Crazy point of view

I was bored the other day and decided to watch whatever my family was watching on TV. It was something about Prom Night in Mississippi, a show following the first integrated prom in some town. What really caught my interest though, not that the repetition of the N word a million times in a Mississippi accent isn't riveting, was a certain woman's perspective on biracial or mixed kids.

"Well, dis is da way I see it..." the middle aged skinny blonde woman began, "tha good Lord put differ'nt races on dis earth fuh a reason. And that reason is in-duh-viduality. If he wanted us to all be the same then he woulda made it so, and when people sin and mix they races it's a strike against God. Eventually if it keeps goin' on then aint no in-duh-viduality goin' ta be left."

Ordinarily, I'd be rolling my eyes and sighing at such ignorance. Yet she held my interest, not because of what she was saying, but because of her left eye. Whcih, by the way, gave her all the in-duh-viduality in the free world.

While she made her monotone speech about how mixed children are the brood of Lucifer, her left eye was dancing wildly this way and that; like Mad-Eye Moody from the Harry Potter series. I kept trying to focus on how angry her words made me, how serious of a problem it is that people still think that way in America, but it was becoming hard not to laugh.

What gave this lazy eyed Moody wannabe the right to talk that way? I'm not saying she's not allowed to have an opinion, but I want to know what makes her think she's right. Surely, she can take a walk outside of herself and observe her life with her good eye.

"Well," she might begin, "I may be a terrible drunk, I may have smoked eight packs a day while pregnant with my first child, I may be an extremely racist individual, but damn it on this issue you can chalk one up for me because I'm correct."

Then, for some reason, I thought I was being too hard on her. I had, after all, immediately created all of the above scenarios in my mind based on how she looked and spoke and was acting. No matter how true my observations and predictions may have been, I didn't have to be judging her.

The way I see it is we all have a crazy eye that wiggles this way and that. That one eye that gives people the once over and then assumes they know it all. I'm not saying I'd apologize to this woman, obviously she disapproves of my very existence, yet... I don't have to be like her. I don't want to have that evil eye that makes it impossible for me to be tolerant of someone, I just don't want to have to look out of it. It provides us a shaky outlook at best, and makes for one crazy point of view.