Today I’m thinking about… a poem I wrote to be performed.
June 18th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
My Mum’s Just a Little Bit Racist
My mum’s just a little bit racist.
She got back from Europe, and at the arrival gate
She told me ‘this little bloody Arab girl kept kicking the back of my seat!’
Through a half laugh
I rolled my eyes and waited til I got in the car before I asked her ’Does it matter
That she was Arab?’
And my dad chimed ‘Yeah! Stop being so prejudiced!’ from the back seat
And we both felt mildly righteous as I pulled the car out
And drove the hour home.
It reminded me of that time she told me
About the man who stood behind her in the post-office
A Greek, who jeered at her when she asked if she could pop out of line
To grab a book of stamps. She huffed ‘You know Greeks
Just don’t have ANY respect for women!’ And pegged the book of stamps at the refrigerator watching
The bills she hadn’t paid yet slide swift
To the floor.
And I thought of a boy I once knew, Greek
Who asked me out but I thought he was too young for me
Only a year younger but with a pudding face
The kind a mother pokes her fat fingers at on the street and he had the utmost respect for his mother
And women
And me. And then he was killed in a car accident
About 6 months later, give or take, from what I remember. I can’t tell you
What it’s like to have a guy who asked you out
A guy you only knew really through a friend
Who you kissed once for the hell of it and thought he was sloppy,
Die.
But Greeks have no respect for women, I heard
Even 16 year olds.
Then I noticed, on a warm day
An Asian man walk down the street, what kind of Asian?
I don’t know. They all look the same but not Indian
Who to me
Sometimes
Look like white people with too much fake tan
He passed a Lebanese woman, wearing a hajib
But then do Lebanese women wear hajibs? Are they muslim? Anyway, she was angry
About something and steered into a half empty parking lot
Flush flesh bundled to guard
From the glare
And the Asian man watched her with shrewd dark eyes and I wondered
If he was just a little bit racist too.
