Friday, March 21, 2008
Remembering Grandma Niga
Something occurred to me this morning. Barack's grandmother and my grandmother may well be the same person. On second thought, that can't be because my grandmother passed away 17 years ago. But I'm sure they were twins separated at birth.
My grandmother, of blessed memory, may well have been the sweetest woman I ever encountered in my entire life. She was smart, accomplished, very religious and an undying Detroit Tigers fan. I heard her argue with my grandfather all of one time, and that was when she was suffering from amazingly painful hemorrhoids.
I also never saw her treat anyone with anything but respect and Christian love. When she knew I was about to visit, she would whip up a batch of apple sauce/date nut cookies just for me to devour (and I would never disappoint her on that question). She went out of her way on a daily basis for others. She took great care of my grandfather, even when he was given 6 months to live (which he beat by 30 years).
But her one flaw was her distrust of black people. It wasn't that she was racist, but she was scared of them for no good reason. I will never forget the conversation she and I had over the phone when I told her that I was getting an apartment with my then next-door neighbor.
I had told her that he was a black man who was a few years older than me at the time we had met. But he was a generally nice guy, I told her, and I thought he'd make a good roommate.
She then shocked me by saying "Now Kevin, remember to watch your stuff if you are going to live with him. Blacks are known to take things which do not belong to them."
I sat in my apartment, stunned to have heard such words from my grandmother. My grandmother had just made a inane and bigoted generalization about blacks which had, from what I could tell, no basis in factual data. My world was completely shaken for about 5 minutes.
And then I thought about it after I told her I loved her and got off the phone. My grandmother's generation had watched the Detroit riots of 1968. The racism and segregation of the north was in many ways more ugly than that of the deep south. Although polite, it was still there and the undercurrent was unmistakable.
So when Barack Obama spoke this week of his grandmother, it just rang so true for me. It made me remember her, both her good points which were too numerous to count and her bad points which really did not diminish the person she was.
Thank you Barack, for speaking of the truth of all of us. None of us are perfect. We all have our failings. But we must work each day to be better, to do better.
My grandmother, of blessed memory, may well have been the sweetest woman I ever encountered in my entire life. She was smart, accomplished, very religious and an undying Detroit Tigers fan. I heard her argue with my grandfather all of one time, and that was when she was suffering from amazingly painful hemorrhoids.
I also never saw her treat anyone with anything but respect and Christian love. When she knew I was about to visit, she would whip up a batch of apple sauce/date nut cookies just for me to devour (and I would never disappoint her on that question). She went out of her way on a daily basis for others. She took great care of my grandfather, even when he was given 6 months to live (which he beat by 30 years).
But her one flaw was her distrust of black people. It wasn't that she was racist, but she was scared of them for no good reason. I will never forget the conversation she and I had over the phone when I told her that I was getting an apartment with my then next-door neighbor.
I had told her that he was a black man who was a few years older than me at the time we had met. But he was a generally nice guy, I told her, and I thought he'd make a good roommate.
She then shocked me by saying "Now Kevin, remember to watch your stuff if you are going to live with him. Blacks are known to take things which do not belong to them."
I sat in my apartment, stunned to have heard such words from my grandmother. My grandmother had just made a inane and bigoted generalization about blacks which had, from what I could tell, no basis in factual data. My world was completely shaken for about 5 minutes.
And then I thought about it after I told her I loved her and got off the phone. My grandmother's generation had watched the Detroit riots of 1968. The racism and segregation of the north was in many ways more ugly than that of the deep south. Although polite, it was still there and the undercurrent was unmistakable.
So when Barack Obama spoke this week of his grandmother, it just rang so true for me. It made me remember her, both her good points which were too numerous to count and her bad points which really did not diminish the person she was.
Thank you Barack, for speaking of the truth of all of us. None of us are perfect. We all have our failings. But we must work each day to be better, to do better.
# posted by Kevin @ 12:20 PM 
