my dad rolling over in his grave

My dad grew up in a milieu that took the Democratic machine politics of Chicago as a baseline for life.  Dad's father had worked for the city, reteaining his secure, steady gig through the Depression. My dad was a college grad but he sidled into Chicago city jobs for their job security.  Security was my dad's top priority. To possess and retain that security, he was happy to be a precinct captain for the original Mayor Daley's political machine.

And my dad prodded all his kids to get government jobs. Government jobs were a winning formula for the Irish in Chicago. As I graduated from law school, my dad made a hard push for me to become a Chicago police officer. As if.

And if one didn't work for 'the city', the next best thing was a good union job.

I have four brothers and a sister. I didn't go government or union. My sister chose a career in international education, having now taught in China, Korea, Japan, Kuwait, Egypt, Albanian and, since she and I have not been in touch in over ten years, maybe other countries.  

My sister flunked as a U.S. public school teacher. She did work for a couple public schools but she failed to hide her racism.

My baby brother is gay. If he is racist, he has hidden it from me.  He is not at all political. He'll sleep with any race as long as his lover is male.

My three other brothers, which include a retired judge, a sliding into retirement accountant for unions (he learned the union lesson?) and one who got fired from his gig driving a delivery truck for Chicago schools because he is a drunk. Still, he was a union man until he got bounced.

My sister and the three other brothers are all racists.   Racism among whites raised in Chicago is not unusual. I grew up white in Chicago's South Side. I heard plenty of privately articulated racism all my life. But never from my mother or father. 

I had a boyfriend in h.s., somoene I dated a few months, who often commented about the monkeys, the free circus show he 'treated' me to when we went somewhere downtown. Going downtown meant we had to pass thorugh some all black neighborhoods. Mike, this awful boyfriend*, would say "I'm going to take this route so we can see more of the monkeys in the circus". He was referring to black humans.  I cringed to hear comments like that but I don't think I, when age fifteen, objected. I was shy with guys. I was shy about everything. And I did not understand the murky paths of racist commentary.

My top three brothers (so excluding my gay baby bro) grew more open in their casual, racist invectives. As we got to college age and beyond, these brothers, and my sister, spoke openly in racist tones, using the "N" word a plenty.

I am estranged from all my siblings. Not my choice.  I made a friend request on a FB page for my Irish twin, my brother Joe. Gosh, I may have made that request years ago. And Joe only has about 8 FB friends so he is not particularly invested in using FB. Still, recently, he accepted my friend request.  I am astonished that he did. Of course I looked at his FB page once he accepted me and granted me access. Which is how I learned he has a few 'likes' and one of his likes is some Donald Trump fan group.

I am reminded of the time my sister, fourteen years younger than me, was in college. I was a young mom and lawyer living far from the family of origin but we still saw one another a few times a year. I would go home to visit my folks and always saw my sibs. Once, when sis was in college, we had some exchange, the details forgotten, in which she said, snarkily, sneeringly, dismissively "Oh, people of your generation think everything matters." To which I retorted "Everything does matter. It is delusion to think it doesn't." She was referring to my, in her view, inappropriate attitude about blacks.  Crazy, black sheep me, I knew people of color are my equal, are all perfectly good.

I wonder how sis feels about Trump.  I have seen, on her FB page, that my niece has recently declared herself in love and in relationship with a young black man. Christ on a  cracker:  that would have killed my sister when I knew her. And sis' husband, my niece's adoptive father, is a Frenchman, a racist bigot, a drunk (as reported by my sister) and an all around dirtbag.

Trump?  In my family of origin?  Un-fucking-believable. Yet apparently true.

My father could tolerate racist commentary from his children but he would have had a wicked ahrd time choking down seeing any of his kids love any Republican, much less this awful scumbag DonBoy.