Thursday, July 15, 2010

Where to even start?

"Look, two of the cooks in this restaurant are orientals! Do you suppose orientals have a special talent for cooking?"

And not only did they have no idea why that would be considered offensive, but the only lesson they seem to have taken from my white privilege/racism 101 lecture was that you shouldn't call people "orientals"—or at least not when I'm in hearing distance.

Why yes, I have been visiting family.

1 Comment:

Rebecca said...

I'm from the Deep South. I *SO* know what you mean. The difference is, I also know that - in my case, at least - they will take nothing away from any lecture I might give, so I don't bother.

Not for racism, anyway. I did give it a little bit of a go, last time I was there, on the political front. But I'm afraid I wasn't very successful. So I probably won't even try that when I'm down there again next week. Sigh.

For my own peace of mind, I'm just glad that I'm not down there more than a couple of times a year and, after this trip, probably not even that often. There's a very good reason I moved away from there the day after I graduated from high school.

Aargghh...I just realized what I'm going to have to put up with again. I'd almost forgotten.

That's okay. Taking my own version of happy pills along with me this time. Had forgotten I even had any, but if any occasion calls for it, this is it.