racism: all in the family

so my family was up for college graduation and my grandmother made a comment about there not being many black people at graduation or in my college city, in general. then my uncle says something like "well if the temperature was a little higher here, then there would be black people." i said "what does that mean" and he said something about black people liking warm weather, totally not acknowledging that there are probably millions of black people in the midwest! come the fuck on! so that was yesterday. then he brought it up again today, after my grandmother said she thought my city seemed safe because there weren't black people here. it was a chance to talk to my grandmother about the liberal image my city has, how it only applies to whites, and how latinos and blacks are pretty much segretated to one area of town. but my uncle and his "jokes". i said, "why do you keep saying that!" and he said he knew it wasn't true. but eh, it was so frustrating.

my grandma is old and southern and probably racist as hell, although i haven't seen very much of it, because we don't see each other that often. but at least she's up front about it and doesn't shield it in jokes. You can talk to her directly about what she says, but my uncle and his liberal attitude and his racist "jokes" are what really get me.

Great collection of recent articles about race, racism, and liberation
http://colours.mahost.org/article.html