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Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Nurse Kelley Sez: It Wasn’t Supposed To Be Like This

My maternal grandfather (1889-1966) was a racist. You won’t read that in his obituary, of course; they only talked about his “noted and controversial” legal career and the fact that he was a Big Cheese in the Roman Catholic laity, honored by two popes. I have the actual cutting from The Houston Chronicle in front of me, still in good condition, so I know there is no mention of his activities with the John Birch Society, his clandestine support of the KKK, or his nightly dinner table diatribes about “those Colored people.” I’m sure he thought his three daughters were thoroughly and safely indoctrinated.

One of those daughters, my mother, went to Rice Institute at the age of fifteen and fell in love with an engineering student from Colorado. Daddy was also the liberal son of liberal, activist parents, and by the time they were married, they were making monthly contributions to the NAACP.

My earliest memories of the Civil Rights protests are not bad ones. When I pulled my head out of my childhood ass and asked questions about what I was seeing on TV, my parents reassured me. They were part-time activists in Texas, fighting to get the hated Poll Tax revoked, registering voters, and monitoring what went on at the polls for the League of Women Voters. “Don’t worry about it,” they told me. “We’re going to make sure things change.” I was proud of them, and proud of the accomplishments of JFK and LBJ.

In January, 1977, I adopted a beautiful baby boy. He was a biracial infant (literally Black Irish) and I was a single white woman. The only thing considered remarkable about the adoption was the fact that this was the first time a single parent was allowed to adopt a baby in Harris County, TX. When someone asked me if I worried about racism I, in a moment of appalling ignorance, said no. “It’s just a matter of time,” I said. “We got the laws changed; hearts and minds will follow.”

Well. Of course it wasn’t long before the crap started. My co-workers decided there was no need to have a baby shower for “that” baby. I ended up buying a gun when I received anonymous threats on his life. Certain white people would see me with him in stores and I could tell their minds made the jump from a pretty brown baby to the mother in bed with a Black man. I later learned that my oldest friend, who often went with me to the grocery store, would sometimes follow those staring, judgmental racists and, when I was out of sight, demand, “Just what the hell do you think you’re staring at?!”

Fortunately, everyone who took the time to get to know Michael fell in love with him. Certain family members who had been using the N-word behind closed doors began calling and asking me to bring him to their homes. I kept him in the same racially diverse neighborhood for most of his childhood, attending schools with children of many racial and cultural backgrounds. Not all hearts and minds may have changed, but we chose to live our lives with people who saw sweetness, not color.

My son grew up, got his degree, and married his college sweetheart, a young woman whose parents came from the Philippines. Their bloodlines produced a breathtakingly beautiful son six years ago, and they continue to live productive lives in their community in North Texas.

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That photo, taken last Christmas, doesn’t include the most recent addition to our family. A second son was born in June:

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When I was raising my son in the last quarter of the twentieth century, racism went underground. Even in Texas it was politically incorrect to express racist thoughts and use racial epithets, and anyone stupid enough to put voice to evil thoughts quickly learned that they would never get a second chance with me or mine. But in this century, two things happened: social media was born, and Barack Obama was elected President of the United States. Racists were inflamed, and they could both hide behind screen names and congregate in like-minded groups.

I thought I was doing okay, all things considered. The hatred, the Second Amendment bullshit, the crazy militias, the slaughtering of schoolchildren, the rise of the Tea Party, even the killings of black sons like Trayvon Martin … I thought I was surviving it. I have the same fears for my grandsons that I had for my son, but he and his wife keep them close and safe … at least for now. But I’m NOT surviving it; over the course of the last week I have begun to fall apart.

Maybe it’s the new baby. In any event, the knowledge that there are – what? – hundreds of thousands of people in this country who hate my precious family because their skins are darker than mine has hit me in a visceral way that is literally making me sick. We can keep the babies safe … or die trying … but how do we change the world for them?  


24 comments

  1. Nurse Kelley

    It’s not a rant; I’m not feeling anger today. It was written in a moment of despair on a day when I fear this country is going to go up in flames. Time for a dirge.

  2. I don’t know how we change the world. My family is a mix of brown and white people. I’ve had my grandson told to go back to Mexico. People can be awful and it’s scary.  

