Ignorance is Bliss

We attended a wedding reception last weekend at a town nearby. We were looking forward to an evening out alone. By alone, I mean without the children. Everything was going well, a glass of wine, a delicious meal, just about time for the dance to begin.  A Stevie Wonder song began playing. The man next to us leaned over and stated he thought it was strange when a "white" couple played Stevie Wonder music at their weddings with a chuckle. Every hair on my body stood straight up; this should have been my first cue it was NOT going to end there. The man proceeded to tell an awful joke about Stevie Wonder in reference to his color. I looked directly at this man immediately after the joke left his lips and stated, "OUR daughter is BLACK." The man coughed a few times, took a drink, and began to tell us all about a "friend" of his that adopted a Chinese child. An apology?...oh no.  

As I sat at the table, I fought back tears and swallowed the lump in my throat. My mind was instantly drawn to my child, she will fight this all of her life. My son will have to fight these fight on her behalf also. I knew it was going to be difficult in theory to be a biracial family, but now it is becoming a reality. 

I hope that some day we will immediately be ready with a "stop you in your tracks" one liners to end the statement or "joke" before it begins. 

Here are a few other situation we have dealt with this far:

I had an anonymous person leave a post on this blog a few months ago about how racism is dead. "People" need to get over it. That I should be happy and honored that someone addressed my child as Barack Obama. (Previous post "Did You Just Call My Baby Obama?') I did not post this ridiculous comment to my wall. 

We have had others tell us they are afraid to tell us jokes or talk to us because they are afraid they will say the wrong thing.  They insist their "jokes" are just meant to be funny; they are NOT racist or hurtful. My question for them is why would a joke ever make you fearful if deep down in your heart you knew it was harmless. 

We had a distant relative tell us how his children want to move because they live in a town that houses too many hispanics. 

Racism is not dead my friends and I know we haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg. As a caucasian woman, it was so easy to have closed eyes to all of this. Ignorance is bliss.