I’m glad I’m normal-It must suck to be different!

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My mothers side of the family recently had a party for a niece who’d just graduated from college-first one ever! Over a hundred people, piles and piles of carne asada and barbecue and beer and desserts. I was inside with my cousin when one of the kids came in with her dad and asked for a straw.

“This is a Mexican house, girl. We ain’t got no straws “ my cousin laughed. Seeing the little girl looked unhappy he turned to her dad and added “you could walk to the corner, Chinese store gots everything but it ain’t cheap”.

“All them people think about’s money anyways, que no?”
observed the dad.

“You got that right, probably spend it all on car insurance cause you know they can’t drive”
. We all laughed, acknowledging the accepted wisdom in the statement.

After stuffing ourselves with sausages and tri-tip and other kinds of food we don’t typically eat my big girl and I sat with a group of cousins and nieces, all women except for me. I raised my daughters as a single parent so I always fit in with the family mothers. A young woman walked thru the gate and someone exclaimed ” Tina’s here! Huh, she’s with a White guy”.

“Oh good, Brian will have someone to talk to”
said another, referring to her boyfriend. She assumed the two would automatically have a lot in common and could talk about whatever White guys talk about.

Cousin Peter’s latest girlfriend also happened to be White, and even worse she was pretty. My niece Tatiana announced ” OK did you guys see that bitch Petes showed up with? Now you guys know I don’t never say nothin’ about nobody, but someone needs to haul her crack-smokin’ white-trash ass back to whatever trailer court she came out of” to the general amusement of everyone. My oldest and I were laughing the hardest but I said that I’d talked to her and she actually seemed kinda nice.

“Oh sure, cause you’re a guy and she gots big tits and blond hair”.

My youngest had been concerned about how the family would accept her Black boyfriend. He’s actually half-Black with a Hispanic father but looks more Black than Hispanic. She and he were with a group who were laughing and enjoying themselves so I left them and wandered off to join the old folks sitting in chairs arranged around a bonfire.

I was the next-to-youngest in the group; several of the aunts were in their 80’s and still going strong, outdrinking their children and grandchildren. At this point in the evening all conversation was in Spanish and the current topic of discussion was the “colored guy” and who he was. I told them he was my daughters and their grand-nieces boyfriend-which cleared up who he was-then provided his Spanish last name and explained his father was Mexican-which validated him. “Like a Cuban” was the consensus. Not so bad, then.


I’m not trying to say racial prejudice is normal, the last thing I want to do is offer justification for bigotry. There’s a vast difference between the bias of a dominant culture and the response of the less powerful classes. The point I want to make is that nobody sees their own race as being a minority, not really. Everyone sees themselves as normal. Minorities don’t view their race as non-White, rather they view everybody else as non-Indian or non-Black or non-Hispanic.

And that man with the ethnic headwear or the lady speaking an unintelligible language that we laugh at? They just might think that you and I are the foreign-looking ones.THEY just might be laughing at US.

About Post Author

Carol Bell

Carol is a graduate of the University of Alabama. Her passion is journalism and it shows. Carol is our unpaid, but very efficient, administrative secretary.
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13 years ago

Tribalism and compartmentalizing others is the norm, and “they” are laughing at us too.

13 years ago

Hey Oso, I see you went to hang with folks your age…over seventy year olds…lol
Happy Father’s Day bro, and many more to come…

osori
Reply to  teeluck
13 years ago

LMAO Tee you got me there man!

13 years ago

Happy Dad day Oso. Get some extra Sushi and Sake for me, huh?
Sounds really good…

osori
Reply to  Krell
13 years ago

There’s a place near the house, the salmon skin rolls with thin carrot slices, they blanch the carrots just enough to really refine the sweetness. Then my forcing them down without chewing and belching loudly ruins the whole effect.

13 years ago

Interesting family you have – Happy papa day.

osori
Reply to  Holte Ender
13 years ago

Thank you Holte,and thanks for the wishes.I hope you have a good fathers day as well!

osori
13 years ago

Thanks Gwen. I didn’t know about your cousin, I’m so sorry to hear of that loss.

You and Deb and the football player,right?

I’m looking forward to sushi with my youngest today.Thanks for the good wishes!

Reply to  osori
13 years ago

Yes~! Me, Deb and Lil’ Mr. Elmhurst where he hopes to be the football hero for another 4. Ta for remembering.
I lost my dad at 7. His name was Huestis Pomeroy Barry. Everyone called him Pommey.
How’s that for northeastern yankee? I still miss him and love him and wish him a Happy Fathers’ Day. I can still remember the smell of his pipe tobacco.

Enjoy your shushi!!! Enjoy your day.

13 years ago

I have a big love for Tyler Perry. You remind me of his considerable storytelling talents…Oso. You expose a personal culture… I enjoyed your story very very much. Stories like this invite us to recast and replay them as our own family dominant. It’s a healthy psychological tool in determining where we personally separate from ‘tradition’ into creating new ones for ourselves.
Tyler has remarked that he made Madea (gods I love that broad!) to explore the cultural schism / sterility some urban folks were beginning to lay ground to. Well, I think he shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same… I kind of got that from Oso’s story too.

I’m actually the ‘matriarch’ (on my Dad’s side) of the family… the Elder. EEwww. LOL My cousin Chuck was lost in Tower 2. My Mom’s side, are all strangers. So, I pay attention… not that we all especially close on the Barry side, we are not. It’s just me and my little bat signal sister, Deb. I’m an Annie Hall Yankee girl type. I have actually always used the saying, ‘lah tee dah’. Well, I got it from Mom.
Happy Father’s Day Oso! Very sincerely. Happy happy Father’s Day.

SJ
13 years ago

Tension not withstanding, I wish I’d been there. It is damn hard to get good Carne Asada outside of California.

osori
Reply to  SJ
13 years ago

De veras man. You’d have had a good time. Carne asada and Dodger talk.

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