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"Anyone but Obama!" by chronkite (whozz@behind.us) on Aug 1, 2012 01:14:37 PM

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I can feel the little flecks of spit land on my chin and cheek as the old man grins at me after he says this. I facepalm, as much to express my pain at his proclamation as to wipe the flecks off..a formality I know but it restores my dignity a little to do it..restores it enough that I decide to engage in a political discussion with my Johns Hopkins research engineer genius grandfather. God fucking damn it.   He keeps grinning and staring over his glasses at me, glancing towards my grandmother and nodding, as if he's just proved a point he was trying to make last night, or in 1983. She looks away for a second, not to avoid his gaze so much as to pine for An America That Once Was. I'm here on a rare visit, and due to their advanced age and poor health I know it might be the last. I've already been here an hour, and we've covered all the usual topics like where am I living (Tucson two years now, jeesh..), if I have work (tattooing eightteen years now, jeesh..), and the fact that they're not as mobile as they once were (you're both ninety! JEESH!), and I'm irritated enough to take the bait. "Anyone?" I ask my grandfather. "Anyone! Heh!" "Wow. You must really have a problem with the President! What exactly did he do that could elicit such a strong reaction from you?" "That's the problem! He's done nothing!" "Ah well, nothing's not so bad!", I say.."beats doing a lot of awful stuff like most presidents I can recall.." I'm trying to lighten the mood, but also make the point that I would *totally* prefer "nothing" when it comes to presidential action. But I press on.. "And besides, he zapped Bin Laden, ended the war in Iraq, avoided a total economic meltdown, restored a sense of decency to America in the eyes of the world, all while raising two lovely children who seem to adore him..that's not exactly nothing!" Loooong silence, and then my grandmother says "If I hear one more time about his "plan" I'm going to drive to _____ and _______ the_______ in his ________ _____ myself!" I am literally shocked at what she says there, and I'll spare her a visit by the men in dark sunglasses by not typing it. Mind you this is a 90 year old lady with a broken arm in a wheelchair..I have to admit I LOLed. "OK first of all Grams no you won't. And it's literally illegal that you just said you would. I never want to hear you say anything like that again. Second of all what, you'd prefer he *didn't* have a plan?" Granddad: "Screw his plan!" At this point it begins to dawn on me that the problem is a deeper one. "So you're saying that rather than have Obama in office you'd prefer *anyone*. Which includes random bums, murderers, idiots, literal clowns and figurative ones like the guy who's most likely to replace Obama, Mitt "Magic Underwear" Romney." "Well.." "You know Romney belongs to a church that performs retroactive posthumous baptisms, right? They also teach that black people are black because they are cursed, which brings me to my next point.." "I don't want to-" "No no, let's work this through. You obviously have intense dislike for the president, and when I asked you why the best you could come up with is that he has "done nothing", a handy stereotype for a black guy. He's lazy.."shiftless" is what you're saying." "No no.." "Is the reason you don't like Obama that he's black?" "NOOO!! No no." "No." "Are you sure? I think it's because he's black. I've known you guys for forty years now and I've rarely if ever heard you express a single positive word for black people, culture, or music. The very rare occasion when you do it's laughing at some Step & Fetchit-type minstrel stuff. I think it bothers the hell out of both of you that there's a black man in the White House. And I think you know it, but can't say it." "Well, I don't want to talk about politics." my grandfather says, getting up and shuffling toward the basement door. My grandmother sighs and looks away. I get up and gather my things to go. The visit is obviously over. "We weren't talking about politics." I say. I give them each a hug, and leave.

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