Politely Racist

I’ve discussed before how I happen to work with some conservative Christian co-workers. One of them happens to be of the fun sort of conservative Christian, the fundamental, judgmental, somewhat racist, conservative Christian. We’ll call her Peg because that’s not her real name and if she ever Google’s her real name, despite the fact that it’s fairly common, I’d rather her not find this because it’s utterly truthful and really awful of her.

Recently there was a lovely cake that was made, sort of a wedding/anniversary cake that is often used for bridal showers and all. It has a couple of hearts on it and looks lacy and all that happy crap. When Peg got to the point of putting the names on and saw that it was TWO GIRL names she said, “I hope this cake isn’t for two girls!” and got her knickers in a knot. I casually said “Well maybe it’s just a birthday cake.” To which she countered that it had wedding bells and all on it. Then for the next 20 minutes I had the joy of hearing Peg and Sue (my other CCC) go on about what if the cake really is for a couple of lesbians, and would Peg have done the cake if it was, and all that until it finally ended with Sue telling Peg about some jack ass talk radio program she listened to who had some speaker on who UESED TO BE GAY and I had to stifle my urge to say “Used to be gay? That just means he’s in the closet until someone catches him in the bathroom of a truck stop paying a male prostitute to give him head.” BUT I didn’t. After all, as I told a friend, I’m not there to make a political statement, I’m there to earn a paycheck. Quite frankly, people like that can’t be reasoned with – ignorance and intolerance are hard to get rid of. After they had that conversation I really, really hoped it WAS for a LESBIAN couple and that they would pick it up while she was still working, hand in hand, chains on their wallets, snuggled up to each other, wearing their Melissa Etheridge t-shirts.

As if that wasn’t enough for one day, just a bit later Peg was telling Sue about being at a public park with her husband and daughter. Part way through the story she says “Now I’m not RACIST, but…” and went on to tell about all the TRASHY MEXICANS that were there. As we all know, any statement that starts like that is going to be extremely racist. This time I tuned out their patter, with occasional parts of it filtering through my mind humming Amy Winehouse’s Rehab. In that one conversation they covered the ‘trashy Mexicans’, how they need to learn English, not be on welfare and stop coming over here – well she said ILLEGALY, but you know she really meant AT ALL. Racist.

I’ve worked there for 2 months and I really wish I could say that this was the FIRST time I heard her say such things, but it’s not. I’ve figured out that anytime she’s going to say some horrible sweeping comment about a group of non white people that she’ll start it with “I’m not RACIST, but…” to make it all polite and sweet. I guess I’ll have to remember that, next time I have something snarky to say about hypocritical conservative Christians I’ll just say “I’m not racist, but…” first and then she can’t get pissed at me. (Eyes rolling up in head)