Saturday, September 26, 2009

At the mall

I was standing in line at the pretzel counter with Matthew and Melissa when the woman next to us leaned over and said sotto voce, "It's so good to see pure, white children!" Totally floored me. I didn't want to smack her down since she meant well, but I didn't want to endorse what sounded to my ears kinda racist, either. So I intelligently replied, "Huh."
I'm still weirded out thinking about it. If we were in a homogenized country like most of Asia I could see meaning nothing more by that than "it's good to see some variety in the landscape." But here in San Antonio? Whites are a minority here, yeah, but not _that_ much of a minority (just under 30% -- I looked it up).

Huh.


[Rachel adds: Fortunately I don't think her attitude is prevalent here. I have never run across anything like that yet...]

2 comments:

Rachel Ellis said...

That is really creepy. I feel like I need a shower, yuck. I wouldn't necessarily take her motives as "meaning well," either.

Fortunately Matthew and Melissa could care less what color their friends are.

Rachel Ellis said...

This is making me even more disgusted when I think of our wonderful brother-in-law and two super cute nephews.

Grrr.