“You’re welcome”
Both me and my mother were sitting at the kitchen table, talking and eating some of the fried chicken she was making for dinner while another batch was cooking in the frying pan. While we were talking, I brought up how I remembered that she wouldn't buy me a black Barbie doll when I asked for one in Wal-Mart when I was about 8 or so, yet she bought me a white one instead. I asked her why she hadn't and she responded, "because I would have never heard the end of it." Meaning, my father would have bitched and complained, because he's so racist that he doesn't even want his daughter owning a doll of another race. When I was older, like 12 - 15, he even got fussy when I listened to music by black artists... my mother would always tell me to hide the CD covers from him so he would never know. And I did hide them... I know it would have been the cool rebellious, alng to do to leave them out so he could find them and see, and I thought about doing it sometimes, but I knew what would happen. He would only start a horrible argument, full of insults and threats of physical violence (or maybe just skip the threats and actually do it)... and when it was all over, he just would think he got his racist point across to me, and not the other way around.
My mother and I talked a little bit more about it... memories of how I wasn't allowed to have my black friends over to my house because people in LOW "didn't want their kind around here" (which my father actually did say, word for word... he told me that when I was 9). Sometimes I just can't believe the blind intolerance people can possess, and not even realize how petty and idiotic it is. There was a long pause between me and my mother, and then I said "I'm glad I turned out the way I did. I am so thankful that I didn't end up being a racist pric."
My mother simply responded, "You're welcome."