My mother was born in 1930 and grew up in northern New Jersey. Her mother was Canadian, her father was a British subject born in Germany of Australian parents. Her father taught at NYU, and the family was part of a British ex-pat community in that part of New Jersey. She has told me a little of her youth in her town, where the schools were integrated, but where blacks lived “on the other side of the tracks”. Other than in school, the two sides of the tracks did not mix much, unless blacks were serving as domestics or in service jobs to white employers. She once told me how she never felt she had to cross to the other side of the street when she was walking home from school and encountered a group of black kids, because she was always nice to them in school, and they were nice to her. Big whoop, right? It’s not like she ever had much else to do with blacks, but she was taught to be nice to everyone.
She and my father raised four children, and also taught us to be nice to everyone. They encouraged reading, pushed us to do well in school, and God help any of us if we ever teased anyone because of the way they looked or where they came from or whether they were poor or not. My brother used the N word once, and only once, after learning that some of his friends used that word instead of “tiger” when reciting “eeny, meeny, miny, mo.” I have never seen my mother react so strongly to a pejorative as to anyone using racial slurs to describe a particular group of people. Again, big whoop, right? It’s not like she was an activist for civil rights or anything.
My parents were part of that dying breed of “New England Republicans,” or “Rockefeller Republicans”; moderates in all things, don’t-rock-the-boat kind of people. Then the Republican party left them. They voted for Obama both times, and for Clinton most recently. They vote Democratic in their state and local elections. They are proud grandparents of a trans-person, as they are of their grandchildren-in-law of differing ethnic minorities. In short, each parent strives to be as good a person as they can be, albeit within the confines of what they have been taught.
Last week my siblings and I had to move my parents into assisted living. It was a decision that had to be made quickly, both because of my father’s failing health and the rare availability of a spot in a facility close by. It has been particularly hard on my mother, who is mourning the loss of her possessions, her space, and some of her independence, but she is trying to look on the bright side. She has commented repeatedly on how nice and professional everyone at the facility is, and is particularly complimentary of the head of the facility, who has treated my mother with a compassion and gentleness that is sorely needed right now. The other day, my mother was having trouble remembering the woman’s name, and when describing to me who she was talking about she said, “You know, the black girl.” My jaw fell to the ground and I launched into a mini-lecture on the fact that she was not a girl, she was a woman, and a woman in charge of the whole facility to boot. She readily acknowledged her error and apologized.
When she was growing up that is how blacks were commonly referred to: as a boy or a girl, not as fully mature adults. She is, sadly, a product of her time, of her youth. She is a racist, despite not wanting to be, and trying hard to instill in her children that they should not be either.