Grandma

 I remember a number of years back I was driving around with my Grandma and she was telling me about the way the world was. It was one of those times I really didn't want to be listening to her because it was just terrible to hear her saying the things she was saying. They included things about inferior qualities of women, mostly about their driving abilities. But one thing that particularly bothered me was when she started talking about minorities. She told me quite frankly that minorities were out to get white folk. She said it was because the white people had been on top so long and it was just something minorities felt they had to do. She then mentioned our housekeeper at the time (who was Samoan) would even do small things to get back at us for being white. Small things but none the less things to "get us". This was incredibly aggravating to hear because I like to think of myself as growing up fairly liberally in terms of looking at race. It isn't something I think you can entirely eliminate but, I like to think that I'm not very racist, so I really didn't like thinking that I was related to racists. Anyways, I called my Father this week and he let me know that he had to let our housekeeper go (same one as above) because she was forging checks with my Grandmother's checkbook. I was stunned. I don't think she did it to get back at the white folk as my grandma would say, but it was really just something to think that my grandma was proven right in a way. I'm not defending either party here, but really it is ridiculous. The other part I don't get is why my Dad has a housekeeper. I don't think they really need one, so maybe they won't be hiring a new one. It wasn't something I had when I grew up and so it doesn't make a lot of sense to me why they particularly need one. Anyways, I decided to write a poem about the earlier story just cause it struck me a certain way.


Stories My Grandma Told me

I don't like to think of my Grandmother as a
racist,
it is an ugly word.
But sometimes she makes it hard not to.
One day she sat me down and told me,
"Minorities are out to get you,
Blacks, Asians, Mexicans, you name it
they are out to get you."
Even then it didn't make sense to me.
She said they felt wronged by the white,
and they had to do something to get back at
us.
She even said our dear housekeeper,
a large Samoan woman,
would do little things to get us.

Last week I got a call,
it was my Dad telling me
he had to let the housekeeper go
she was forging checks
from my Grandma's checkbook.

Copyright 2007 William Curb