Yesterday’s conversation between seven-and-a-half month old Elijah and Grandpa while Grandpa was oohing-and-awing reading aloud “The Lowest White Man” (Charles M. Blow, NYT, Jan. 11, 2018) in Elijah’s presence. This was before the evening news of the President calling African nations ‘sh**hole nations’.
Elijah and Grandma Kay
Grandpa, we’re right, right?
About what, Elijah? Right can mean lots of things.
Like what?
It can mean ‘correct’. Right can be a direction, like “turn right” instead of left. In politics right means the opposite of left, like the alt-Right. There’s an old saying that Might makes right, but it doesn’t, Elijah.
Yeah. But we’re right, right?
Sometimes we are. Sometimes we aren’t. And when we aren’t we need to change.
Change what? Mom changes my diapers. Change what? What do you mean ‘we’? Who’s ‘we’?
Well, you heard what Charles M. Blow just said, and Charles Blow wasn’t blowing smoke, Elijah. He spoke the truth, like W.E.B. Dubois and President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Yeah, we’re white, right? That makes us right!
President Obama, Jan. 5, 2016
No, you’re not white. You’re like President Obama. You weren’t listening to Charles. Listen again:
As President Lyndon B. Johnson said in the 1960s to a young Bill Moyers: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Trump’s supporters are saying to us, screaming to us, that although he may be the “lowest white man,” he is still better than Barack Obama, the “best colored man.”
(Charles M. Blow, ‘The Lowest White Man’ NYT)
Wow! White doesn’t make right! What’s a colored man, Grandpa?
- Gordon C. Stewart (Grandpa Gordon), Chaska, MN, January 12, 2018.
Views from the Edge 
Elijah, I’m very glad your grandfather is showing you the path to wisdom.
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Dear CA, Grandpa THINKS he’s really smart but he’s not. He’s just old. He says you are too. I hope you skin’s not all saggy and wrinkly like his!
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Oh, it’s really bad. I’m losing some weight to try to get a little ready for hip replacement. There was a great cartoon with a woman about my build having a flag tattooed on her arm. When asked why, she said, “Well if it’s going to wave in the breeze, it might as well have a function.”😂
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All the best with the weight reduction and the tattoo.
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Garry, after we finally did some DNA, is everyone in the world. He is what we will all eventually be. A little of everything from every continent. And as far as I am concerned, that’s how it OUGHT to be.
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Dear Elijah, I sure miss having a sweet Baboo to talk to!! I got confused when I was a bit older than you when African Americans were called “colored people”. My mom told be we were going to a town where there were colored people. I was so excited!! But there were pink people and brown people. So I loudly asked where the colored people were. She got mad and told me they were all around me. I didn’t want her mad at me, so I didn’t ask again. Listen to your Granpa. Thinks were getting better until some people, not me!, elected President #45 who is not too smart or kind. I think he is unhappy, so I hope he resigns SOON.
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Dear Rev. Collum, My Grandpa’s a Rev. too, but he’s not always reverent. He had a cousin like your mother. Gina was Grandpa’s favorite cousin, but Grandpa says she called people ‘colored’ and didn’t like them! Gina was nine years older than Grandpa til she died four years ago. I asked Grandpa where she is now. He said he doesn’t know but that wherever she is, if she’s ANYWHERE other than in the ground, she’s with lots of ‘colored’ people. Maybe even W.E.B. Dubois and George Wallace!
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My husband and many of his and my friends refer to many of their friends as “people of color” because all of them are some shade of tan or brown, but not black.
My granddaughter doesn’t call them anything but people because she can’t see the difference — and always gets very annoyed when someone says someone else is “black.” She says no one is black. We are all some shade of beige or brown.
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In Minnesota “people of color” is the language used mostly. In MN it includes “black”. Interesting, though. we don’t include “pink”! No one is really white.
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Right after heart surgery? I was the color of a dead trout.
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Brook, brown, or rainbow?
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Brook.
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