Our grandfather wasn’t so thrilled with black people, shwatzes he called them.
Funny thing was he was the only insurance salesman who sold them policies.
Back in the 1920’s the John Hancock Insurance Company made a break with tradition and hired a Jew, our grandfather. He got the job because he was a bona fide certified and bemedaled hero of World War I. His beat was the colored section of Philadelphia and for 50 years he pounded the pavement selling life/accident/auto insurance to black people.
Before him, our grandfather proudly told us no white owned insurance company ever even tried to go to the colored section of Philadelphia.
He did well enough to buy his own house in a lower middle class neighborhood and a new car every seven years or so. He was able to send his two sons to college and pay for the weddings of his two daughters. During the depression when there was very little money to waste on insurance he still did well enough to keep food on the table and clothes on his kids back. And he was a racist.
He believed that black people were on the whole lazy and not too bright and he loved watching Step-n-fetch-it shorts.
Back when we were in our teens we had a hard time reconciling our grandfathers loud boisterous racist rants with the fact that for 50 years he worked with black people every day.
We found our grandfather’s views on black people very distasteful, at least in theory. Growing up in Boise, Idaho back in the 70’s we didn’t know any black people but that still didn’t stop us from accusing our grandfather of being part of the system that oppressed our black brothers.
He didn’t say much just kind of smiled to himself and shook his head.
Now in our 50’s we know one of the toughest things in the world is selling something intangible to somebody who never imagined they needed it.
Our grandfather did it for half a century.
No one lasts that long if they don’t give a good product at a good price.
Our grandfather took pride in the fact that not a single client of his was ever short changed and got every penny the policy they bought said they were entitled to.
For him it was a matter of personal honor.
It was not that he secretly deep down inside loved black people, he just couldn’t see himself cheating his clients who trusted him.
He may have been a racist but he was still a decent man.
And that is what it is all about.
As we go through the charges and counter charges of right wing racism versus left wing racism the bottom line is not what we say or even believe but how we act.
A con man without a racist bone in his body will swindle a black grandmother out of her savings will also swindle a white grandmother her savings.
A decent man won’t/can’t do that even if he believes that (insert ethnic group name) is really inferior to his own because dishonesty is intrinsically wrong no matter who is getting the shaft.
Is racism bad? Of course but far worse than racism is murder, rape, arson and other felonies.
In the end it is not our beliefs that define us but our actions.
And while our grandfather was an unabashed racist he was still a good, decent and honorable man.
We are sorry we thought less of him than we should have.