My First memory of racism was an attack on my Nana because she's darker than me and I didn't know it at the time.... All I knew was that someone was hurting my Nana and I loved her. I know what racism is because when I was 4 years old and my Nan was in our front yard watering her lawn for us to sleep on at night in the summer... I remember a white woman coming out of nowhere stage right and starting to point and snap angry words at my Nana. I didn't know what those words were but I could hear my Nana gasp at them. I remember saying the only word that I knew was angry at her. I was half hiding under a huge pink flowering hibiscus bush as I charged forward and back again to defend her because I loved her ....and there was this stranger trying to hurt my Nana. "Bloody...Bloody...bloody Bloody..." I went...pointing my finger at this white racist woman and then I got enough courage to rush to be next to my Nana's dress to hide in it. Nana picked up the hose out of my way and kinked it shut with her fist cutting off the water...and looked at this racist wench right in the eyes even as she was spitting and now screaming out words that really made no sense to me. My Nana said something under her breath and that racist shouted out louder hoping a nieghbour would hear her as if to assist her or something in a really sharp warped kind of crazy voice that was so shrill that it hurt my ears. It must have been really racist because my Nan, who's usually a calm women, had her hand came out to the side of her apron ...and she started flicking with her thumb and middle index finger as if something was biting her. It was like she was trying to flick off the anger she wanted to inflict on this racist bitch to the ground... I remember saying "Bloody BLOODY Bloody bloody..." and looking out at all the distance as that woman turned away and started off the street towards her house somewhere else. She walked like she'd won some huge prize for being white? Just as she got to the corner of Nana's verge and onto the nieghbours front lawn my Nana let her have it with the hose. She had the head of the hose pinched with her thumb on the top off it till the water came out in one jet hard as nails. The hard water hit that racist woman from the top of her expensive dumb shoes to the back of her head till her hat flew off her head and she staggered forward with the shock of it. She then ran in a zig-zag stumble with this fake drama run...screaming up the street clutching her wet ass as she ran off. My Nana and me looked at each other strong because we were family...and nothing anyone else said about us would change that. Just a note: I wasn't 'the fair one' or 'the white kid' in the family EVER... I've always been just Julie.
My Nana said later that that woman had been gossiping with the whole neighborhood about Nana because she wanted her gone because she was black. Hell, the whole family looked different but we couldn't give a rats ass. So this racist woman was being there every 5 minutes spying for years it seemed to me and was all 'sweet' at first while doing it just so she could get her power up to try something and Nana picked up on it of course lonng before she arrived. It was a case of not knowing how but when she'd try something which happened a lot of Nan in her life I know now. So Nana told her a bit of a fib (a lie) to catch her out & that. She told her that was growing gunja (marijuana) in the back yard for happy trips....well...this racist tells the cops she's growing maryjane to get Nana out of 'HER' street, 'HER' suburb...'HER' planet etc. I think she looked at us as if we should be gone into child welfare and adopted out to some white strangers. So the cops arrive, all guns blazin' and Nana & us are all are out in the bush hunting for wood across the street.... So the only thing the cops found was Nana's tomato plants! They would've gone round to that racist woman's house and given her a verbal for being a public nuisance! hehe. "Bloody...Bloody....BLOODY!"
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