So, my mother isn't speaking to me right now.
So, my mother isn't speaking to me right now.
So, it's last Thursday and I get home late, which is every Thursday, as my office is open late on Thursday. Thursday nights, I get home late and I just want to eat dinner and watch basketball. I don't want to chat, I don't want to get into a big debate, I don't want to be bothered. Even Brett has figured that out and stopped calling me on Thursday nights.
Mom hasn't figured that out, though. It boggles that after all this time, she hasn't even figured out that not only am I not a huge talker, but that there are certain things that I just flat don't like to talk to her about, but she insisted on talking to me about one of those things. And what would that thing have been? Gays and Prop. 8, of course.
My mother was one of the 70% of Blacks in the state of California to support Prop. 8. This miffs a lot of people, but what those people who are miffed don't know is that while a lot of Black folks are, for the most part, liberal and Democrat in so many areas, gay rights and gay issues are not any of those areas. Additionally, many, many Blacks take offense when the fight for gay rights is equated to the Black struggle for civil rights. They don't see it as being the least bit related. Blackness, after all, can't be hidden, it can't be changed. Gayness, on the other hand, not only can be concealed, many also see it as a choice, and a wrong choice at that. Why, many feel, should a group of people be able to make a wrong choice, then flaunt that wrong choice by calling themselves a minority and demanding special rights?
That's my mother's attitude in a nutshell. However, as with her well known yet unadmitted belief that O.J. did it, she will never come straight out and just fucking say this. She will talk around it in head spinning circles, she go off on annoying tangents, she will say one thing that will contradict some other thing she said, all in an effort to communicate her prejudice without actually admitting it. I don't get what's up with that. Everyone knows she feels this way, but she'd rather smoke a turd in hell than come right out and say it.
This annoys me, because I know the prejudice is there, I know how she feels about gay people. I know she's one of those people who will say she has gay friends, but when she talks about these "friends," why is it she never has anything good to say about them? If they're her friends, why does never talk about them except when she has something bad to say about them related to them being gay? If they're her friends, how come no in the family has ever met these people? They aren't her friends. They're people she used to work with that she was friendly to, but once she retired, she never spoke to them again, she just gossiped about them with her real friends. I used to do shit like that to boys in junior high school, but I never called the people I bad-mouthed friends. I may have had my bouts of being not a bitch to them, but I never mistook any of them for friends.
Anyway, back to last Thursday. I get home late, I'm tired and just want to kick back, drink a drink, and watch the Sixers game. I don't want to talk. Mom decides that I'm the person she must talk to about the protest going on in the wake of the passage of Prop. 8. Me, of all people. History should tell her that, A. I didn't support that Prop. 8 shit, and B. I don't give a rodents backside that the Mormon church (a church, by the way, that had as one of it's racist founding beliefs that Blackness was the mark of Cain, meaning Blacks were born tainted, unable to be members of the LDS church until 1978, when the LDS church, feeling the effect of public pressure, IRS threats and threats of economic boycotts, finally had a "revelation" in 1978 that allowed Blacks (men only) church membership) out in the Westside is getting picketed. Good for them! Picket that shit! Damn, the Mormon Church should be picketed on a regular basis just on fucking principal any damn way.
So, not 30 seconds into her side of the conversation, she repeats, not just a lie, but a damn lie from the pro-8 ads about how gay marriage could hurt churches. I told that gay marriage would have no effect on churches and the people saying that it would were either liars or idiots. "But, but, but..." from her, countered by actual knowledge of the CA Supreme Court decision allowing gay marriage and the California state constitution from me.
She gets away from that and goes on with her spheel about why should they be allowed to marry when they can hire a lawyer to do living trusts and blah, blah, blah, and I say because why pay to go through a bunch of legal paperwork that families of gays have often challenged and ignored in the past when an easy and indisputable process is available that just involves an "I Do"? Now, usually the conversation will then turn to her standard hedge of how she doesn't think anyone should get married anyway unless they plan to have kids, and since gays can't have kids (unless they adopt, have them via surrogacy or insemination, but I guess to her, that's not really having kids), but it didn't go there, which saved me a couple of early Advil.
She goes on, all the while, I'm really trying hard to get out of this. The Sixers game is on, and the they are losing. The conversation is so soul sucking that I'm convinced the bad juju it's creating is what's causing the Sixers to suck ass.
