My Grandma Is Racist
She hates exactly half of me, the Latina half
She dislikes exactly 50% of me — the Brown half. The Latina half. The half that invaded her suburban fairy tale to knock up her daughter.
She has itemized me in dressing rooms. She likes my “White” legs but not my “Latin” hips. She likes my eye shape but not the color. She likes my Jennifer Aniston straight hair but not the dark chestnut hue.
She has called my thighs fat and then bought me clothes.
She has encouraged me to say I’m Italian. “You could pass,” she has said. She has encouraged me to marry White so my kids would (possibly) look more White and I would “fix” my mother’s “mistake.”
She is a part of me.
I have her love for true crime, for puzzles, for sudoku. We both actually know how to play minesweeper and are good at it. We have the same shoe size, and we have the same taste in shoes. I have her love of travel and her anger. Like her, I can go from calm, to enraged, to calm again.
Racists are assholes. Their problem with me being mixed is and always will be their problem, not mine.
For those of you who will use this as an excuse to say that mixed kids are “confused” and…
