My World: What I Unlearned at College
Rachel Richardson
Issue date: 6/3/03 Section: Opinion
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I grew up in a religion-saturated, racist, homophobic family. Being submerged in the environment, I began to take on the beliefs of my family, although a faint glimmer lurked within that something wasn't right with having so much hatred bottled up inside.
This doubt was so faint and obscure, however, that I never questioned it. I idolized my parents; they could do no wrong. I wanted to be just like them when I "grew up." It wasn't until much later that I realized, in some ways, it is my parents who have never quite "grown up."
Ignorance is a cruel thing. Discrimination is not a game either side can win, but, unfortunately, it is all too often passed on in families, like inheriting your father's prominent nose or your mother's weak chin. But unlike chromosomes, hatred doesn't have to be forever ingrained in our genetic identities.
Growing up, I remember the biracial couple who moved in several houses down from ours or rather, as my father called them, "the oreos down the street." He claimed that the neighborhood was surely going to hell in a handbasket because "once you let one in, they'll soon take over," fearing his house value would soon decline. I recall the time my grandmother made my brother get out of the hotel pool when a few African-American kids jumped in, claiming there'd be "oil slicks" in the water. Or the time my mother became irate because I was walking with a black friend when she came to pick me up from school, hissing that I had embarrassed her by consorting with "that black boy."
The elders in my family had a stereotype for every kind of person, it seemed. For the longest time, I equated homosexuals with pedophiles, for we were taught at church that "sodomites" were sinners who were going to burn in hell. If someone was cheap or thrifty, they were a "Jew." Women who fought for equal opportunities were "feminazis" and "dykes." Guys who were interested in fine arts were "fags." The "Mexicans" were a lot of illegal immigrants who multiplied like rabbits, draining the government of needed tax dollars. The solution to Cincinnati's soaring crime rates? Easy, my dad claimed, "just cage all the blacks in and let em' kill each other."
This doubt was so faint and obscure, however, that I never questioned it. I idolized my parents; they could do no wrong. I wanted to be just like them when I "grew up." It wasn't until much later that I realized, in some ways, it is my parents who have never quite "grown up."
Ignorance is a cruel thing. Discrimination is not a game either side can win, but, unfortunately, it is all too often passed on in families, like inheriting your father's prominent nose or your mother's weak chin. But unlike chromosomes, hatred doesn't have to be forever ingrained in our genetic identities.
Growing up, I remember the biracial couple who moved in several houses down from ours or rather, as my father called them, "the oreos down the street." He claimed that the neighborhood was surely going to hell in a handbasket because "once you let one in, they'll soon take over," fearing his house value would soon decline. I recall the time my grandmother made my brother get out of the hotel pool when a few African-American kids jumped in, claiming there'd be "oil slicks" in the water. Or the time my mother became irate because I was walking with a black friend when she came to pick me up from school, hissing that I had embarrassed her by consorting with "that black boy."
The elders in my family had a stereotype for every kind of person, it seemed. For the longest time, I equated homosexuals with pedophiles, for we were taught at church that "sodomites" were sinners who were going to burn in hell. If someone was cheap or thrifty, they were a "Jew." Women who fought for equal opportunities were "feminazis" and "dykes." Guys who were interested in fine arts were "fags." The "Mexicans" were a lot of illegal immigrants who multiplied like rabbits, draining the government of needed tax dollars. The solution to Cincinnati's soaring crime rates? Easy, my dad claimed, "just cage all the blacks in and let em' kill each other."