Nothing to See Here…

This is one of those posts that will be categorized as “not even a little bit funny.”

As well, it’s one of those topics that is difficult to speak of.  Y’all have heard me talk about my great family.  We all live in St. Louis, we speak and get together frequently, hell, we all just took a big ol’ vacation together down in Florida.

But we have our skeletons.  And one of them is racism.

I always knew my dad was a racist.  I knew it because of comments and jokes he would make during my growing up years.  He was raised in a different time and place than I was, and I suppose I always gave him some latitude for that.  Somehow, he managed to raise three daughters who are not racists.  I’ve recently learned that my brother is one, too.

When I say latitude, that doesn’t mean he was left to run amok with his hateful words.  A few of us have told him he’d best keep such thoughts to himself, that we were offended, that it was not acceptable.  This seemed to work, and his racism hasn’t reared its ugly head in many, many years.

Until now.

My sister (Hi, Jenn!) has chosen to cohabitate with an old boyfriend she had when she lived down in New Orleans.  He’s black.  He lost everything in Katrina, and they’ve been in touch, talking and thinking about their future and whether they have one together.  They made the leap and he moved here, to St. Louis, to live with her.

There are those in my family who are not happy about this news.

There are others in this family willing to stand up and face off with the unhappy ones.  We have right on our side.

I’m heartbroken over it all.  I DO have a great family and it all seems to be precariously balanced with a good possibility that it could all topple over any second.  To be honest, I’d see it topple before I ever remained silent and just let this evil prevail.

So stay tuned!  I’m thinking there could be some uproariously funny material out of this!  TWO separate Thanksgiving celebrations with my mom running between them (insert laugh track here), family brawls when people have a few beers in them (light up the applause sign) and even ongoing cold shoulders.  I can tell you what there probably won’t be - another full-on family vacation like we just had 3 weeks ago.  Not unless two people I love seriously change their positions.

It’s not funny.  Not funny AT ALL.

Naive little me… I would never expect to see such overt racism in my world.  I would never expect to hear someone I love tell me that racism is part of his value system.  I would never have thought that anyone in my family would choose a skewed worldview over a human being whom they love. 

I’m ashamed of half of my family today, but I’m damn proud of the other half.

So, tell me - how will this little fairytale end?  Does anyone know?