Conversations with my Mother

Yesterday in America it was Mother’s Day and so I called my mother to have a conversation about life. You may recall my post about race in America in which my mother expresses disbelief that America is ready to elect a black man as president. We picked up where we left off a few months ago. A little background may be necessary. My parents are both conservative. My father is a white American from the South while my mother is from Thailand though she has been an American citizen for several decades. My mother voted for Bush in 2000, but not in 2004.

I asked my mother whether or not she would vote for Obama in the fall. I paraphrase her response of course. “You know Daranee, I worked with a lot of black people and they always would help each other get jobs and give favors to each other while not caring about anyone else. The favoritism was so clear. I just worry that Barack Obama would do the same thing – only give his friends jobs and only care about things that concern blacks. I would probably vote for Hillary because McCain is so terrible about the economy, but I worry about voting for a black.” My mother was a civil servant and indeed she did work with a lot of black people, and yet I didn’t know what to say. Here is a woman who is a minority. Here is a woman who I have witnessed racism directed at and yet she struggles to judge a person by something other than their skin. Maybe, I worried, America isn’t ready to vote for a black man.

I was racking my brain to come up with some sort of analogy that might make her consider a different side. I asked her how she would feel if I had difficulty getting a job because people made assumptions about me based on my race. She agreed that in that case it would be unfair. I asked her if there was anything about the campaign that Barack Obama was running that led her to believe that he would only focus on black issues. She said she didn’t think so. But again she repeated her worries based on her own experience at work.

I’ve sort of glided over a rather monumental portion of her statement which was that she would vote for Hillary. This was huge. My mother hated the Clintons especially Hillary Clinton. She didn’t like how Hillary wasn’t modest and how Hillary said “When you vote for Bill, you get me too.” And yet here was my mom saying she would vote for Hillary. At least for my mother, sexism is easier conquered than racism. And I think this says a lot about how much the Republicans have failed and how they should be very worried in the fall.

It’s curious that minorities sometimes have the most difficulty judging people by something else than the color of their skin. I’ve worked with a Filipino woman who declared to me she wouldn’t hire any Filipinos. My mother feels comfort grouping people together by race or other similar categories. I was horrified when we went into a Bass Fishing contest in Wisconsin when my mother loudly exclaimed “Boy there are a lot of hillbillies in here.” Luckily the auditorium was very loud and no one heard.

It’s very curious because my mom has certainly been unfairly judged by her race. I should tell you that she has a very strong Thai accent. My mom is a big animal lover, and one time decided to adopt a dog that needed a home. She called the number on a classified ad for a dog. My mom asked if the dog was still available and the woman who answered the phone said that the dog was taken and hung up. My mom thought that it was strange the way the woman talked to her, so she had my dad call to find out for sure. When he did he found out that the dog was still available. My mother thinks the woman was worried that my mom wanted to eat the dog.

I asked my mother if she would consider taking a chance on Obama. “Vote for him and see how it goes,” I said, “then decide in four years whether or not your worries were founded.”

She said: “Maybe. That’s what I did with Bush, you know?”

In many ways this conversation was important in that people should feel comfortable expressing their fears. How can we get over race if we are too afraid to talk about it. In getting our prejudices out in the open we can actually do something about them, and analyze them in the same way that we would analyze anything else. I’m worried we have not come so far as we should have as a nation, but it’s not hopeless. It is possible. And I think, maybe with a little coaxing America is ready for a black president.