Growing Up MAGA
Before they had a brand.
Sometimes I think about my last conversation with my grandma—not the one who died before I was born, the unapologetically racist one.
It was my second or third year teaching. She was talking to my dad, and he handed the phone to me. That was how I always talked to her. She never called me directly. She always called my dad, and he handed over the phone if I happened to be there. Then he handed the phone to my brother. Then he handed the phone to my mom, who wasn’t usually well enough to have a conversation.
My grandma didn’t wish me good luck with the semester. She just said she hoped I didn’t have “too many Blacks” in my class.
“Actually, I do,” I said. “And they’re some of the best students I’ve ever had.” That was pretty much the end of the conversation.
I handed the phone back to my dad.
A couple of years later, she died.
I missed her funeral.
There was no way I was taking a week off from teaching to travel halfway across the country, to my Trumplandia r…