Obama's comments about his white grandmother got me to thinking about my white grandmother. While Barack's grandmother probably wasn't racist, mine surely was.
My mother's mother was born in Texas in the early 1900's. No one knew exactly how old she was because she constantly lied about her age. She even managed to get a fake date of birth on her driver's license because her original birth certificate couldn't be found. She was vain like that.
Anyway, she was born into a poor white family. Lived on a farm, lots of kids, none of them got very much education or went very far in the world. She used to say that her family's heritage was "English and Scottish", but there's really no evidence of that. She was quite proud of a claimed distant relation to Robert E. Lee (something about his wife's cousin's nephew being our great-great grandfather--or something, I don't remember, it was such a tenuous claimed relationship). Lots of the women in our family have the middle name "Lee" in honor of this "heritage".
My grandmother, god bless her soul, was one of the most bigoted and racist people I've ever met in my life. Thank goodness my mother's apple fell very far from the tree. Mom taught us to not judge others by their color or religion or national origin or disability or sexual orientation or weight or hair color or athletic ability or . . . well, you get the picture. We were taught to respect everyone equally. But on the weekends, when we went to grandma's house, we sure got an ear full!
Don't get me wrong. I loved my grandmother and she loved me fiercely. She loved all of us five kids, only not equally. And she told us that. Another of her faults. From a very young age, I can remember my mom having to explain to us that our grandmother "didn't really mean it" when she said bad things about negroes, or when she belittled one of her grandchildren, or said one of us was her "favorite". Somehow, we all managed to at least tolerate her even as adults despite all her faults. I took to calling her "my crazy grandmother", which was a pretty good shorthand, even though she was obviously quite sane.
So here are a few of the things she said and did over the years. Some of these stories just make us all laugh now, even though they aren't truly funny. I guess it's just the shared experience of what to us seems like insanity that seems funny.
My grandmother and her husband (my step-grandfather) lived in south Louisiana. My grandfather owned a business and, I guess, had a little money. They belonged to the local country club and were big golfers. Back in the 60's the country club membership was limited to whites only. And, as was typical in the south then, just about all the employees at the country club were black. My grandmother and grandfather freely referred to the empolyees as "niggers." My grandmother would say things like--"I told that nice little nigger boy to go put my clubs on the golf cart." My grandfather wasn't so nice. He'd say things like "tell that nigger to hurry up with my drink!" Of course, these kinds of things would be said in front of other people, including the black employees, without a hint of shame.
In later years, I was exposed to my grandmother's prejudices against anyone who was non-white, non-Christian, or non-Southern. She was raised in a protestant religion (although I never knew her to attend church). My mom converted to Catholicism before marrying my dad, and my grandmother hated that. She constantly ridiculed the religion in which my parents were raising us. Again, my mom told us "just don't pay attention to her, she doesn't know what she's talking about" and somehow, that worked. When I got engaged to a man from New York, my grandmother immediately assumed he was a "jew" (before she even met him--and his name doesn't sound jewish). She constantly dropped hints about him celebrating Hanakauh, having a big nose, etc, until I finally had to make the difficult decision to not invite her to my wedding. She insulted many doctors to their faces, telling them that they only told her she needed whatever medical care she needed because they were money-grubbing jews. Nice, huh?
For some reason (which I never really understood) my grandmother REALLY hated the Clintons. She hated them with a white-hot passion. She was never really very overtly political, so I was really surprised when I encountered her attitude. I found out about this when I was in my fourth year of medical school. I was applying for residency programs and travelling around for interviews. One of the programs high on my list was Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock. When my mother told my grandmother I was interviewing in Little Rock, my grandmother freaked out. She told my mom that she would never forgive me if I moved to Little Rock, because that was Clinton-land. Well, I ended up in Little Rock, and my grandmother managed to survive it, but believe me, she wasn't happy (she was in her 80's by then).
There are plenty more people my grandmother insulted--mexicans, a-rabs, people on welfare, cajuns, injuns . . . the list goes on and on. But despite her almost comical level of ignorant prejudice, she was actually a pretty intelligent woman. She was a voracious reader, probably 3 or 4 books a week. And she didn't just read romance novels or other "junk", she read all types of literature. Two gifts she gave me that I treasure were Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" and Emily Barrett Browning's "Sonnets of the Portugeuese." She was quite an enigma.
So how do I sort out my feelings about "my crazy grandmother"? I loved her because she was family and because she loved me. I knew from a very early age, thanks to my mother, that a lot of her attitudes were not acceptable in our family. But I was also taught to love her despite her faults. I gained some things from her that I treasure. When I was very young, she used to tell me over and over how beautiful I was and how smart I was and how talented I was. Of course, my parents were encouraging as well, but somehow, when your grandmother says it, it seems to be a little more real (at least it did to me). In other words, she gave me encouragment through many rough times in my life, when I might have thought of giving up otherwise.
All of this came to me because of what Obama said about his "white grandmother". When Obama made those benign statements about her, I immediately thought of my "crazy grandmother" and how her legacy would surely be fatal to a candidacy of anyone in my family, if somehow someone knew her story. Luckily, videocameras weren't so prevelant in the 50's and 60's, and most of the 8 mm tape we have of her she's just waving and smiling, not making racist remarks.
But you know what--even if there was videotape of her making ridiculously racist remarks, I would not reject and denounce my grandmother. I would clearly state that I do not agree with her words, but I would say that I love her anyway, despite her faults. And I dare anyone to fault me for that.