The thin line…

There’s a thin line between love and hate. I have heard it all my life, used to justify having negative feelings towards someone who you’re meant to love, someone you do love.

These last couple years have been full of stressors for most of us. Financial, physical, emotional, mental, and relational stress. I don’t believe many have escaped and those who have, well they’ve probably profited off the stress of the rest of us somehow.

What I want to vent about here is the relationship challenges and stress I personally have had to face this past year or 2. In particular with my Dad. My parents.

In general as a family we know we’re not to discuss politics or it will go badly and we have really been great at that. No politics discussed and minimal time together (which was easy thanks to covid).

Racism isn’t politics, shouldn’t be called political and yet racism is another subject we cannot discuss if there is to be peace and harmony. We cannot discuss my neighbor sexually assaulting me at 10, 11 and 12 years old or my dad beating me up til I was bloody and throwing me out the door at 14 years old either but that’s not today’s focus.

I’ve learned some things are not to talk about…or have I been conditioned?

We’ve had this rule to not talk politics and I’ve abided, since before chads were hanging politics has been a forbidden topic. And now my children also know what not to get into with my Dad. We all feel it’s truly better that way.

In May of 2020 the murder of George Floyd crushed me. Something shifted and broke and all the light and love in the world wasn’t going to save me. My whole life I have seen black men and women being mistreated and murdered by the police and no one in my family seemed concerned or outraged. As I grew into adulthood and had my own family I continued to pretend to not notice.

The truth is, when my teenage children came to me in 2015 and said Black Lives Matter I responded like the shallow racist I was raised to be and said oh honey, all lives matter. I recall the arguments and the lessons my beautiful amazing strong children were trying to teach me and I remember saying stupid things like lets all just stay in the light. Or having the audacity to think and suggest that if we look away and maintain a high vibration we can conquer anything and one day you will see that we’re right and all lives matter.

Ugh. I hate that… but that’s where I was. I didn’t consider myself racist. I believed in my heart I was right and I was the grown up and what did these kids know anyway.

How ignorant. Children are on the leading edge, I know that, I love Abraham Hicks and I know our children have so much to offer us… but if I had let myself hear them I’d have to see ALL of the subtle (and not so subtle) racist reality I lived in.

A reality I couldn’t look away from after the murder of George Floyd. It tripped a yearning in my soul to know and understand the truth. I began to read books and donate money. I began to use my voice and speak up and out against racism… I began to scream Black Lives Matter to all who would hear me and I began to use that light I spoke of staying in to shine on all the dark places that needed to be seen. Truly it isn’t much that I can do, but I can commit to learning and growing and standing against the injustices I witness all around me.

My heart grew heavier as the days passed. The months passed. Now years have passed. My energy has definitely changed. I have changed. I am heavier.

Some people don’t like me anymore. Lots of people stopped following me and even took the time to send me hate mail and call me hateful and racist. The irony.

I digress.

I was so grateful it was 2020 and there were no visits with my parents to navigate through after George Floyed was murdered because keeping my mouth shut wasn’t easy. We all unfollowed each other on social media because the difference in what we believed in was overwhelmingly clear and keeping the peace was important.

It was inevitable though, the months passed and more visits were possible and sometime before Halloween 2021 we had brought our granddaughter over to visit my parents. The usual subjects avoided and the conversations casual as needed to appease my dad until the baby started pushing buttons on her play phone.

“Hello…. Hola”

“How are you…. Como estas”

“Goodbye…. Adios”

Both my parents reacted immediately questioning why her phone is speaking to her in Spanish. The racism was not so subtle (although they’d both deny they are racist at all) as they pushed the thought that this is America and we speak English here. My husband and I both tried to stay easy about it and suggested how nice it is to be able to communicate with so many more Americans who speak Spanish but that just triggered my Dad to state that if they came to live here in this country they should speak the language of this country. The baby was playing, it wasn’t time for arguing. We tried to keep it light and suggest it’s no big deal. Mom started with some nonsense about it being in the constitution to speak English. My Dad got all blustered and fell back on his usual refrain “I’m 78 years old and I believe what I believe and I’m not going to change now, I don't want to change. I am who I am” We gathered the baby and her things and left. We were laughing at them and working to keep it light, but we were shook inside.