The conversation moves on to medical rights and how the gays are making a fuss over nothing. She mentions how she wasn't allowed to see dad once when he was in the hospital follow surgery to treat his cancer. I ask her if she was told she could never see him in the hospital and escorted out by security. No, it was because the doctor decided no visitors while he was in recovery. What did that have to do with anything, I want to know. She refused to acknowledge that it wasn't related. By this time, the Sixers, looking like hollow ghosts of themselves, had gone down like bitches and lost the game. The Blazers and Rockets are into the beginnings of what looks like is a really good one. I am now missing out on the only reason why I pay for cable TV, and a tension headache is starting to creep up the back of my skull.
She starts in on someone she knew at work who's bi, using her as an example of why she believe gays shouldn't have equal rights granted to legitimize their bad lifestyle choices (not her words, but it was definitely her point).
I finally get fed up and tell her that there are times when I don't want to talk, that there are topics I don't like to talk about with her, and that this was not only one of those times, but that this was most especially one of those topics. I say maybe it would be for the best to just end it right here.
And like a poorly designed Soviet reactor, she blew up.
How would I like it if someone told me they didn't want to talk to me about something (I said I'd stop talking, which was obviously the wrong answer.)
She went on about how she spends so much time by herself now that she's retired and doesn't have anyone to talk to, (woman, please, I pay your motherfucking phone bill, you know I know that shit ain't true), how I'm mean for never wanting to talk to her (even though I just talked to her for an entire hour before finally cutting her off and will gladly talk about a lot of other things with her), and on and on, because, obviously, I'm stopping the conversation because I'm a bad daughter, not because it's going nowhere, she has yet to actually listen to anything I've said, I'm clearly getting very tired, and I clearly don't like where it's headed. No, no, she's decided I"m a bad daughter who can't be bothered to talk to her poor old mother who, in addition to refusing to admit her prejudice against gays, also won't admit that she's bored out her skull since she retired and could probably do to find something to get her out of the house 2-3 days a week.
But, oh noes, I'm an awful daughter, and to show me how awful I am, she hasn't spoken to me since Thursday night.
Not a peep from her since Thursday. This is her idea of punishing me.
As the song goes, words like violence, break the silence. Does she really think I mind the silent treatment?
So, it's last Thursday and I get home late, which is every Thursday, as my office is open late on Thursday. Thursday nights, I get home late and I just want to eat dinner and watch basketball. I don't want to chat, I don't want to get into a big debate, I don't want to be bothered. Even Brett has figured that out and stopped calling me on Thursday nights.
Mom hasn't figured that out, though. It boggles that after all this time, she hasn't even figured out that not only am I not a huge talker, but that there are certain things that I just flat don't like to talk to her about, but she insisted on talking to me about one of those things. And what would that thing have been? Gays and Prop. 8, of course.
My mother was one of the 70% of Blacks in the state of California to support Prop. 8. This miffs a lot of people, but what those people who are miffed don't know is that while a lot of Black folks are, for the most part, liberal and Democrat in so many areas, gay rights and gay issues are not any of those areas. Additionally, many, many Blacks take offense when the fight for gay rights is equated to the Black struggle for civil rights. They don't see it as being the least bit related. Blackness, after all, can't be hidden, it can't be changed. Gayness, on the other hand, not only can be concealed, many also see it as a choice, and a wrong choice at that. Why, many feel, should a group of people be able to make a wrong choice, then flaunt that wrong choice by calling themselves a minority and demanding special rights?
That's my mother's attitude in a nutshell. However, as with her well known yet unadmitted belief that O.J. did it, she will never come straight out and just fucking say this. She will talk around it in head spinning circles, she go off on annoying tangents, she will say one thing that will contradict some other thing she said, all in an effort to communicate her prejudice without actually admitting it. I don't get what's up with that. Everyone knows she feels this way, but she'd rather smoke a turd in hell than come right out and say it.
This annoys me, because I know the prejudice is there, I know how she feels about gay people. I know she's one of those people who will say she has gay friends, but when she talks about these "friends," why is it she never has anything good to say about them? If they're her friends, why does never talk about them except when she has something bad to say about them related to them being gay? If they're her friends, how come no in the family has ever met these people? They aren't her friends. They're people she used to work with that she was friendly to, but once she retired, she never spoke to them again, she just gossiped about them with her real friends. I used to do shit like that to boys in junior high school, but I never called the people I bad-mouthed friends. I may have had my bouts of being not a bitch to them, but I never mistook any of them for friends.
