In college my grandma and I had our first talk about race.
“What are you talking about? You have black children and grandchildren! You need to understand this!” I screamed from the top of my lungs, eyes red with frustration and my cheeks stained with tears, I stared at my grandma waiting for a response.
She looked back at me with her flushed face and also tear stained cheeks, “ I just don’t know Asia.”
Most of our conversations about race and equity in the beginning ended with crying, yelling, frustration, but the desire to never give up.
The last part is key.
You see I love my grandma more than anything and I can tell you that my grandma feels the same way about me.
Although the conversations we had were difficult to have and were draining, both of us knew that the conversations needed to happen. After the raw emotion and frustration our conversations shifted to sharing our thoughts and feelings. It also moved beyond understanding and into practicing better responses and actions.
My grandma started pointing out things she needed to work on and promised to engage in the uncomfortable work with race and equity. She realized that just having black children or grandchildren did not mean she could not have racist tendencies.
Ignorance is only blissful for those who ware selfish. There is always someone who will be paying the consequences for your blissful ignorance.
I believe the only reason we were able to have these conversations was because we were both open to being vulnerable with each other and making changes, but the main reason is because we truly love each other so much!
We never once thought we would need to cut eachother off (LOL) or that our relationship would end, because we knew that this relationship would take work and it was and will always be worth it.
We are not perfect, but we strive to be our best because of our love.
I hope to encourage everyone who is trying to have those hard conversations with family members or even friends. It is hard, but it gets better and it is so worth it.
I love you grandma!
