Pride and Prejudice

I must make amends for saying the French were arrogant.  When David and I were in Paris the individual French men and women we met were invariably kind and helpful.  It was only in the museum that we saw evidence of inflated national pride.  All our contacts with the French people were pleasant.  

The French take pride in their country.  But who are we to condemn them for that? 

No people are more arrogant and boastful than Texans.  And I am a Texan.  But I have traveled and lived in other places, and I’ve learned to take a broader view.  I cringe when I hear a friend say, “There is no more beautiful place in the World than Texas.”   I can name a dozen states that are more beautiful than Texas.   

How many times have you heard someone blast anyone who criticizes anything about the U.S. as “un-American”?  “My country right or wrong.” 

Let’s face it.  Some times the United States is wrong.  We were wrong the go to war in Vietnam, devastating that country and wasting 58,000 American lives.  We were wrong to go to war in Iraq, killing thousands of American boys and maiming many thousands more.

The Iraq-Afghanistan War, plus the decline in revenue due to the Bush tax cuts, caused the National Debt to zoom. Don’t blame Obama for “wasteful spending” when we’ve thrown away billions in Iraq, not to mention more billions to Pakistan and Egypt to prop up corrupt military regimes.  Who can be proud of that?

I’m getting off track.

Still: Ignorance is not bliss.  Ignorance is ignorance.

Which brings me to the subject of Al.

Al is the 85-year-old man who used the “N” word to one of our black friends.  He boasted that if any black man signed onto a ship on which he served during World War II, “In the first storm, he’d go over the side.”  He says he hates the Japanese because of the war.  That is just an excuse. He also hates the Chinese and all other Asians and anyone who is not white. He made his views known in a loud snarl with a string of foul epithets.

I recognize that his denigrating of everyone else was an attempt to compensate for low self-esteem due to his lack of background and education.  It explains but does not excuse his racism. 

Wonder of wonders: Al has calmed down.  He spent a couple of months in a nursing home.  Since he came back, he comes to lunch and is downright nice.  He rolls his electric wheel chair up to the table opposite me.  He greets Becky and tells her how pretty she looks.  He makes innocent jokes with John Turner.  He keeps his voice low and has uses no indecent language.

He does not speak to me.  I spoke to him.  I told him I was glad he rescued a cat belonging to a resident who had to move to a facility where she could not keep pets.  Al said, “She is a sweet kitty.  I like animals more than I do people.”

Al may be as prejudiced as before, but he conceals it.   I always disparaged people who were “two-faced.”   Now I am re-thinking that.  Lunch is a lot more pleasant since Al changed his ways.