Anyway, back to last Thursday. I get home late, I'm tired and just want to kick back, drink a drink, and watch the Sixers game. I don't want to talk. Mom decides that I'm the person she must talk to about the protest going on in the wake of the passage of Prop. 8. Me, of all people. History should tell her that, A. I didn't support that Prop. 8 shit, and B. I don't give a rodents backside that the Mormon church (a church, by the way, that had as one of it's racist founding beliefs that Blackness was the mark of Cain, meaning Blacks were born tainted, unable to be members of the LDS church until 1978, when the LDS church, feeling the effect of public pressure, IRS threats and threats of economic boycotts, finally had a "revelation" in 1978 that allowed Blacks (men only) church membership) out in the Westside is getting picketed. Good for them! Picket that shit! Damn, the Mormon Church should be picketed on a regular basis just on fucking principal any damn way.
So, not 30 seconds into her side of the conversation, she repeats, not just a lie, but a damn lie from the pro-8 ads about how gay marriage could hurt churches. I told that gay marriage would have no effect on churches and the people saying that it would were either liars or idiots. "But, but, but..." from her, countered by actual knowledge of the CA Supreme Court decision allowing gay marriage and the California state constitution from me.
She gets away from that and goes on with her spheel about why should they be allowed to marry when they can hire a lawyer to do living trusts and blah, blah, blah, and I say because why pay to go through a bunch of legal paperwork that families of gays have often challenged and ignored in the past when an easy and indisputable process is available that just involves an "I Do"? Now, usually the conversation will then turn to her standard hedge of how she doesn't think anyone should get married anyway unless they plan to have kids, and since gays can't have kids (unless they adopt, have them via surrogacy or insemination, but I guess to her, that's not really having kids), but it didn't go there, which saved me a couple of early Advil.
She goes on, all the while, I'm really trying hard to get out of this. The Sixers game is on, and the they are losing. The conversation is so soul sucking that I'm convinced the bad juju it's creating is what's causing the Sixers to suck ass.
The conversation moves on to medical rights and how the gays are making a fuss over nothing. She mentions how she wasn't allowed to see dad once when he was in the hospital follow surgery to treat his cancer. I ask her if she was told she could never see him in the hospital and escorted out by security. No, it was because the doctor decided no visitors while he was in recovery. What did that have to do with anything, I want to know. She refused to acknowledge that it wasn't related. By this time, the Sixers, looking like hollow ghosts of themselves, had gone down like bitches and lost the game. The Blazers and Rockets are into the beginnings of what looks like is a really good one. I am now missing out on the only reason why I pay for cable TV, and a tension headache is starting to creep up the back of my skull.
She starts in on someone she knew at work who's bi, using her as an example of why she believe gays shouldn't have equal rights granted to legitimize their bad lifestyle choices (not her words, but it was definitely her point).
I finally get fed up and tell her that there are times when I don't want to talk, that there are topics I don't like to talk about with her, and that this was not only one of those times, but that this was most especially one of those topics. I say maybe it would be for the best to just end it right here.
And like a poorly designed Soviet reactor, she blew up.
How would I like it if someone told me they didn't want to talk to me about something (I said I'd stop talking, which was obviously the wrong answer.)
She went on about how she spends so much time by herself now that she's retired and doesn't have anyone to talk to, (woman, please, I pay your motherfucking phone bill, you know I know that shit ain't true), how I'm mean for never wanting to talk to her (even though I just talked to her for an entire hour before finally cutting her off and will gladly talk about a lot of other things with her), and on and on, because, obviously, I'm stopping the conversation because I'm a bad daughter, not because it's going nowhere, she has yet to actually listen to anything I've said, I'm clearly getting very tired, and I clearly don't like where it's headed. No, no, she's decided I"m a bad daughter who can't be bothered to talk to her poor old mother who, in addition to refusing to admit her prejudice against gays, also won't admit that she's bored out her skull since she retired and could probably do to find something to get her out of the house 2-3 days a week.
But, oh noes, I'm an awful daughter, and to show me how awful I am, she hasn't spoken to me since Thursday night.
Not a peep from her since Thursday. This is her idea of punishing me.
As the song goes, words like violence, break the silence. Does she really think I mind the silent treatment?