[Empty_Nest]

We cut off contact with my brother due to his racist outlooks. We also cut off contact with the guy who was best man at our wedding when, years later, he got engaged to a major-league racist. No way in hell were we going to allow ANYONE to come into OUR HOUSE and refer to our kids to their faces as 'niggers, darkies, and chinks.' Excuse me, there's the door, use it and don't even think about coming back. And then our 'friend' had the nerve to tell me later I had to 'make allowances for her because she had a very religious upbringing.' HUH? Where? In the Klan? That was the last conversation I ever had with him, because we felt like he had to be a closet racist himself to approach me with that kind of attitude. He and my husband had been friends since the first grade.

Over the years, the strategy I developed was to engage the ignorant if they were speaking directly to me or if what they said or did somehow directly affected my family. The rest, I either ignored or, if my kids witnessed it, used it as an opportunity to educate my kids about racism and ignorance. I recognize I cannot change the world, and my energy isn't unlimited. I needed to pick my battles. So I fought the teacher who said my Korean daughter should be good at math 'because all THOSE KIDS are', the school nurse who told me when our Asian kids got head lice that 'those kids are more susceptible to it', the special ed teacher who told me, in a district that was 40% minority, that she wasn't surprised my black child had trouble learning because 'that's his heritage', and all the other idiots who needed a good slap upside the head. I can't remember a case like that I didn't win, either.

When we lived in another state, it always made me really mad to be called a ****** lover, but OTOH, at least I knew who the enemy was. Living in a more liberal state, we found the prejudices much more subtle. I recall one retail store in our old metro neighborhood where I could walk in alone and write a check with no problem, usually didn't even have to show ID. If I had one of our black kids with me, I had to show several forms of ID, a note from my mother, give a pint of blood, and produce a notorized document from my bank proving I had money. Okay, it wasn't quite that bad, but you get the idea. I guess that's because all fat white women with black kids must be on welfare and have a history of kiting checks, right? It was frustrating, but since a store has a right to verify a check as best they can, there was no way to prove racism even though it was obvious.

What irritates me about myself is when someone says something subtle to me and I don't figure out till days later it was a slam. Or I recognize it's a slam immediately but my mind goes blank and I can't think of an appropriate snotty comeback.

I feel no need to be polite to people who have just been rude to me. I used to love it when people asked me 'Can't you have kids of your own?' First, I'd inform them my adopted kids were my own. Then I'd just look the person in the eye and tell them I would never presume to ask them the condition of their reproductive organs, enjoy the look on their face for a few seconds until it sank in I had really said that, and then walk away. Too funny!

I could usually tell when people had a sincere interest in learning about trans-racial adoption or whatever but didn't know the right words to use. I was never rude in such cases, but did my best to answer honestly and use the opportunity to teach someone proper terminology along the way.