Being that I am white, and have always lived in predominently white areas, I have never been personally subjected to or suffered from racism. My intimate circle of family and friends includes people of all shapes, sizes, colour, nationalities, relgions, sexual orientations and physical abilites.
My problem is this:
We are really good friends with our neighbours, Ted and Diane, whom we have know for the last 6 years. They are our parents age, and have kids our age, but we have really clicked. We get together every couple of weeks for dinner, they drive me to work every morning, we help each other out with yard work and snow shoveling and the are some of the ONLY people that we will leave Liam with. Liam
LOVES them to pieces. He runs to the window every time he hears their car so that he can wave to them, will take my hand and get me to take him across the street to visit with them and he has to give them hugs and kisses every night before we can go in from playing.
but...
While we were driving to work today we were discussing a local news article about a robbery. I commented on the accused's last name, as it is an unusual name and I work with a woman with the same name so I was wondering if they were related. Ted spoke up saying "I wasn't surprised to see the name, after all it's a
"FOREIGNER'S" name, and you know what
"THOSE PEOPLE" are like. !!
I was speechless......
I don't want Liam hearing comments like that! While I realize that I can't protect him from everythign forever, I never dreamed that I would hear them from someone that we love and respect.
Should I have said something to them? Had Liam been with us, should I have said something to him? How do you deal with this????