That
condescending smirk on Romney’s face whenever he was literally forced to listen
to someone he considered, well, not quite what the person ought to be was most
unbearable. The other person could be a
female, black man even if he was the President of the United States, a female
reporter for sure, or a female debate moderator, and on and on. That smirk epitomized everything that was
offensive in the Republican platform this election season. It let the rest of us know that unless we
belonged to that group of white people who were affluent we were, well, just
not quite, well, you know. And when
Romney was to be elected, those of us who were not quite, you know, would be
put back in our places and let the real Americans, the white male affluent
Americans, take back their country.
After all, they are the makers as opposed to the rest of us who are the
takers.
The
night after the election results were announced, I couldn’t really sleep very
well. As I lay there, I let my thoughts
roam over some of the events of my life that occurred during the time the
Republicans wanted to take us back to.
In the 1930’s I remember my parents arguing over whether my mother ought
to be giving sandwiches to the “homeless bums” who came by. My father thought not. My husband remembers his parents arguing over
the fact that his mother had purchased a bunch of ribbons for $.10 from a woman
who had come by the house and claimed she was hungry. His father thought not. Ten cents in those
days was a lot of money. Or my own
non-understanding of why my brother and I had to eat meat and vegetables every
night when my parents got to eat chili beans.
Or
later when I was about 10 years old we moved to what was then the country. The school we attended had a rather large
Hispanic population, and the Hispanic kids accepted me with no problems. I didn’t quite measure up to the white kids
expectations. One Mexican girl in
particular and I became sort of friends.
After WWII was over, I learned that her brother’s wife had died shortly
after childbirth from peritonitis from a burst appendix. The brother had taken her to the hospital,
but she had been sent home with the admonition that of course she had abdominal
pain. She had just had a baby. After her death, the brother had given up his
fight against undulant fever (which one can get from raw milk) that he had
gotten in the service of his country, and he gave up his fight to create a
small business with a tractor he had purchased so that he could plow the
orchards of the smaller orange growers.
The white farmers thought he was getting above himself, and wanted to be
a “white man”. He died in about 6 months
from the fever and grief.
After
I graduated from college in San Jose, California, I immediately went to work
for the welfare department. A job for
which I was singularly unprepared. I had
been there a couple of months when a young Mexican couple – a brother and
sister – came in to see me. She had
several knife scars on her abdomen where her husband had stabbed her. They had gone to the police, but the police
would do nothing about it because, after all, they were Mexican. The visit to me was the last resort. The brother told me that if I could do nothing
he would have to kill the husband. In what
I thought was a perfectly reasonable thought, I explained that since they had
come to me, if he did kill the husband I would have to say it was pre-meditated
murder, and he would either get the death penalty or prison for life, and his
wife and children would be deprived of his presence. So that night the un-married brother killed
the husband. On the advice of a lawyer I
quit my job, and moved back to my home town.
I had already met my soon-to-be husband, so that was not a problem. I followed the case, and the brother received
a sentence of 10 years, which, under the circumstances I felt was just. I didn’t talk about this for some 30 years,
needless to say.
Or
after Bill and I were married, and our landlady, who was also a friend, came to
our apartment in tears. Her niece had
foolishly walked home from high school alone one evening. She was snatched by some young men and
brutally raped. Nothing was done because
by being by herself at dusk, “she was asking for it”. Needless to say, her life would never be the
same. At that time, there were no rape
counseling centers, or anything else, because it was almost always the girl or
woman’s fault. She was asking for it by
the way she walked, or talked or dressed.
I
could go on and tell more stories, but I think you get the idea why I am so
thrilled that I never have to see, hear or write about the person, the politics
or the policies or the philosophies behind that supercilious syrupy-sweet smirk.
No comments:
Post a Comment