My father was the most racially prejudiced person I have ever known.
When I was a teenager, (about 16 yrs of age) his boss visited our house with a young man who was a native of Papua New Guinea. He was a very handsome young man with a beautiful smile (I was reminded of him years later when I saw Ernie Dingo in one of the Crocodile Dundee movies).
After they left, I commented to my parents on how good looking he was.
My father became very angry, stood over me and said "Don't you ever bring a 'coon' home to this house!" and proceeded to threaten me with words like 'disown' and 'banish' and used other nasty language that I won't repeat here.
He worked in outback Australia and Papua New Guinea and he told many derogatory stories during my childhood and youth about Indigenous Australians and Papua New Guineans. Stories that would be repeated to many different people in different social situations.
I remember always feeling uncomfortable when he told these stories, but never felt empowered enough to voice my opinion.
We 'Gen YG' (how I will refer to my siblings and myself as a group) children were, with hindsight, not allowed to voice an opinion that was different to our parents' opinions. Speaking for myself, I was belittled if I ever shared an opposing opinion, so I learned to refrain.
However, I digress ...
Being so young when I had my own children, I didn't have many strong ideas about how I would raise them, but I didn't want them to be influenced by my father's racism or any of the negative traits that he displayed so blatantly eg chauvinism, sexism, bigotry, arrogance etc.
We lived 2000 kms away from my parents, so time spent with them was rare and brief and therefore their influence was miniscule.
I was almost brain washed by this negative attitude and it was quite difficult for me to completely change my own thinking and behaviour, even though I opposed his ways, but something happened with Vegan Chickie when she was about 11 or 12 yrs of age, that made me believe that I'd had some success.
She and a couple of her friends were being bullied at, before and after school. It became quite a serious problem and the girls were very upset by it and afraid to walk in certain areas at certain times - the usual problems associated with bullying.
When I asked her to describe the girls and explain what was happening, she told me about a group of girls who were mean and acted tough and who scared them. I think she may have been hit by one of them as well (I hope my memory serves me correctly).
Eventually, the school Principal was brought into the situation and the bullying girls were disciplined. I was at the school one day and Vegan Chickie pointed the girls out to me. I was surprised to see that they were a group of indigenous girls.
The fact that it never occurred to Vegan Chickie that being indigenous was something that could be specified in a description of the girls, gave me a deep feeling of satisfaction. Perhaps I could take some credit for protecting my family from my father's strong racial opinions?
Vegan Chickie is BIG on 'acceptance', 'tolerance' and 'empathy' (although she is not very tolerant of the older generation and their 'lack' of all those qualities!) and often picks me up for being judgemental.
My mother was the most judgemental person I've ever known, (which was learned behaviour from her own mother), and since she played the role of 'mother' and 'father' for much of our lives, this is a trait that unfortunately, rubbed off on my sister and I.
I don't recall my brother ever being judgemental ... although we had little to do with each other after I left home at the age of 17, so I have few memories of him as a man and the strongest ones are of him being a gentle and loving soul with momentary glimpses of my father's anger issues.
So, I find that I often pull myself up before making judgements, and I regularly hear Vegan Chickie's voice in my conscience reminding me, but I also find it difficult to erase this characteristic completely from my personality.
I do find, that while working hard at trying to remove it, I very much notice it in others and am constantly shocked at how judgemental most people are!
I also believe that the more unhappy you are with your own self or 'lot' in life, the more judgemental you are of others. But that is just my honest opinion.
So the reason I write all of this, is because I read something on facebook today that I wanted to share and which makes a lot of sense to me.
“When a child hears a parent comment in disgust, “Will you look at her hair!” not only is judgment being modeled, but so is intolerance. When the environments inhabited by children promote a culture of acceptance, so children will learn that difference is just a part of normal.”—Betsy Brown Braun
http://www.positivelypositive.com/2012/03/05/difference/
I want to say 'thank you' to Vegan Chickie for being such a good role model for me and for her daughter and I hope she knows that I may seem like a lost cause, but I really do try! Sometimes I might require a gentle reminder.
Nite all.
