Helllooo my apple blossoms! Thank you so much for your response to the last two blogs. Monday’s rant on anti-racism touched a few nerves. Happily, everyone seems to be on board with the need to speak up and confront bigotry when it happens. Of course, anyone who is PRO-racism isn’t going to be representing, and anyone who thinks we should keep our heads down and go about our business is probably doing just that. So yes, I may be preaching to the choir, the choir being Diane, Nuala,. Margaret, Gayle, Barbara, Vann, Anne, Angela, and my dearest Caribbean Spice Girl, who tells me her heart is so heavy she can barely go on.

 

It’s going to take more than postings to social media to change the world (but it’s a start). We need to have some awkward and tough conversations. In yesterday’s blog, I mentioned my parents and grandparents and their casual racism, but it’s clear that white privilege extends to millenials and beyond. My kids tell me about their some of their peers – I won’t exactly say friends, but people they know socially – who still take an us-and-them attitude,  and the question is: when is it right to call them out? I’d like to say the answer is always, but the young aren’t always the brave. They have lots of opinions, but aren’t necessarily comfortable taking a stand that may be unpopular. Hell, I’M as old as the hills, and I still worry about rubbing people the wrong way. (Or rubbing people in general. I don’t think we should do that, without consent, in the midst of a pandemic). But honestly, if you have a friend, or that friend has a friend, who refuses to accept that we are treating some people unfairly to the point that their lives are threatened, all based on the colour of their skin, well then you have to re-educate that friend, or risk losing them.

 

It’s funny: I want to tell you about a couple of specific incidents, but I know my kids will be upset if I do, as they always are when this blog wanders too close to their personal lives. Let’s just say that we know some people who think and talk in ignorant ways, and unless they change their tune, we will no longer have them over for cocktails. There. That oughta do it.

 

In other, more domestic news, I promised you a sour cherry cheesecake recipe, but I haven’t made it yet, and I don’t want to recommend anything that hasn’t made it through the Auntie Mo Test Kitchen, so we will put that on hold. Instead, I will leave you with a picture of the pups, freshly groomed after months of extreme hairiness. I can’t get my own hair cut yet, but these guys look, smell and feel wonderful, even Asta, who, at 14, has been looking a little rough in her decrepitude. She’s the white one, Duey the brown one, and yes, I treat them equally.

 

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