which reminds me of an anecdote involving one of my own racist relatives

Desegregation was hard on my uncle Thurman. He lived his entire life in a remote part of Mississippi, with the notable exception of that time FDR sent him to Normandy, and never had much motivation for accepting others of races unlike his own. By the way, he emerged from Normandy unscratched but decided that war wasn’t really for him. So it was that he shot himself in the foot and then proceeded to dig around in the wound with a pocket knife each time it looked close to being healed enough to send him back into battle.

Anyway, no amount of self-inflicted wounding could keep desegregation away, but that didn’t mean that uncle Thurman had to like it. He didn’t, and he would tell you as much, regardless of your race, size, or whether you outnumbered him by a great deal. I only met my uncle Thurman a handful of times but I’m told that he would sometimes walk into a restaurant, find that it had too great a clientele of African descent for his liking, announce as much to anyone within earshot, and then leave. Only he wouldn’t quite phrase it like that. No, uncle Thurman’s favorite word was a derogatory term that he used quite often and in the midst of any group.

However, the reason he didn’t get his ass kicked had nothing to do with the fact that he was old, skinny, cross-eyed and therefore a little too pathetic to fight regardless of the insult. No, uncle Thurman also had an odd speech impediment that made all his words beginning with the letter N come across with a distinct R sound. For example: The word “nice” came across as “rice” and “night” was “right”.

Therefore, anyone sitting in that particular restaurant and paying any attention whatsoever to uncle Thurman would’ve clearly understood him to say, “I can’t eat here; there are too many rigors.”