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Monday, July 15, 2019

Are You a Spic?




I am a big fan of using images to help me replay images in my mind from when I was a child.

One of the defining moments of my life occurred at the North Drive-in Theater in Denver, Colorado  sometime when I was around seven or eight years old.  My parents and I went to the North Drive-in Thereat located in Thornton, a new northern suburb of an ever-expanding Denver

The time would have been around 1954 or so. I am not exactly sure about the year, but I remember what happened with absolute clarity.

There was a children's playground located just below the big screen.  My parents were sitting in our green 1952 Studebaker car. I went to the playground to play on the teeter-totter or merry-go-round until what-ever movie started.

I started to play with a kid my age. He was a Mexican. I figured that out. He was brown skinned. We were having fun until I asked him "Are you a Spic?"

He immediately left me. I was puzzled.  What had I said?

I grew up in a family of Rednecks from Missouri.  Baptists!  I heard the most vile words about other people out of my Mother's mouth.  My Dad didn't say those hateful words - mostly.

The current President of the United States is saying hateful things about others.  I did not know any better when I was a child. He and I are basically the same age now. Okay, he is a year older. He is supposed to be smarter. I figured out that I really hurt that little boy. I have never forgotten what I said or the impact it had on him.






5 comments:

KeyWestJay said...

Welcome to “Trump world” Gary. I’m not happy either.

Anonymous said...

Gary, Thank you for sharing this very powerful and very personal memory from your early childhood. It is not easy to admit and come to grips with such an embarrassing thing and the real hurt you may have caused to another human being. Awareness, self-reflection and atonement, however, are essential for positive human development. One who lacks self-awareness, shame, and is stubbornly unapologetic about inappropriate conduct will assuredly lead to devolving self-destructive behavior. Give this same defective person a large group of enablers normalizing this inappropriate behavior, and worse combine it with unlimited power, and we find ourselves in a very dangerous and quite disturbing new reality. — The Rabbi Moshe Pippik

Gary Thomas said...

Rabbi, You don't know how many times I have seen the frightened look on that kid's face over the years. I grew up surrounded by whites and only whites. And mostly protestant whites. I didn't know any better. I wasn't trying to be cruel. I was ignorant.

Gary

Anonymous said...

Gary, like many of us, you were an ignorant little boychick You did not know any better. Your Mishpacha family was a little Meshugener so you had to unlearn some lessons in life. However, the important thing is that you recognized your mistake, self-reflected, reformed and have grown up to be what people of my faith would call a real Mensch. — The Rabbi Mosche Pippik

Gary Thomas said...

Thank you Rabbi!

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