This evening I was having dinner with my mother, Rie, and godmother, Elsie when I heard an interesting story from Elsie.
Elsie is a very sweet, funny woman nearing her 70's. She stays active and works at a bank a few days a week to stave off boredom. A few weeks ago, she tells us, they were all sitting around at lunch, talking about ear piercings. You know, how old they were when they first had their ears pierced, their first set of earrings, crazy peircings that people have...when Elsie piped up to tell the story of her first earrings and how they'd been lost.
She was very young, probably about 5 or 6 when she'd gotten her ear's peirced and in that same year while playing a game of Klu Klux Klan they'd been ripped out by accident.
The room went quiet. Everyone looked at the lone black man standing in the room.
"Thank God he had a sense of humor!" Exclaimed Elsie "I mean, I didn't realize what I was saying! When we played that game we were very young and didn't know what it meant. All we knew was that you wore a pillowcase on your head and pretended to kidnapp each other."
"Like Cowboys and Indians." I offered
"Exactly."
Her co-workers sat stunned, staring first at the man then at Elsie
(
"You know the ones most shocked were the ones feeling most guilty. I hadn't realized what I'd done, I was just telling a story"she frowned.)
He laughed "What exactly were the rules of this game?"
The room relaxed and Elsie explained that she didn't remember much, just that someone with a pillowcase on thier heads came to take you away, and they put a pillowcase on your head as well, which is when her earrings were caught and ripped out. No one was hurt.
A few weeks later the man left, he was only temping. On his way out he said goodbye to Elsie
"Hope I didn't scare you too much." He teased
"Ohhh now you know I liked you all along!" She laughed.
3 comments:
Oh my gosh, people were "shocked"?
It's like people don't have a sense of humor.
Back when I was a kid we played this game in the neighborhood called "Get Your White Ass Kicked By Mexican Kids," where you would walk around and then a Mexican kid would kick your ass.
It wasn't about racism, sometimes the Mexican kids would kick other Mexican kids asses too.
All in fun!
Holy mother of crap, people were "shocked"?
It's like people don't have a sense of humor.
I mean, seriously, that shit is fucking hilarious!
Back when I was a kid, we played a game in the neighborhood called "Hang Out With Your White Friends, Because Everyone Here Is White, Whitey." It wasn't about racism, there just didn't happen to be anyone around except white people. Sometimes after we played that game, we'd play "Cowboys and Indians," or the longtime favorite "Bomb the Fuck Out of This Whole Block of Dirty Africans," which was always a blast for everyone, white or black.
All in fun! ;)
An even funner game than Get Your White Ass Kicked By Mexican Kids was Destroy All Arabs.
Basically, you and the other Mexican kids (the ass-kickees, not the ass-kickers) pointed at bushes and pretened that they were Arabs (because we didn't know any Arabs, Arab.) Then you got a broom stick and hit the bush with a stick--hit it! Hit it!! until all the leaves are off. Then a old white lady yells at you, then you run. Then you eat microwave pizza.
Pizza, in Spanish, is pizza.
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