Embracing the Melting Pot

Often times when I sit down to write, I try to think of something funny to share, but sometimes I have serious matters gnawing away at me and it's at those times that I feel compelled to share what's on my mind.

It's not all Craig Ferguson, granny panties and boob sweat, not all the time anyway.

I woke up this morning from a strange dream, which, if you've been around here for any length of time, you know that in itself is nothing unusual. I don't remember most of it, just one small part. In this dream I was looking down at a piece of paper with a list of my daughter's teachers. Somehow I knew, I guess from the names, that one of them was Jewish. It was then that I set out, scouring the list of available instructors which taught the same class, to find one that wasn't Jewish, while rambling on trying to justify my decision to her.

The dream disturbed me, because this is NOT something I would do nor would it even occur to me that someone would even consider doing anything like this in this day and age. I have no clue what brought this on.

Fast forward a few hours, I found myself reading an article on MSNBC about new findings regarding one of the Portuguese ships that brought slaves to the colonies. A little later, me and the Amazon were watching Naomi Judd's talk show on the Hallmark channel. One of the guests, was born to a white mother and a black father back in the fifties. Her mother had sent her to live with a black family when she was very young, her father having been gone since shortly after her birth, and no one would allow the mother to rent an apartment as long as her daughter was with her. Her mother kept contact with the child and when she remarried, would bring her out to California for visits in the summer. They told the neighbors that the child was adopted.

Can you imagine growing up that way?

Later during the story, there's an interview where the daughter asks why, if it was going to be such a hardship, hadn't she aborted her. The mother's reply, "I didn't have that kind of money. You're here because I was too poor to do anything else."

After that, I flipped through the channels and saw that the HBO documentary about the Paperclip Project was on. Basically, it's about a group of students in Tennessee who, while studying the Holocaust, began the Paperclip Project in remembrance of the Jews, Gypsies and other groups who were brutually tortured and executed during that time. I wrote about this documentary before on my old blog and it was also posted on Dew on the Kudzu. I'll leave you to seek it out if you want to read more.

I thought it was at the very least, a huge coincidence that this documentary was on after I'd had that dream last night. I thought a lot about prejudice, race, religion and politics. I felt discouraged that these things are still such huge issues in our world today.

I grew up in what can be described as a culturally diverse neighborhood. I suppose, because it was a Navy town and people were always moving in from all over the world, that I never developed the preconceived notions about other ethnic groups. Ma was instrumental in that as well, she used to say, "We're all just people, assholes and angels come in every color."

Ma can be pretty profound sometimes.

My father, the festering boil on the left butt cheek of humanity, was a huge biggot. He tossed the "n" word around like it was nothing, along with all the other racially specific terms of hatred. There was only one way in which he didn't discriminate, he hated all those who weren't "white" equally.

That's okay, someday he'll have to answer for that. He's not my problem anymore. I did get a great deal of statisfaction when finding my Melungeon blood (a racially mixed goup of mountain people) on HIS side of the family. A part of me wants to call him up just to tell him how white he ISN'T.

At the private schools I attened, I had teachers who were Italian and Indonesian, my and Ma's family physician was Greek (Pop wouldn't go to him, he wasn't white enough), the store where Ma was the office manager for twenty some odd years was located downtown and employed mostly African Americans. These were the adults I looked up to, the family friends, the people who's love and kindness would shape my views of the world into adulthood.

When you consider these things, you get an idea of why I feel so uncomfortable here in Frog Pond Holler at times. It's one culture, practically one family. Everyone has known everyone else all their lives. People meet you on the street and although they may not know your name, they know who's neice you are, who your grandmother was. There's nothing wrong with that, and those who have grown up here are content, it's all they've ever known.

I miss diversity.

At first, I did feel a bit discouraged when considering the state of race in our world. But after some consideration, and although admitting we've still got a long way to go, a look back at history gives me peace of mind in knowing that we've also come a long way.

Baby steps.