Why are people so dumb!!!

Yeah, I'll agree that her comment was stupid.....but in the long run, this is how it happens so often. A LOT of this has to do with the WAY people make some of the comments they do. Understand.....in the situation you posted about, I think the woman was just plain ignorant.........and I'd have thought that even if your child wasn't hispanic, KWIM? But, I know in the years of raising our first two babies (Asian).....and now having three AA babies.......some folks say stupid stuff and mean to be rude and insulting. Others....(sigh)....well, others, 'think' they're being sensitive when they say or ask something......and they're just too stupid to say a whole lot back to!!! As my Uncle Cy once said in a conversation, "Well, you couldn't insult the man......he had no intelligence!!!!!' People used to ask about such dumb stereotypes concerning my first two kids (now grown and on their own). One guy who lived near us in another state where we resided, was sorry (and he really was) that we were moving. His additional comment was, "And I was so wanting to see your child grow up to see if it was like the ones from the Prison Camps in WWII." WOW! And yet, because we knew this guy more than a little, and because he really was upset at our leaving.....that comment (even though SO ridiculous), was really meant to be harmless. In the past months, I had my three babies with me, and overheard a CC mother tell her little ones....".......see their hair and skin....that's why they don't have to wear sunblock." And I'll tell ya....she wasn't trying to be rude or insulting. I overheard it....and I daresay, she really thought she was correct and educating her kids! In those times, you just have to toughen-up some.......and learn to decifer which comments are meant to be harmful, which are innocently said. Sincerely, Linny

I've figured out I just have to decide what comments are worth my response... and what aren't. Some people will never change and/or will never be a part of my family's life in any meaningful way. Those people I ignore.Others will be part of my children's life for years, so their comments need to be nipped in the bud early.If you are going to be waiting at the bus stop with this woman every day, it may be time to go to plan B, and say something to her. After all, through your children you may know her and be associated with her for years to come.Audrey

I'm joining this conversation late, but the question I ask myself is what will my daughter think about herself and about me if I don't say something when people say ignorant and racist things. I don't always know what to say in the moment, but I do believe that pretty much every racist comment deserves a response--at least until she is old enough to talk with me about how she'd like such situations to be handled. There are lots of ways to respond--short ones and long ones; curt ones and questioning ones, etc. But when I do not respond, I feel terrible and like I have really let her down--even if she's not there or doesn't yet understand. Kerry

My son is hispanic. I do not care is he was red, green, and yellow with speckles, I would love him. But I am from an area of Georgia where there is a large hispanic population, and too many of the folks aound here are prejudice. Unfortunately, members of my extended family seem to be the worst. My grandmother harps on the fact of the color of my son's skin. She constantly wonders if he is going to be really dark, like all "them Mexicans that work in the field". Her husband, my step-grandfather, asked how would we ever understand each other, because my son would speak "Mexican". At the time my son was two months old. Luckily my Father was sitting right beside me and piped up before I could. It ended up being hillarious. He said "Isn't a cry, a cry. I am pretty sure a hispanic baby's cry sounds just like any caucasion child's cry." Then he looked at me sideways and said "Besides Leonard, you didn't come out of the womb talking. He'll speak whatever language they chose to teach him." Then my uncle, who is a lawyer and who we asked to help us with the adoption totally floored me. When we first learned of our son, I called him with the details, asking if he would be our lawyer. He delayed until we thought we would loose our son. Then he asked me "Are you sure you want to do this? I mean really? How are you going to feel about him later? How is your mom and dad going to feel about him when they look at him? He's going to be dark just like a little indian." He also obsessed on the fact that I am in an area where there is an abundance of migrant workers and that my son could be confused as "one of them". Needless to say that is and probably will be the last conversation I will ever have with my uncle. Yes, I understand him wanting to make sure that I really wanted to do this. He is family after all. But when I called him I was sure. If I wasn't I would never have contacted him. Now my grandparents, I try to pass off their behavior as old age, but I know it isn't. I just expected so much more out of all of them. It's ignorance and racism at it's finest and personally I am ashamed to have them as member's of MY family. I am looking forward to educating them and if I can't educate them, well then I just won't invite them over.

We cut off contact with my brother due to his racist outlooks. We also cut off contact with the guy who was best man at our wedding when, years later, he got engaged to a major-league racist. No way in hell were we going to allow ANYONE to come into OUR HOUSE and refer to our kids to their faces as 'niggers, darkies, and chinks.' Excuse me, there's the door, use it and don't even think about coming back. And then our 'friend' had the nerve to tell me later I had to 'make allowances for her because she had a very religious upbringing.' HUH? Where? In the Klan? That was the last conversation I ever had with him, because we felt like he had to be a closet racist himself to approach me with that kind of attitude. He and my husband had been friends since the first grade.Over the years, the strategy I developed was to engage the ignorant if they were speaking directly to me or if what they said or did somehow directly affected my family. The rest, I either ignored or, if my kids witnessed it, used it as an opportunity to educate my kids about racism and ignorance. I recognize I cannot change the world, and my energy isn't unlimited. I needed to pick my battles. So I fought the teacher who said my Korean daughter should be good at math 'because all THOSE KIDS are', the school nurse who told me when our Asian kids got head lice that 'those kids are more susceptible to it', the special ed teacher who told me, in a district that was 40% minority, that she wasn't surprised my black child had trouble learning because 'that's his heritage', and all the other idiots who needed a good slap upside the head. I can't remember a case like that I didn't win, either. When we lived in another state, it always made me really mad to be called a ****** lover, but OTOH, at least I knew who the enemy was. Living in a more liberal state, we found the prejudices much more subtle. I recall one retail store in our old metro neighborhood where I could walk in alone and write a check with no problem, usually didn't even have to show ID. If I had one of our black kids with me, I had to show several forms of ID, a note from my mother, give a pint of blood, and produce a notorized document from my bank proving I had money. Okay, it wasn't quite that bad, but you get the idea. I guess that's because all fat white women with black kids must be on welfare and have a history of kiting checks, right? It was frustrating, but since a store has a right to verify a check as best they can, there was no way to prove racism even though it was obvious.What irritates me about myself is when someone says something subtle to me and I don't figure out till days later it was a slam. Or I recognize it's a slam immediately but my mind goes blank and I can't think of an appropriate snotty comeback. I feel no need to be polite to people who have just been rude to me. I used to love it when people asked me 'Can't you have kids of your own?' First, I'd inform them my adopted kids were my own. Then I'd just look the person in the eye and tell them I would never presume to ask them the condition of their reproductive organs, enjoy the look on their face for a few seconds until it sank in I had really said that, and then walk away. Too funny!I could usually tell when people had a sincere interest in learning about trans-racial adoption or whatever but didn't know the right words to use. I was never rude in such cases, but did my best to answer honestly and use the opportunity to teach someone proper terminology along the way.