…Thank god.

In the interest of time, I’ll just say that the trip was terrible. I retract everything kind I said about Dometria in that first post: She is a mean old woman who says hateful, awful things. Here’s a sampling:

In response to hearing about the lynching of an elephant: “Well, we’ve hung plenty of nlggers here! [laughs heartily]”

While trying to explain that “negras” deserve no sympathy: “Sure, they may get different books and worse teachers in school, but some still succeed! If they can do it, then why are there still so many sitting around waiting for checks from the state?”

In conclusion: “Now, you tell me: if we hadn’ta brought these folks over [from Africa], just where would they be?!”
My father: “Home, Dometria.”

Perhaps even more horrid than listening to her say these awful things (and that’s just a sampling, people. She also did things like bitch about Tiger Woods, “…boy’s gonna git a big head.”), was the fact that a number of factors made me feel unable to do much about it. I was a guest in her house, and the things that I needed to say to her would have necessitated my father and I leaving. The one time I even asked a question (”So, when the black folks decided they didn’t want to work in the fields in the ’50s, the whole farming community collapsed? Weren’t there poor white folks who could work in the fields?”), she went on a huge speil, which included the second of the three statements above. Obviously very defensive, and unable to discuss the issue without flying into an irrational rage.

The worst (I don’t know why this did it for me) was when, the last night we were there (and I was counting the hours until our flight left), Dometria gloated to some friends “I’m afraid David got his feathers a little singed today.” She smuggly smiled at them, convinced that she had given my Dad the smackdown in the brief civil rights discussion. Her ignorance and pride combined with six days of holding my tongue and being miserable hit me hard, and I retreated to my bedroom to sob for an hour.

Part of the tears were frustration: maybe this is called cowardice, my reluctance to tell her to go to hell, grab my suitcase and my father, and run out the door. Maybe this is intolerance, my desire to never talk to this woman again, drop my last name, and pretend my family never came from the south. I have a friend who’s parents have disowned her gay brother, something I’ve always thought heartless and terrible. But is my dismissal similiar? Is intolerance of intolerance just as bad? Have I become that which I hate?

It was horrid. I’m considering sending Dometria a letter. One of her civil rights arguments was “Unless you’ve grown up here in Tennessee, you just can’t understand what it’s like with the negras down here!” To that I say simply: I thank every last lucky star I have that I was raised in a place where compassion and respect are valued above hatefulness.