I come from a place where the only thing Whiter than the picket fences are the people. And we aren't even just: "goes to the beach for three days and comes back looking like a lobster white." We are: "the only Black kid on my soccer team was adopted" White. The only Black thing my dad interacts with on a daily basis is his coffee. In his defense, I'm not much better. My token Black friend is half white. But I did go to college and take some classes that started to change how I think about racism. I used to think just people could be racist. It turns out picket fences can be too. 

 

Talking with my family about institutionalized racism is like trying to teach an old dog new tricks. Except it's even worse than that. It's more like trying to teach a cat how to do anything. My father thinks America is equitable because anyone can be a spy. You can send the Japanese-Americans to Japan, the Chinese-Americans to China, and the non-hyphenated Americans anywhere in the fucking world. I don't really think my dad sees the flaw in this logic because if America is so diverse that anyone can be a spy, it also means that anyone can spy on us. Because, you know, immigrants are so inconspicuous.

 

You don't even need to know English to spy on America. All you have to do is walk into Walmart around the Fourth of July and you will discover the secret to the Great American Experiment. Who needs equity when you can buy an American Flag swimsuit for 14.99 plus tax? 

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I had one of those swimsuits. I wore it to the beach every Fourth of July for four years where my family spent money on Oreos and milkshakes and French Fries and caramel popcorn and Coca Cola and hot dogs and hamburgers and daiquiris and apple pie and donuts and jello cups and potato chips and ice cream and popsicles and lemonade and sweet tea and fried chicken and mac n' cheese and potato salad and coleslaw and watermelon. I used to be a good citizen. I also used to be fat. Needless to say, I did not look good in the swimsuit.  I wore it long past when it fit me because it was comfortable and patriotic. 

 

My aunt and uncle don't like to shop at Walmart because of what they like to call the clientele and sales associates. Considering they live in Florida I believe this is a polite way of saying people who speak Spanish. Which to them really means, people who don't work as hard as they do. My father likes to talk about work ethic and family values, which are polite ways of calling Black people lazy and promiscuous. My grandfather used to like to call affirmative action an unfair advantage.

 

I wish I would have replied, "Grandpa, thank you so much for all of the sacrifices you made working in the ironworks that your father set up when he immigrated here so that you could send your kids to college so that my dad could pay for my college education so that I could go to school and learn all about systemic racism so that we could have this really uncomfortable Thanksgiving dinner conversation. Did you know that my roommate first year was a dyslexic Black girl whose second language was English and she still got a better grade in calculus than I did? Then again, she could afford to skip a few of the systemic racism classes because as it turns out they've been teaching that stuff to her since she was born. Maybe you were on to something with the unfair advantage thing."

 

Which really would have just been a polite way of calling my grandfather a bigot. Which of course I never did. Because like I said, I used to be a good citizen. And he wrote really generous Christmas checks. Also, wine always helps.

 

One Thanksgiving my grandpa got so drunk that he fell asleep, knocked over his wine glass, picked it up, finished off the wine, and kept talking as though nothing had happened. That was the last thanksgiving I remember having with my grandpa. Are you allowed to call dead people racist? I'm not sure where we landed with that on the Founding Fathers but I figured since he was just my father's father and not the father of the entire fucking nation it would be okay.

 

Because he was. He was racist. But in the picket fence kind of way, not the person kind of way. In his mind, if you worked hard and got an education you could do anything you wanted in America. He instilled these values in my father, and my father instilled those values in me, and I'm thankful for them. It's just that, as a result of my education, I'm not so sure anyone in America can be a spy anymore. I'm not sure picket fences hurt any less than people. 

 

My grandfather was proud of being kicked out of racial sensitivity training because he was unafraid to speak his mind. The facilitator was going on and on about the different ways in which Black people are disenfranchised in this country and all my grandfather wanted to know was "what about the Asians?" In the end he said he was proud because he thinks he got the facilitator to think differently about some things. I think when you are a White person in racial sensitivity training, the goal is for the facilitator to get you to think differently about things, and not the other way around, but you know, good for you grandpa.

 

I do think he brings up and interesting point though. What about the Asians? I mean if we're going to gloss over slavery and the genocide of Native Americans in our history classes, shouldn't we at least make sure we are glossing over internment camps and the Chinese Exclusion Act just to be inclusive? That's what equity means isn't it? That would be the American way after all. That way I could feel comfortable in my swimsuit. 

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