As soon as we got in the car my husband looked at me and said “I wanted so badly to ask him if we’re supposed to speak the language of the people who were here first why we don’t all speak Cherokee or Navajo or some Indigenous language.” I wish he had said it, but he too knew he had to play the game and not argue. So he kept quiet.

Life kept on going as usual until one day I was fool enough to go looking at his facebook page. I have him hidden and I don’t follow him because he …well, to keep the peace. To keep my sanity and most importantly to keep me from seeing how gross he is. But on this day, I went looking for trouble…and I found it.

It was the day of the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict and knowing my Dad is a big gun rights advocate I went looking at his page. I went looking. It’s all on me. I don’t know what I was thinking. Surprisingly I didn’t find anything about the case, I found he actually didn’t post very often. Some political propaganda that I ignored and then 3 posts down he had shared a story I couldn’t ignore. I was triggered.

It was an older story, over a year old at that point. It was a big racist dog whistle filled with hate and vitriol. It was a tragic, horrible story about a young white boy who was shot and killed and the article focused on why no one was screaming for justice for Cannon Hinnant. Some of you may know the story, a horrible murder indeed. I won’t give too much attention to it because it was used for such racist propaganda. I was so offended that my dad would post such hate. The original poster wrote awful things about George Floyd and compared the 2 murders and was filled with inaccurate details made to enflame the racist and spread hate.

I sat looking… reading and filling with more and more anger. I wanted to scream the truth at my Dad “THERE WAS JUSTICE FOR CANNON. HIS MURDERER WAS APREHENDED WITHIN 24 HOURS…HIS FAMILY DID RECIEVE HUNDEREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS VIA A GO FUND ME CAMPAIGN….NO ONE SAYS ONLY BLACK LIVES MATTER” and that doesn’t even begin to cover the feelings overflowing from inside me at that time. I was furious that my own dad would share that nonsense and saddened at the family members who commented on it in solidarity. I was embarrassed and mortified and I desperately wanted to teach him the truth. I wanted to open his mind. He’s such a smart man but he refuses to hear anything that doesn’t agree with his thinking and he most certainly could never learn from me, his daughter, a female.

I was delusional in thinking he’d hear me this time. I thought this was the perfect case, the article was old and long since disproven. There were facts. He’d have to see and hear me. I wasn’t in my right mind. I should have stopped myself, I knew this might not go well. I just couldn’t stop myself. I was tired of pretending. I let my hands go over the keyboard retorting with some truths and I quickly hit post. I didn’t stop… I commented another starting with “omg dad I can’t believe you would post this kind of bullshit…” and continued to point out the inaccuracies it contained…and I hit post. Then a final comment stating I was glad we didn’t talk about these things in person or we’d never see each other…post again. Whew.

I did it. I spoke up against the racism in my Dad. Why? What did I really think I’d gain?

I love my Dad. I love my parents so much and have always longed for belonging and acceptance with them. I was adopted at birth and always struggled to fit in. I felt separated and disconnected my whole life. That’s not what this is about though, this is about my love for my parents and how it clashes with the disgust I have for his belief system. His misogynistic heart will never open to learn anything from me. I’ve known this my entire life and just went with the flow. Always careful to not upset Dad and avoid topics that will cause him distress. Mostly so my Mom wouldn’t have to live with him after the fact but also to protect and preserve our relationship.

My Dad didn’t react well to my pointing out his inaccurate post and calling it out as racist propaganda. I didn’t know it though because in fact he didn’t react at all. He never responded. He’s still not spoken to me.

Days went by and it left my mind. I had a cousin who needed information from my mother and I reached out to her, she was weird, cold… said she wasn’t feeling well and got off the phone. I called the next day to check on her and she said she was fine, we chatted briefly and got off the phone. She texted to let me know that they were going to my sick uncles for turkey day which was fine with us because we all had some big feelings about the holiday and weren’t planning on celebrating as usual and that conversation would not go well with my parents here.

