Charles Hates Towel Heads and Queers

Uncle Charles Hates Towel Heads and Queers


There I was with fifty years of love and admiration invested when I discovered his doting meant nothing at all. What do you do when that happens?

This man had shown up on every holiday, picked me up when I fell, clapped when I sang, moved my furniture from one house to another, visited me in the hospital, danced with me at my wedding, and dried my tears at funerals. What did any of that mean if he could just as easily hate other people for no reason?

“Nuke them all,” was the first sign. “We need to blow those people off the map.” I thought it was a joke, but he didn’t laugh.

He would realize anger spoke for him, and regret allowing those words to slip between his lips. I had faith. He couldn’t wish innocent people dead.

But he didn’t take it back. He never did laugh, or apologize. He didn’t catch the splinters of my heart as they scattered in unexplored directions.

Those people became towel heads. He wanted them gone. He said it often and loud.

Family members offered every possible rationalization for continuing my relationship with him. He’s family, a good Christian man who donates time and money to charities. He hasn’t done anything to you.

Did they agree with him? “We aren’t taking sides,” they said. “Don’t ask us to.”

I wasn’t asking for sides; I wanted for principles. Defending beliefs isn’t taking sides. Maybe I wanted to know they would defend me if someone wished me dead for no reason.

As the political climate changed, and our leaders tagged others evil-doers and spoke of killing with smiles on their faces, Uncle Charles’ hateful vocabulary expanded as well. Nigger and queer joined towel head and spic. Uncle Charles hates them all. The ease with which he hates came as a devastating shock. I had assumed he loved everyone the same as he loved me.

Should I be grateful for this environment where he feels comfortable openly expressing hatred so I’ll know the truth? Or is this a case of ‘what you don’t know can’t hurt you’?

“If you have nothing good to say, don’t say anything,” my mother advised. “He has a right to his opinion.”

He has a right to hate people he doesn’t know? I had to think about that. On the surface, it made sense. Deeper, where my heart and mind dissected the situation into possibilities, probabilities, and consequences it wasn’t acceptable. Was it my business?

Education was the answer. Somewhere along the way, he had missed important lessons in Sunday school. He hadn’t absorbed Grandma’s seldom spoken messages of love. And I knew he hadn’t read a book in years, and watched the news only long enough to catch the sports and weather. I would bring the needed information to him. He’d appreciate my help.

I collected articles and books, composed scenarios, and prepared debates. He laughed.

“You sound like a damned hippy,” he shouted. “Keep that crap to yourself. You have a heart and a brain. The heart belongs to the church and the brain will get you in trouble if you go twisting what the bible teaches this way.”

“Your church doesn’t teach you to love everyone?” I asked. “Don’t they tell you it’s wrong to kill? That’s what nukes do, Uncle Charles. They kill.”

“I’m not killing anyone,” he offered as his final comment.

Uncle Charles didn’t talk to me any more, but his children had plenty to say.
“You need to keep your mouth shut and get along,” one said.

“You hurt his feelings,” came from another.

My aunt shook her head. “You’ve divided the family with your hatred.”

My hatred? My mouth? My division? I tried to stop his hatred of innocent people, and challenged his death wish. I was the bad guy?

Pleas came from all of them. “The family that prays together stays together. You have to come on Thanksgiving for the sake of the family, and don’t cause trouble,” they warned. “Don’t ruin our holiday with your negativity.”

I tried. I really did. I packed up my family and joined them for a day of gratitude and kinship. Uncle Charles said grace. While he thanked God for wealth and health, flashes of starving Iraqi children with blown off limbs distracted me and ruined my appetite. I bowed my head lower, in shame for what my country was doing to other families while we gathered to express gratitude for not suffering the same fate we forced on them. Is that how God planned it? Should I participate in thanking Him for something I believed He wanted no part in?

“Dig in everyone,” brought me out of my trance.

“Gramma, what’s a towel head?” delivered me from my quiet.

“It’s a very ugly name some people call others,” I whispered.

“Why?”

“Because they don’t know better,” I explained. “But you do, so don’t say that again.”

“Can we teach them better?”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

What Uncle Charles didn’t know might not have hurt him, but it did hurt me. His hatred filtered through the family. Some voted for an administration that would kill people in my name. They hurt me, they hurt my children and grandchildren, and they hurt innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Do people really have a right to be this ignorant, and demand I keep my mouth shut?

“Don’t brainwash that baby with your liberal bullshit,” the nearest cousin advised, with the amen of his hypocritical prayer still on his breath. “Towel heads are terrorists who’ll kill us if we don’t kill them first.”

My semi-brainwashed baby’s eyes stretched in fear. “Kill us?”

“Nobody is going to kill us,” I said. “Eat your turkey.”

“Are we going to kill them first?” my grandson asked.

“Do you want mashed potatoes?” I answered.


Sandy Knauer
ã December 2004