Fourth (I think) Annual (except not annual) Blog Share!

Today's post is written by an anonymous blogger as part of -R-'s ongoing great Blog Share experiment.  In case you missed it the last time I participated in this, the Blog Share works like this:  -R- announces a Blog Share is coming up.  Bloggers around the universe sign up.  Everyone who signs up submits a post to -R-.  It could be a funny post, a sad post, a scandalous post or a confession post - anything they want to write about with their murdered dad's Invisibility Cloak on  a cloak of internet anonymity.  -R- mixes up the posts in a giant internet hat and emails each participant with their Anonymous Blog Share post.  On the designated date and time, we all put our posts up for the internet to enjoy.  And some of us almost miss the 11am posting deadline because we forgot our laptops at home.  Bon Apetit!

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After our recent presidential election, a cousin of mine posted a couple of bulletins on myspace with some extremely ignorant and racist remarks.  Actually I only read one of the bulletins but then could tell she was posting more because of what the titles were (subtlety was never her strong suit).  When I read that first one I was so upset I was actually shaking. (Just so you know, my thoughts are that no matter who you voted for, racism is never okay.  I realize that not everyone agrees with me, but for the basis of reading the rest of this post, I figured you should know where I'm coming from).  I immediately started writing a reply and trying my hardest to make it so my words would cut her to the core and she'd realize how much of an idiot she was being.  The two of us were raised pretty similarly in regards to our beliefs and ideas about the world.  Our grandparents were very present and influential in each of our lives (I would even say more in her life than mine) and taught us that all people were valuable.  My point here is that I could not believe that someone who was basically raised right alongside me could write things that were so full of ignorance and hate. 

Before I hit send on my reply to her I read it to a friend of mine to get her opinion.  She said that while she totally understood my desire to basically scream at my cousin (albeit through an email) she encouraged me to not reply in the heat of the moment, but to calm down a bit before I did anything rash myself.  I also talked to my mom and she put to rest some fears I had about me maybe not knowing my grandparents as well as I thought I did – could it have been that they were racist?  She gave me an emphatic no to that one.  Anyway as the story progresses, I ended up not doing anything about it.  I think once I talked to my friend and my mom the fire had somewhat gone out of me.  Instead I chose to basically ignore her (and this is really because I cannot stand confrontation.  And yes I know…very healthy.).  But now a couple of months have gone by and in the meantime she of course has sent me stupid little "Merry Christmas" and "Happy New Year" and "Love You!" graphic comments on myspace (I think the fact that we communicate solely by myspace these days should have tipped me off to the fact that we no longer have as much in common as we used too) and I haven't responded at all.  She recently sent me a message asking for my help on something and I just tried to keep ignoring it, but then she sent me a follow up message and I had to reply, but I kept it very short and to the point.

But now here we are in this weird space of there being a conflict between us and her having no idea that there is anything even wrong and me trying to figure out how I am going to continue to ignore her for the rest of our lives.  And that will be really difficult – we aren't just distant relatives.  She is the girl I thought I would have as my matron of honor some day (I was hers).  We wore matching outfits well into our elementary school days.  We had an imaginary friend whom we tried to convince our brothers was real.  And so on and so forth.  And yes, if I'm really honest with myself and think more clearly about the last few years I can see that we've grown apart.  She has made some decisions that I've been pretty appalled or annoyed by.  I think she may think I'm too "citified" for her taste (sure because I moved to a place with maybe twice the population of our po-dunk hometown).  So yes, there are differences.  We are older and we don't agree on or believe the same things anymore.  But what do I do to move on from here?  Do I confront her (ugh, this makes me nauseous just thinking about it) or do I act like nothing is the matter and everything is hunky dory (also not sounding too great)?  I think it would be a little weird for me to say, "Hey, you know way back in November when you wrote those horribly racist things?  Ya, that wasn't cool and I think you're an idiot."  Where is the middle ground in all of this?

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Each Blog Share participant has the link to where their anonymous post will go up, so if you care to leave a comment you can do it here and the author will see it.

A complete list of all the blogs participating in this round of Blog Share is right here.

Comments

[Tess]

Ugg. UGG! This sucks. It's been my experience that you can NEVER change someone's mind when it comes to these types of comments, but I completely understand that it feels like the right thing to do to TRY.

[NGS]

I think that the situation sucks. What you should do about it depends on what you want FROM it.

