[Nalyd_loved_forever]

My son is hispanic. I do not care is he was red, green, and yellow with speckles, I would love him. But I am from an area of Georgia where there is a large hispanic population, and too many of the folks aound here are prejudice. Unfortunately, members of my extended family seem to be the worst.

My grandmother harps on the fact of the color of my son's skin. She constantly wonders if he is going to be really dark, like all "them Mexicans that work in the field".

Her husband, my step-grandfather, asked how would we ever understand each other, because my son would speak "Mexican". At the time my son was two months old. Luckily my Father was sitting right beside me and piped up before I could. It ended up being hillarious. He said "Isn't a cry, a cry. I am pretty sure a hispanic baby's cry sounds just like any caucasion child's cry." Then he looked at me sideways and said "Besides Leonard, you didn't come out of the womb talking. He'll speak whatever language they chose to teach him."

Then my uncle, who is a lawyer and who we asked to help us with the adoption totally floored me. When we first learned of our son, I called him with the details, asking if he would be our lawyer. He delayed until we thought we would loose our son. Then he asked me "Are you sure you want to do this? I mean really? How are you going to feel about him later? How is your mom and dad going to feel about him when they look at him? He's going to be dark just like a little indian." He also obsessed on the fact that I am in an area where there is an abundance of migrant workers and that my son could be confused as "one of them".

Needless to say that is and probably will be the last conversation I will ever have with my uncle. Yes, I understand him wanting to make sure that I really wanted to do this. He is family after all. But when I called him I was sure. If I wasn't I would never have contacted him. Now my grandparents, I try to pass off their behavior as old age, but I know it isn't. I just expected so much more out of all of them.

It's ignorance and racism at it's finest and personally I am ashamed to have them as member's of MY family. I am looking forward to educating them and if I can't educate them, well then I just won't invite them over.