Last night I invited a friend to my house for dinner. She had been away from town for several months staying with her children in another state. For the last three years she has been trying to sell her very nice home in an exclusive part of town. Most people in this area could not afford the price and she is depending on a professional family to move here and take it off her hands.
My friend has been a widow for six years and desperately wants to move from our small southwestern town. She literally hates living in Grants, NM. She hates the town because in her opinion there is nothing to do here. Most of all she hates the people because in my opinion she is the most prejudiced woman I know. I am thinking that God/Source is trying to teach her a lesson and just as soon as she learns it her house will sell and she can move on.
I have learned myself that when we don't truly appreciate what we have we are stuck right where we are. Nothing much is going to change. I have recently begun to look around at what I have with a more grateful attitude, knowing that it is a whole lot more than most women in my position have.
After she left last night I began to wonder what in her past life has caused her to become so prejudiced. My next thought was, why does it upset me so much that she is? Is it possible that I might be a little prejudiced myself?
I remember moving to the Laguna reservation back in 1976 and the thoughts I had at the time. I pretty much believed all Native American's were a lazy bunch of people. It didn't take me long to realize that my opinion was flawed. I was at the time married to a man who was 1/4 Laguna and never gave that much thought. Even when our daughter was born or my son, from a previous marriage, decided to marry a Native American it really didn't matter. The next step was when one of his daughter's married an African American, producing my first great-grandson who will turn two in a couple of weeks.
I grew up in the State of Washington in a time when skin color was not part of my experience. It was not until I moved to California in the 1960s that I even noticed. At that time it was due to illegal immigrants from Mexico. I worked as a supervisor for a garment manufacturer owned by a man from India. It was referred to as a sweat shop, even though it wasn't quite that bad. I don't believe the experience caused any bad feeling toward the employees as a group, except that I didn't think it was right that they were illegally taking American jobs.
A recent experience while walking in the park got my attention and caused me to question just how accepting of other races I have become, while living here. Our park attracts people who have a problem with alcohol and sometimes sleep there during the night. It is fair to say they are usually Native Americans. As I walked I spotted a group of these drunks sitting on a bench on my path. I became alert. I also noticed a man and a woman sitting on another bench with a group of ducks and geese surrounding them. I at first thought they were part of the drunk group simply because they were obviously also Native American.
Lesson coming up!
As I approached the couple I noticed the McDonald bags on their laps and that the ducks and geese were loudly begging for a handout. I started laughing because their honking and quacking was so loud. When I realized I had been wrong in my assessment I stopped to chat with the couple. We were observing the ducks when I commented that some of the younger ones had some pretty strange colors. Some of the adult ducks are white and some are Mallards. We decided there must have been some odd bedfellows in our little park. Apparently ducks don't care what color the skin is.
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