Letter to emaglive; that guy who thinks Republican’s have a monopoly on shitty, abhorrent ideas on life…or How I grew up Democrat.
I find myself smiling while reading your article. “Growing Up Republican,” not because I am sneering at your parents/friends, who could just as easily have been my parents and their friends, or because I celebrate what you clearly believe is your freedom from all that. No, I smile because I see so very much of my DEMOCRAT family in your story.
Yes, I said Democrat. Die-hard Democrats they called themselves, who according to a family friend, would vote for a broom if it ran as a Democrat. Not only Democrat, my friend, but hundreds of years of nothing but Democrats, thank you. Although my parents were “left-leaning,” they had no problem raising me in a “sundown town,” and having a good friend who, by all accounts, used chain-gangs from the nearby prison where he was warden to literally build the town the majority of the prisoners would never be allowed to see after dark.
I was born exactly 30 years before you when it was still popular to support the deals that helped the government—the one Reagan was so fond of belittling—help its citizens. Yet, I heard all the same cringe-worthy words to describe people without white skin every day. My parents did not use these words, not in front of me anyway, but they also never bothered to explain to me why I should not think of other humans in this way. There was just silence, even when people they considered friends freely spoke the words. Oddly enough I never used any of the words, not because anyone explained to me how demeaning they were, but because I could sense by the way people curled their lips and spat them out how horrible they were. That frightened me as a kid. What was even worse is that my white skin seemed to give them carte blanche to use these scary words around me because it was assumed that I agreed.
When I was about ten years old we moved to another town; it was the very first time I had ever seen a person with skin darker than the skin of a Mexican. Again, silence from my parents, perhaps this time because African-Americans provided a large chunk of our income in their store. Still, if it weren’t for the fact that I was lucky enough to become best friends with a Quaker, I would never have had the opportunity to discuss why those words should have upset me, and should have frightened me.
I remember an “incident” in which every customer on a Saturday was going on and on about how my friend’s Quaker family was having a party with “n*gg*rs.” “Invited those people right into their home!” The “incident” that caused so much uproar? My friend’s Dad was a civil engineer who worked for a large city government, and he threw a party for his department. Upset by the obvious hate, I called my friend to report what was being said about them. “So”? That one shrugged word is the moment I realized that these people, with their ugly words and curled up lips…these people were the “those people” that I didn’t have to fear any more. To hell with them.
The point is that you were not raised “Republican;” I know many Republicans who I consider to be fine, caring people. You were raised what I like to call “American Ugly.” Believe me when I tell you, the Republicans do NOT have a monopoly on, nor did the party invent, American Ugly. It has been with us from the beginning, it permeates the country, it slithers in and out of political parties with ease, and will continue to do so until Americans finally become nauseated and embarrassed with the sick extremism, much like your parents appeared to do. In The Old Regime and the Revolution, de Tocquiville reminds us “History is a gallery of pictures in which there are many copies and few originals.”
Funny post script for you, I have “Injun” blood as well. Yep, have the “official” papers to prove it. ((O: