeral."
My boy puzzled over the situation. Something seemed wrong to him. He did not really hate African-Americans, because in the rural Pennsylvanian setting in which we lived at that time, he did not know any. He was actually surprised to learn that Pollacks were people identified as of at least partial Polish extraction. He had been adopted from abroad about a year before, and he was trying to find out what we believed, so he could get on the band wagon. He was just trying to be agreeable– nice.
"Who do we hate?" he asked, stumped. It was a good question. He was a good kid– still is. He would have been glad to hate any kid of people we wanted. He needed to know who "we" were and who were our enemies.
"We don’t hate anybody," I told him, glibly. I hesitated, knowing my kid would see through such an easy generality, as he got to know me better. I added a caveat: "There are some people who are pretty nasty, and we may not like them, as individuals. But as a group, we do not hate any whole type of people."
"Okay!" he said. Relieved, if a little puzzled, he stabbed a potato. "I hate mushrooms."
"You can’t hate mushrooms," my wife exclaimed. "We had them for dinner on Tuesday."
He glared at his plate. "I hate these mushrooms," he said.
"You can’t hate black people," I told him, "your skin is the same color."
Although my wife and I are medium-tone white, all our children are adopted and have dark skin. Sure enough, they have had to endure all the bad words coined for others over the years, coming from the mouths of hostile strangers...and even friends, temporarily in the throes of spite. Truth is: in America, if you are not white, you are black.
My son proceeded thoughtfully with his dinner. After a bit he returned to what was an important topic to him.
"Well, I hate Pollacks." "You can’t hate Polish people," I said, flipping wildly through the jumble of un-thought-out beliefs which compose my mental processes– even more so at dinner time. "Aunt Helen is Polish," it came to me.
My father’s Welsh ancestors married into his German ancestors after both had left their homelands. My mother’s people all spoke the same dialect of Italian and looked upon the other Italians as true foreigners. My extended kin also includes Pennsylvania Dutch, Czech, Greek, Mexican, dot-Indian, Irish, Russian Jew, Philippino and DAR colonial. It is true, "No man is an island..." as John Donne observed. A jungle in a swamp may be the appropriate image. No typhoon or hurricane occurs anywhere that we do not have to worry about. Most wars find our ethnic affiliates involved on at least one side, sometimes both.
They tell me Grandmom cried bitterly at the wedding of her eldest daughter to a Jew from Kiev. What was so upsetting to her was not that the intended was Jewish– who knew from Jewish? He was not Italian, that was the problem! She carried on until great grandmother, her mother, took charge of the situation. Mammone had come over in the hold of a ship, hardly glimpsing the sea. She was an enduring figure, without the limits of false aspirations. "It’s a wedding," she hissed authoritatively at her daughter, "not a funeral."
My boy puzzled over the situation. Something seemed wrong to him. He did not really hate African-Americans, because in the rural Pennsylvanian setting in which we lived at that time, he did not know any. He was actually surprised to learn that Pollacks were people identified as of at least partial Polish extraction. He had been adopted from abroad about a year before, and he was trying to find out what we believed, so he could get on the band wagon. He was just trying to be agreeable– nice.
"Who do we hate?" he asked, stumped. It was a good question. He was a good kid– still is. He would have been glad to hate any kid of people we wanted. He needed to know who "we" were and who were our enemies.
"We don’t hate anybody," I told him, glibly. I hesitated, knowing my kid would see through such an easy generality, as he got to know me better. I added a caveat: "There are some people who are pretty nasty, and we may not like them, as individuals. But as a group, we do not hate any whole type of people."
"Okay!" he said. Relieved, if a little puzzled, he stabbed a potato. "I hate mushrooms."
"You can’t hate mushrooms," my wife exclaimed. "We had them for dinner on Tuesday."
He glared at his plate. "I hate these mushrooms," he said.