Water Cooler Chat With A Conscience

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Adventures at Wal-Mart.....

So the other day I pulled my little Holli into a parking spot at the Baytown Wal-Mart....I should have known that was to be the beginning of all things bad...1. I was in Baytown...2. I was at Wal-Mart...that's never a good thing....but anyhoo...so I pulled little Holli into a spot and as I got out I noticed the car parked next to me...I spied with my big brown eye a confederate flag license plate on the dashboard...my anxiety went up a bit, b/c see...I'm not exactly white...so I noticed it for a few seconds and then proceeded to walk past it...when lo and behold, I spied with my OTHER big brown eye a plethora of bumper stickers singing the praises of the good old Texas Redneck...let's see...there was the one that read "Damn right I'm a Redneck B!tch, and Proud of it!"...."Real women love their rednecks, no teeth and all"....and the one that I swear made me throw up a little bit in my mouth....it was the Confederate Flag and underneath it read the words "Heritage Not Hatred"....I swear I heard the theme song to "Deliverance" playing as I stood there staring like a mime at this woman's back window...then I just kind of took an overall assessment of the vehicle and noticed there were confederate flags all over it and inside it....Thinking it would be in my best interest to actually MOVE MY FEET AND WALK AWAY before she came back, I shuffled into the dungeon we call Wal-Mart and pondered over that last bumper sticker..."heritage, not hatred"....it was simple to see that she was beyond thrilled with the perks of being a redneck - but I was saddened to see that still today - in 2007 someone could be proud of a heritage that was BASED on hatred....To see that on August 16, 2007 there was someone in this world that was actually in such close proximity to me, that was actually proud of a heritage in which her forefathers murdered my forefathers, raped my woman ancestors, whipped and maimed the children of my past, and worked my kin literally to death...to know that I was THAT CLOSE to someone who was so proud of that, and not the least bit afraid to let you know it...i dunno...that really shook my core....i would want to look that woman in the eye - just to REALLY see her face to face...but then again, they say you turn to stone if you look evil in the eye....it's things like that that make me realize that Selma wasn't so long ago...and we still have many marches ahead of us...

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