ahriman

My parents have been to countries I've probably never even heard of. They've been to countries that no longer exist. They've experienced a great deal of things in thier lives that most people will never get a chance to see on a television screen.

So when I say my parents are closed minded and homophobic, I say it with a great deal of sadness. I cannot imagine doing the things that they've done and still maintaining such a closed minded view of the world. It saddens me, and it angers me too. Because neither one of my parents are stupid. My mom graduated from Oxford and taught English at a University in India for three years. Yet sometimes the things they say to each other, to people who come by and visit, sometimes to just the television; they're ignorant of so much in the world around them that it astounds me. And I've tried to help them along, to make them see that it isn't true that AIDS was caused by Gays immorality , or that all Jamacians are less intelligent (a "scientific fact" for my father, who lost his hotel in South Africa because at one poin tin his life, he violated apartheid law and dated a black woman) and are all rude. But they hear snippets of information from CNN and FOX news and the morons my mother works with, and that's what they believe to be true.

This morning I thought that it would good for one or both of my parents to be charged with inciting hate. Because then maybe they'd understand the impact of thier words. But then I realized that it would only serve a rallying point to dig themselves deeper into the rascism and homophobia that has started to define my view of them. And that too saddens me. The simple fact that every now and then, I lose respect for my parents, for the people they are.

And so I hole myself up in this office, never leaving except to get food and drink and then to return to the cell of my home life.

And I wonder why I feel alone.