percolating

Gauging the Outrage...

There has been a rift developing in my family for some time. It is now a gaping chasm. My brilliant, compassionate, idealistic mother has lately taken to heaping scorn and resentment upon immigrants, gays, lesbians, liberals, and non-english speakers, especially the French. She refuses to admit that her opinions have blossomed as the result of listening to right-wing talk radio, but I find this an unbelievable objection. She has fallen victim to the politics of rage.

Without delving too deeply into her personal history, let's just say that she has undergone a profound political transformation from Progressive (I was one of only two kids in my first grade class to "vote" in a mock election for Hubert Humphrey... the other was my friend, the only African-American kid in the class) to fire-breathing, irrational, resentful, xenophobic, right-winger.

After a series of acrimonious and pitched telephone debates (more like simultaneous scream sessions), she and I have resolved to never again speak of matters political. This pains me greatly, since I have always considered her a fair-minded and reasonable individual, possessed of far-reaching interests and experience. Incidentally, I have realized that part of my disappointment comes from not being able to debate (and most of the time, sway her) at this unique and highly charged time in our political lives.

How could someone become so jaded and disaffected that she rejects forty years of progressive social policy on the basis of personal dissatisfaction and bitterness? She does not even see the irony in the fact that it was these very same policies and programs that helped our family pay for medical care and my college education. I find it appalling that this person would now deny the very benefits we reaped to those now in need simply because she feels they are less deserving.

I cannot help but think that, to a certain degree, this is a time in her life when she has nothing to lose by her opinions. This turnabout, in a way, is her own form of protest and self-expression. It must feel empowering now to see her grown son reduced to a spitting, frothing mess when confronted with her newfound intolerance. Her views are shocking... as it must have been for her parents to see their daughter marry outside their faith, move to San Francisco in the sixties, and then divorce. Shocking.