As I sit here eating my yummy red grapes, trying to get motivated to write my 2 page paper on "Guess who's coming to dinner", I find myself a little peeved with my neighbors. First allow me to express how I operate on a daily, I work, go to school, and then come home, family time, and then do homework. I deal with people all day long, my job I deal with pissed and obnoxious people all day (I work for a repossession company), at school I am in situations where I must socialize or at least make conversation with someone at some point. Saying all of this I have not much need or want to deal with any other outsiders, just my own family members and sometimes that is even a stretch.
Now let me get to these neighbors of mine, they seem to be the social type, walking up and down the block chatting with everyone, they have caught me a few times and I probably make it shorter than necessary, but that is just how I operate with everyone. The other day we are shopping and run into them, my husband and I chat with them for a few minutes. Then a few days later my husband is putting new brakes on one of our vehicles, Ty, our neighbor, comes over and wants to shoot the shit... My husband continues working while they chat for quite some time. Then Ty asks my husband where I am from originally and my husband tells him Montana, and it seems as though Ty has an epiphany. He says "Oh that is why she treats me like that." My husband is a little confused but is still working on the truck, so just rolls with it and says "ok." So our neighbor continues in saying yeah its okay though cause it happens to him all the time.
After dinner a few nights later, my husband tells me the conversation and I am surprised that he has even said this and pissed that I got lumped in a group and stereotyped so quickly. Let me add that my neighbor is a black man. He always mentions his size and how hard it is for him. I find it interesting that he played the race card...because I don't chit-chat with his white wife either.
All this just solidifies the fact that people will say what they know and choose to hear and feel what they want.
If I were to let him in and converse with this man he might find out that I was raised in a very white, union centered, shallow town, where my family was one of the few mixed families. He may also find out that the color of his skin and the color of my skin doesn't matter to me...there is much more I am interested in...the human RACE interests me, how we work on the inside is my field of study....or maybe he won't!!!
