Bless your heart.

I'll never forget meeting my ex boyfriend's family in Cington Georgia. It was 1978 and I was twenty three years old. I had never been to Georgia and my only association was peaches. I was excited to taste one fresh from a farm. The land was rolling hills, often thick with kudsu. It felt wet and dense. We were deep in the country and the history and energy of it was quite old. Very Southern Baptist.

We were going there so I could be introduced to my ex boyfriend's mom and the rest of his family and so they could meet our daughter Adalyn. In honor of our arrival they called all the local family and friends to come for a potluck on Sunday. We arrived Thursday evening and by Sunday, the entire community had heard about my boyfriend Tyler having gone to the big city and he was now coming home with his Jewish girlfriend. Pretty much every local person was gonna show up for that potluck.

I am from Philadelphia. A big northern city. I have navigated my life around all kinds of people. I have delt with racism and people assuming I was entitled. I've had my share of ignorance and hatred thrown at me. When I was in kindergarden I will never forget the kindergarden teacher rubbing my head. When I asked her was she was doing she said feeling for my horns. I still rub my own head periodically in case she was right.

In Cington, it's really not that the folks want to be antisemitic but that they haven't had much exposure to different kinds of folks. The community I met in Covington was very tight knit. Everyone married everyone else. The living was easy. No reason to go anywhere.

The first thing I was told when I arrived in Cington, was that they had never met an actual Jew though there was a memory of one getting run out of town back after the civil war. Then I was shown the well where Tommy's mother was found at the bottom. They were never sure if she got drunk and fell in or was pushed. When dinner was being prepared Tyler's mother asked me if Jews ate peas, which I honestly know where she was going with that one, and then proceeded to cook us a pork dinner.

At the potluck I was immediately greeted with multiple antisemetic and racist jokes about Jews, and blacks, and gays. Either it was an initiation like a hazing or they just wanted to run me off like that last Jew from the civil war. Their approach was fascinating as well, "I hear you are Jewish?" someone would begin talking to me. “So how many Jews does it take to fill an oven?" Or, "how many n words does it take to kill a Jew." and other various seriously not funny jokes that made me worry that once the moonshine was gone they just might lynch me.

Being a vegetarian was not going to fly here at all. I tried, but to convince me otherwise they were going to put me in the car and take me to the slaughterhouse to show me it wasnt that bad. Or I could go hunting with them. A couple guys drinking moonshine at the potluck pulled thier rifles from their trucks and were talking about killing something. Squirrels I was hoping. I decided right then I was gonna eat meat that whole week. I blessed my burger and ate it with gratitude. At the time it felt like eating that burger was a choice between my own life or death.

My daughter was only a year old. She was a Baptist and a Jew or a Jewish Baptist. Where I live in Philadelphia, most people thought that was funny and interesting. At my ex boyfriend's mom's house in Cington, it was like we were breaking all of God's rules and my daughter was in great need to be saved!

We were there for a week, and in those seven days, I had my heart blessed over a hundred times. Oddly, it was always after an insult. Like, "with those blue eyes of yours, I bet your grandmother had relations with a Nazi. Bless your heart." or "your daughter wont know if she is a gift from God or the Devil, Bless her heart."

And though I tried to say as little as possible, it made me seem stupid to them and they pointed it out regularly. "She don't know what your talking about, bless her heart."

For my ex it was routine. He said they were joking around. Not to worry or take them seriously. He said they liked me!

I never went back to Cington. One time when I was still with my ex boyfriend, his mom came to visit us in Philadelphia. We took her for Chinese food because she had never tried it. At the restaurant she asked the Chinese waitor if his eyes were like that his whole life or if they grew that way over time. She asked another Chinese person there to take our photograph and when he asked her how to use the camera she told him she was surprised since his people made the camera. She thought all of his people should know how to use a camera.

I had to leave an exorbinate tip and apologize profusely after she went outside the restuarant because I loved that place and wanted to be able to go back!

My daughter doesnt keep in touch with that side of the family. Neither do I.

I know what antisemetic racism feels like. It's shocking, scary and unbelievable. I realised through experiencing certain people like my ex boyfriend's family that there are places with people who will haze you or use you as the bait. It can be hard to know wether you will be eaten alive or given a pat on the back and welcomed into the family! Either way it isn't worth a Georgia peach.