The sweet white haired grandma stood in the kitchen. She was baking some cornbread and had the radio on singing along with the Statler Brothers. She was happy. The sun was shining through the sunroom and she was planning on having a big family meal later on. She was washing up the good china when her son walked in and said, "Mom, I have a problem. There is a stain on my hood." The music continued to play as she walked to the bathroom and shut the door.
After dinner was over that night her husband pulled her aside and said, " Hey, honey. Brent got a little too close to the fire tonight. See what you can do about patching up his robe. Okay?" He then kissed her on the forehead and walked back to the front porch where his son and a few of the grandkids were playing guitars and singing together.
The sweet white haired grandma that uses the "N-word" is harmless. She doesn't bring any grief to anyone: In fact she usually brings fried chicken. She is the one at church every Sunday who sings in the choir and walks by the nursery kissing the babies calling each one by name. She has actually travelled all over the USA. Her and her husband sit in their air conditioned RV and drive all over America seeing all the sights. They have met thousands of people. They have seen poverty. They have gotten lost and have seen the dusty roads of rural Kentucky. They have stopped before and had dinner at roadside shacks where meals were cooked by people who literally sleep on the booths after closing time because they don't have a house, just a business. They have been to the Universities visiting their grandkids, meeting college students from literally all over the world.
No, sweet little harmless grandma is surely not our problem. She didn't raise her children to hate people. She doesn't know what her boys do once they leave the house, and after all; they are grown. She has broken bread with many people of many nationalities......none of which she respects.
She doesn't have to teach her kids hate. All she has to do is teach her kids that they are better than everybody else because they are white Christians. All she has to do is teach her kids that they are above the law because G-d is the only one they need to answer to. All she has to do is teach her children that some people are waiters and some people are guests and those two lines don't blur. All she has to do is make sure her kids get vouchers to go to private schools so they don't have to be around "those types of people".
All she has to do is sew up their robes and bleach their hoods and make sure they have dinner when they get back. Nope, she is surely not a racist. And she has convinced herself that because she has kept her hands clean that G-d won't see blood on them. Looking away and acting stupid is not a free pass. No, the passive women of America surely aren't the problem.
Maybe the problem is the "old" generation....hmm. The generations before us that were just too ignorant to know better? Yes. The ones that cocerned themselves with voting laws, child labor laws, public education laws, and equality laws....they sure were ignorant.
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