Prejudice makes you look stupid (firewater) 11.9.01

So there I was in diabetes education class last Tuesday listening to the nurse talk about racial differences in the occurrence of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes across the United States when some whip cracker comments that the alarmingly high occurrence of diabetes among American Indians must be "from sitting around drinking all that 'firewater.'" And he laughed quietly to himself.
Now the last couple of weeks have had their share of ups and downs.
While I am largely becoming jazzed about my hideous new, life-altering ailment, I still find myself lamenting the loss of some of my best friends: Large pizzas on late nights, cheeseburgers in the car, mountainous gyros covered in tzatziki sauce, quarts of juice, bowls of California dip and wave after wave of rippled chips. Is that "Amazing Grace" I hear?
It is my rapidly changing personality that is coming as the greatest surprise. To paraphrase Rob Zombie, I am becoming more Greg than Greg.
Par example (French meaning "for example"), I had actually never planned to write anywhere in this column at anytime that I am part Indian (or French Canadian for that matter). Even in this day and age you run into people for whom race is a deal-breaker. It's a hassle.
Some people are just curious, and I don't feel like answering questions about it. Some are casually put off and might not even realize it while others are vile racists who immediately will act out.
I had a friend in high school whose mother discovered my "secret" one night while telling an Indian joke. He told her, not me. Even though she had loved me for years, after that she couldn't resist rude commentary.
My favorite was in reference to my guitar: "Isn't that a COWBOY instrument?" Uh, no it isn't, you hateful witch. My buddy was a mama's boy any way, and let's just say the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.
I always have tolerated cracks people make because I don't have time or interest in explaining why I am not super dark or why I am not wearing a deerskin loincloth. Many comments are innocuous and fairly harmless and I am not hypersensitive about it.
I also have let things go because ignorant people are not worth the argument.
A month ago, I probably would have let this "firewater" remark slide, but as I sat in this room of about 18 people where I almost brought my mother and where my nephew might have to sit one day listening to this guy who definitely didn't win the West make his off-hand remarks, some switch in my head flipped and my sugar-rich blood boiled.
I don't know if it was some crazy blood sugar thing or maybe it was just the accumulated effect of a lifetime of small indignities that broke this camel's back.
SNAP.
I could give you a blow by blow of our mano a mano, but suffice it to say I went off on the guy and it felt awesome.
Well... OK, here it is.
"Yada, yada, yada... 'firewater!'"
"Hey man, I'm Indian and I don't want to hear that $@#%, do you understand me?"
"Yeah," he said, barely containing a smirk because he still thought what he said was pretty funny. This served only to make me nearly black out and become legally "not responsible" for my actions.
"I said, 'do you understand me?'"
"I said, 'yes,'" he said, losing his demeanor of gaiety.
"I heard you," I said all Shaft and stuff. "I just wasn't convinced."
Was it worth it? Who knows. What are you gonna do? What can you say that hasn't been said before?
There is something instinctive and biological about race prejudice that I do not deny.
Carl Jung (1875-1961), the distinguished Swiss psychologist whose treatises on human consciousness have helped interpret human behavior, developed the theory of "the Other." Put simply because I don't fully comprehend it myself, we see the world in terms of concentric circles like a dartboard.
Our Self is in the center of the bullseye - the opposite of the Other. In the nearest circle are things you might identify closely with like your family, Ford Mustangs and apple pie.
The next circles would be your town, state, country, things of your country but not of your region. We identify less and less with each circle the farther it gets away from us.
On the outer rings are foreigners, people of other races, nationality, religion and concepts that are increasingly alien like putting mayonnaise on French fries, taking public transportation and tipping.
So to some extent, fear of the Other is normal and natural. But diseases, mosquitoes and bears are natural, too, and we don't give in to them. Succumbing to racist instinct is just as demeaning to you as it is to the people you might mock and revile.
Some people will make a virtue out of not being "politically correct" as though ranting about Jews, blacks, Mexicans or Iowans at will makes them somehow philosophically superior.
There is a difference between politically incorrect honesty, saying what you believe without regard to how popular it will be, and insulting people with epithets and stereotypes. The first is a virtue, the second shows how xenophobic and hateful you are.
On the cusp of the 21st century, we can do better and I believe we will.