Another week went by before I got a text from her saying she thought my facebook was hacked. After some questioning I realized she was trying to call me out for my comments and acting like it was some hacker who said those things. In hindsight maybe I should have just gone with it, I was harsh with my comments and maybe this was a way out. Nope, I took a breath and stood by my words. We went back and forth a few times via text and she made a few comments to inform me that she agrees with the post and is also sick of hearing about “Floyd”. I tried to explain the misinformation and she made it clear she thought I posted it on Dad’s wall to stir the pot and didn’t even understand that HE shared the story himself. He was hurt because I called him out on a public forum and he didn’t even care about the truth. How dare I correct him publicly.

All this via text messages because she refused to actually talk with me. My parents are 78 years old and communication with them is difficult enough in person nevermind via texting. Dad can’t hear well at all so phone calls with him never happen. And their understanding of how facebook works is also lacking to say the least. Why on earth did I say anything? Why did I even go to his page? What was I thinking?

Another week or so passed, it was now early December, and I texted Mom to say we had the baby that night and would bring her to visit if they liked and her response was no, I should stay away. She dismissed me from their lives, that’s the way I took it when she said ‘we love you but…“You live your life and we will live out the rest of our days. Merry Christmas” They are so upset that I would publicly criticize his political views that we should stay apart and live out our lives that way. DISMISSED!

It broke me. As an adopted person my sense of belonging in this family has always felt threatened. People would comment on how I don’t look like them, my Mother used to say I had bad blood and that was why I was getting into trouble at school etc. I don’t understand how they found it so easy (my entire life) to just deny me if I didn’t please them. At 52 it was happening again and I melted down.

I sent text after text begging her to clarify what exactly she was saying. I cried openly all alone in my house, wailed out loud like a dying animal…I was devastated by her words. She wouldn’t answer the phone when I called. She didn’t respond to my texts of despair and attempts to clarify her meaning… and I got angry and I pointed out that I didn’t criticize his political views, I called him out on his racist views. I pointed out that he posted something false. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I didn’t deserve to be dismissed from their lives because of it.

After several texts and no response I stopped. I accepted that I would not see them for the holidays and that I was no longer welcome in their home or lives. I felt horrible, angry, broken, abandoned, sad… so very sad. But I went on with my holiday plans and continued living my amazing life. I know I am blessed beyond blessed and I stood in that knowledge.

Just before Christmas my oldest daughter (who was always very close with my parents) spoke up to my mother about all of this and my mother denied it. She acted surprised I would feel dismissed and said they loved me very much and we just didn’t see eye to eye on things. My mother then sent me a text exclaiming their love for me. It was so mind bending that I didn’t respond. Did she forget? She was denying it? She was manipulating things to be seen her way. She didn’t want my daughter to see her in that light? It all feels so crazy and yet so familiar.

It’s a new year now. They are not getting any younger. I know this. I love them because they are my parents and I want peace. We’ve texted casually a few times. My husband went over to drop off and pick up Christmas gifts and it’s “oh we love her so much” and basically it’s being chalked up as just an overreaction on my part. We should not discuss politics, they reiterated again.

I agree. We should not discuss politics and we didn’t discuss politics. In fact we didn’t discuss anything but if we’re to call it a “discussion” it was not about politics it was about racism. I can’t imagine ever again not speaking out against racism. Even to my parents. Even if it means they dismiss me from their lives.

I am determined to not continue living with my eyes closed. I am determined to listen to my brilliant children as they teach me and help me learn and grow. I also would like to not rock the boat with my parents (which is hysterical as I write this story and hope they never see it) but how do I do that now? How do I ignore it when he makes his subtle racist and misogynistic comments? Is keeping the peace worth tolerating it? Am I the only one trying to figure this out?

There is a thin line between love and hate and I am doing everything I can to stay on the love side of it.

Thanks for letting me vent.