1) You want to go back to the type of friendship you shared as children with imaginary friends and look alike outfits and potential wedding attendants? You have to call her/ask her to meet you for coffee and have a conversation with her. Tell her that you're hurt by the business in November. Ask her what she was thinking? Based on these responses and/or her defensiveness, you can decide if that closeness is something that can possibly be achieved again.

2) You will only see her at family events from here on out with occasional myspace comments. Maybe just make a passing comment to her the next time you see her about how you wish people were more careful about what they put out there on the internet and see what happens. That way you don't completely ignore the situation, but you don't actually confront her.

It sucks. I'm not sure that much will change in either scenario, but it seems like you'll feel better in the end. Maybe.

I'm sorry you have to go through this.

[cadiz12]

i'd say see if she makes some kind of remark/posting again, and then say something to the effect of "whoa, that's totally not cool." it might open up a conversation without you having to get all nasty. at the very least she'll know how you feel.

[Kristabella]

I have a very close friend from college who is a racist. We both grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. There are many times when she would make some racist remark and look at me and be all "right Kris?" and I just wouldn't say anything. I wouldn't agree with her, but I wouldn't say "NO WAY!" Not saying anything was just as bad as agreeing with her.

Still to this day, to me it isn't worth the confrontation. She's not as bad anymore, since she's had children, but every now and then she'll throw out a racial slur and it makes me cringe.

Good luck because I don't know what to do in that situation, clearly, since I haven't said a thing to my friend about it in the almost 14 years that we've known each other.

[3carnations]

I didn't vote for our president, but that notwithstanding, it is NEVER okay to make racist remarks.

When I found out my dad had voted for President Obama, I first was shocked, because he tends to be as conservative as I am, but I then was proud of him, because I've heard him make many ignorant racist comments in my life, and this vote was very significant for him as a person.

[lizgwiz]

I'd probably "say" something about being upset by certain remarks, but because I, too, hate confrontation, I'd "say" it via email. I'm not nearly as non-confrontational as I was before the invention of the interwebs! ;)

[abbersnail]

Hmmm... I'll tell you about a similar situation I had with a friend, though the topic of conversation was mental illness instead of racism.

I said to him, "I'm having a hard time letting go of something you said several months ago. I know that you were probably just blowing off steam, but [thing you said] has been bothering me since it happened. I'm trying to let go of it, but in the future, could you exclude me from messages of that nature? I don't want to damage our relationship, but I couldn't possibly disagree with you more, and it hurts me to know that you feel that way."

In our case, it worked beautifully, and he ended up reading what he'd sent out and admitting that it was not appropriate.

[courtney]

True, it is never okay to be racist. But I think some people just don't think about what they're saying, and they try to be funny but it just comes off as ignorant. I think if you talk this out with your cousin, maybe she'll understand that what she said was hurtful to a lot of people, including you. Good luck.

[nancypearlwannabe]

Ugh. I had a similar problem with a "friend" of mine on Facebook and I finally did the passive-aggressive thing of deleting her from my friend list. I did send her one message about how her racist marks offended me, but I don't think she really took me seriously until I hit that delete button.

I know confrontation is hard, but maybe now that you've had time to think about it and write a calm email, maybe you should tell her what's bothering you?

[Sra]

Well, I'm not a real big fan of passive-aggression, which is basically what your ignoring your cousin is. You are punishing her and she doesn't know why. Wouldn't you want to know why if you were in her shoes?

That doesn't mean you should send her an email saying you think she's a racist bigot. I think the right time to speak up passed, but should another time come to speak up, I recommend doing so. But do so respectfully, because people don't respond well to being told they are an idiot, even if it's true. Tell her simply that you find her remarks racist and offensive, and you are surprised that somebody who was raised as well as she was would say such things.

[-R-]

I don't have any advice for you, but if I were in the same situation, I personally would have a hard time being friends with her again.

[Christine]

I don't think you will ever have the same type of relationship you two had as children, but that said, you are family and just ignoring her doesn't seem to make you feel better.

It is my sincere hope that instead of being an all out racist, she's just ignorant and maybe not so bright? Maybe you could say or email something along the lines of, "hey, I know I've been weird lately, but I was really upset about X, Y, Z, because I don't agree with those sentiments at all nor do I condone them"? Maybe?

Gah, good luck with it all.

[A New Duck]

I would say something to her, even if it's hard to say, and even if it causes you problems in the future. I think silence fuels racism, misunderstanding, and hate. If she publishes that type of thing and no one says anything, she thinks it's okay, or even worse, she thinks people agree with her.

Of course, it's easy for me to get on my high horse - I'm not the one who has to confront a family member. *shudder*