  3. I am sorry this did not happen yet:

    “It’s just a matter of time,” I said. “We got the laws changed; hearts and minds will follow.”

    I believe it will. The election of our first black president stirred up a lot of racial hatred. But now those who refuse to accept the humanity of those who are Not Like Them have been exposed. And guess what? It turns out that they are a dying breed, Nurse Kelley, and your son and grandsons … and my daughter … will outlast them.

  4. 1864 House

    is this is the last desperate gasp of racism, exacerbated by the election of a Black president. I know it won’t ever go away, but maybe some people will have a change of heart.

  5. princesspat

    He couldn’t sleep the other night, and as we talked and I comforted and soothed him my heart was so heavy thinking of all the parents and grandparents who cannot keep their loved ones safe.

    Thanks for sharing your grief Kelley. I’m trying to make sure I feel at least a moment of joy every day…gotta counter the fear as best I can.

  6. Persiflage

    against women, people of color, or some innocent animal.  Then I read the paper and it’s full of the very things I loathe.   I’m pretty sure half the people in this country are insane.  Yet, every day someone does something to give me hope.  So, I guess I’m on the edge…as are many others…hoping for sanity, the birth of an age of compassion, tolerance and fairness, while also fearing that it won’t happen.

    I believe the Republican Party is primarily responsible for the fear and hate mongering and the vast inquality in this country.  Some Democrats are certainly complicit.  The second largest factor, my opinion, is organized religion.  That’s another story.  

    So, we’ll soon see if enough people have had enough or if the GOP will take the Senate.  If that happens, I predict anarchy within a few years.  The violence in Ferguson will be replayed ten-fold.  It’s a toss-up.      

       

  7. Otteray Scribe

    Here is a poem by (then) 18-year-old Malcolm London. He was a senior at Lincoln Park High School in Chicago when he made this video two years ago.  Since then he has appeared on TED Talks, has won awards, and continues to write poetry which has been compared with other Chicago writers like Carl Sandberg and Gil-Scott Heron.  

    This is called “High School Training Ground.”

    I would embed, but get HTML error message. Here is the short link:

    http://youtu.be/rB_4Sbt0pRU

  8. Ebby

    The young people I work with give me hope for the future. But I know that doesn’t answer the question of what to do now, today, for all the children and families who should feel secure and safe in their communities and don’t. The hatred is so ugly I think it ultimately consumes itself, but in the meantime it’s a real threat to those who have done nothing to deserve it. I don’t know the answer to that but I have my arms around you today.

  9. DeniseVelez

    wish I had easy answers for you.  Racism in this country isn’t going away fast enough for any of us who live with it.

    The only solution is that one person at a time, one family at a time, one voter at a time we press forward – whether or not we live to see its demise.

  10. bfitzinAR

    lily-white family are/were racist but they were non-violent.  They are/were firm in the belief that whyte folks are “better” than black folks but equally firm in the belief that black folks should have food, clothing, shelter, and even education – just not as high a quality.  More of a class-based-on-race racism.  My mother was the only one did what she could in Civil Rights – Woolworth lunch counter sit ins, sitting with black folks in public areas, greeting the 1st black family in the neighborhood we lived in (making a deal with the mother not to believe what “the kids” said about each other, but talking to each other over kid problems) and many more individual and “random acts of kindness”.

    The closest I can come to the kinds of concerns you are having was when – well, I’m awfully identifiable online, so lets just say someone I know who is a white male spent 3 months in an AR prison (selling pot to cancer victims), most of it in solitary because he was a dfh.  I know that’s not very close, since had he been black he might not have survived at all and would in all probability still be there.  I know my momma thought what your folks thought – get the laws changed and the hearts and minds would follow.  I did too for many years.  Now not so much.  But I hold you and your family “in The Light” and hope it gives them some protection.

  11. Diana in NoVa

    My heart goes out to you. Sometimes I worry about two of my grandchildren, who are half-Chinese. We live in a culturally diverse area (metro Washington, DC) so people are used to seeing Asians, and perhaps will refrain from making remarks. I hope no one tries to make fun of my beautiful little granddaughter, who will start kindergarten soon. To me she is a never-ending miracle, the prettiest little girl in Virginia.

    Race prejudice is sickening. How can people who profess to be “religious” hate people with dark skin? What color do they think Jesus was?

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