I simply don’t understand Republicans. Or I guess I do. My rightie coworker is the nicest of guys, very compassionate, a salesman who works closely with us accounting assistants, instantly approachable with a problem, and an all around good guy. And a Republican.
He has surprised me sometimes with his venom about politics. But it all boils down to really one thing. He really REALLY doesn’t like black people. And yet, when I asked him, out of all the clown car, both Democratic and Republican, who would he pick for President, he got flustered, and said, oh I dunno — maybe Ben Carson? Go figure.
Sigh. I am a relative newbie to this workplace where everyone else has been there at least 30 years. There is this lady out in the plant who keeps calling me “Mary” when that is not my name. She gets embarrassed about it, but says I am so much like her that it is a normal mistake. “Mary” was the woman who had my job before me. She retired. She was very much beloved there. She knew EVERYTHING, and knew more about the computers they have there than I (a former IT professional) know now, I’m still learning the quirks of this system.
Somebody made the remark the other day that it was kind of funny for this lady to keep calling me “Mary” since “Mary” was a black woman, and I am most clearly not. Well. That was the first time I had known that. I replied that I was flattered to be called by her name. Which I am. She was one of the greatest assets that small company ever had, (way better at this job than me), and her retirement was a blow to them.
The salesman I am talking about was the only person I ever heard at that company that really didn’t have much good to say about Mary. He called her “bossy” and “difficult”. Haha. I know exactly why he didn’t like Mary very much. He went into such a frightening rant during the BLM protests here that I actually got a little frightened and he even took aback some of my coworkers, who’ve known him a lot longer than me.
When he heard about my going to the Bernie Sanders rally, he was interested — asked me about it. Still wants to know why I’m a Progressive, since he can’t understand why any white person would be a Progressive. I simplified it for him. “Bernie is the only candidate who has promised not to mess with my Social Security”. A stupid statement, of course, that is by no means the only reason I support Bernie, but apparently one he could understand. It shut him up about politics, for once.
It’s a shame — a decent person who has been perverted by bigotry. I really like the guy and I hope he gets over it some day.