Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Not Like The Others



When I was little, my best friend was this little girl whose parents were really racist. They'd say to her (right in front of me), "Don't play with any of the niggers or the spics on the block, except Lana and her sister. They're not like other spics." And then she would come to my house and play, and call my grandma "abuela" and we would pretend we were sisters. My parents would tell me to ignore her folks because, they said, "They're just ignorant."

These days, I find myself thinking about my friends who are white, "He/she isn't REALLY white. I mean, he/she is white, but not anything like actual WHITE PEOPLE are white."

4 comments:

Ellen said...

I am left wanting to hear more.

Anonymous said...

That detail of your best friend calling your grandma "abuela" is the killer.

meg said...

What cynk said! At first, I wanted this to be longer but then I realized that the brevity is intentional. Whites being whites but not like actual WHITE people is the shorthand that doesn't need interpretation.

Hema said...

That last line is brilliant!