All About Me in 28 Days–Day 10

Today’s assignment was to show a photo of something you hate.   This isn’t a personal photo, but it is a pretty good representation of what I was thinking of.

Maybe it seems kind of odd that this Southern white chick would think of this at all, but it really is a subject that burns me up!  I am NOT your typical Southern white chick.  Yes, I have lived in Georgia all of my life, but I wasn’t raised Southern, if that makes sense.  My parents (dare I say it) Yankees who relocated to Georgia.  Dad was stationed in Brunswick, Georgia in the Navy when I was born.  The family joke is that I am bi-lingual.  I can speak slowly to Southerners and understand Yankee speak (at full speed) as well.

I didn’t grow up understanding the racial tensions that others seemed to sense all around us.  I even lived under curfew when I was in High School because of the missing and murdered victims of Wayne Williams (I don’t know if he did it, but he was convicted).  Members of the KKK lived down the road from us, but my parents were not impressed by hatred hidden by any agenda.

As a Christian, I am constantly amazed that others who call themselves Christians don’t remember that Christ was (is) not a respecter of persons.  It is immoral to treat others differently due to the color of their skin.  Good grief, it seems so simple, but it keeps coming up.

Not to mention that I have reasons to take this insidious form of hatred a bit personally.  My husband is part Mexican (his mom was a naturalized citizen–don’t go there).  He has beautiful olive skin and jet black hair.  I have had police officers stop and ask if I was with him by choice (as if I was kidnapped, I suppose?).  For real?

My youngest son looks just like his daddy.  He is gorgeous, but he looks nothing like me.  My oldest son is adopted and ironically, looks like my side of the family.  People think nothing of asking, “which one is yours?”  They are both mine!  That is almost as much fun as when people ask me (as to which child is the adopted one) which one is REAL.  They are both boys–both really boys.  Sheesh!

When I was 28 years old, my parents adopted a 6 year old boy.  He was being adopted by another family, but they later decided that they didn’t “want” him after being offered a baby to adopt.  My mom was his Sunday school teacher and my parents were outraged that anyone could possibly tell a child that they were “unwanted.”

I currently have a 22 year old, bi-racial brother.  If you are naive enough to think that racism isn’t endemic in the deep South (and probably elsewhere as well), watch how these children of mixed race are (mis)treated by both Blacks and Whites alike.  I have seen my mother be treated like gutter scum because she was with my brother and people made assumptions.  When my father walked up (he came from work straight to the ball fields), everyone’s attitude changed dramatically.

Both my brother and I have been raised to believe that all people are equal, created by God.  We were fortunate to have parents who showed us that we have nothing to fear from someone’s skin color, nationality, etc.  The only thing we really have to fear from humanity is EVIL and STUPID.  And there is enough of those two traits around to keep us busy without looking for reasons to be judgmental.