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Bigotry Undone
Astrology in Real Life
Today I had the strangest experience. I feel ultra fortunate for this little tiny exchange so I’m going to put it out here. I could assign all kinds of astrology, but I’m going to chock it up to Mercury in Scorpio because it was potent as can be (Scorpio) and involved my neighborhood (Mercury)… and hands (Mercury) and healing (Scorpio).
I had a massage today. The therapist was an African woman who I’d never met. I don’t go for massage very often so I don’t have a regular therapist. I like a deep tissue massage so I just ask for someone who likes to do this kind of work when I schedule and this is how we collided.
The session went really well. I have learned to go to women for this kind of work because I am not kidding, I like a deep tissue massage and the men I have had seem to hold back. I get the idea they are afraid they are going to break you or something where a woman knows a woman isn’t going to break. But anyway, we talked a little bit while she worked.
Specifically I told her a few massage related jokes and I complimented her work a couple times so we were both pretty relaxed. And then it came up, she was from Louisiana.
“Yeah? I’d have never guessed that. You seem like you’re from here,” I said.
“Why?”
“No accent. You sound like you’re from here,” I said. I should mention that I live in a totally racially mixed city. Everyone lives here. All colors and all together all the time and she looked like a hometown person. “How do you stand it?” I asked. “The Midwest? Do you miss Louisiana? The water?”
She said she liked Colorado but it was very different here.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She was giving me a massage remember. She was all over my body. “See, in Louisiana when I would meet a Caucasian person and they would shake my hand?”
“Yeah?”
“Well then they’d wipe their hand to clean it,” she said.
“You’re kidding me,” I said, knowing she wasn’t kidding me. “They actually do that?”
“Here I’ll show you,” she said. We were finishing up. I sat up slightly and shook her hand which she then let drop to her side before she subtly wiped it on her pant leg.
“They do that?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It’s subconscious, I guess.”
I winced. “That doesn’t happen here,” I said. People are not like that. We just don’t feel that way around here. People like the diversity around here. In fact that’s why most of us live here. We want to be exposed to all colors and kinds of people.”
“I know. I see that’s how it is here but it’s not how it is there.”
I stopped to think. “Well tell me something. What was it like to come here and meet people and have them not treat you like that?”
“Weird,” she said. “Now that was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen or experienced in my life. It has taken some getting used to, I’ll tell you. At first I was lost. I just had no idea what to make of it.”
Is this a trip or what? I wonder what her transits are / were when she got here. Can you imagine?
13 Responses to “Bigotry Undone”
odd…
went for a deep tissue massage today, too! and again, it was a gal - the name given to me over the phone when i made the appointment was gender neutral. so for the past few days i was worrying it might be a guy, because i’ve experienced the same thing you have: PUSH HARDER, damn it! my knots are always deep, tucked underneath other muscles.
oddly though, i find i jive better with male chiropractors and physiotherapists…
You know, I often wipe my hands after shaking hands with ~anyone~. But then, I’ve got chronically sweaty palms and shaking someone’s hand just makes me (self?)conscious of it. 
I wipe my hand before I shake hands with someone, because I’m usually doing something with my hands (Gemini, see?).
But subconscious bigotry is present everywhere - maybe just more so in certain places. I live in a small town in the UK and one day a couple of weeks ago I went to the local greengrocers and the nice man asked me if I were from Hong Kong or China. I said, no, I’m from Singapore. His reply “But same breed, right?” took be aback for a while, until I realised his ignorance had nothing to do with me. It’s a farming community after all and they think in farming metaphors. I better stop before I get bigoted about farmers …
I guess it was deep tissue massage weekend. I found a Chinese woman around the corner from me and wow.. she pulverized me. She spoke very little english and kept saying “too light?” and I’m screaming NO! But it was fantastic.
Mary R - You made me snort! Ha ha ha, this gal crushed me too. Thank goodness.
Yes I have experienced a bigotry of sorts.I lived in a Middle Eastern country for many years.I have been kicked out of shops for being a woman,followed around,rubbed up against because I am obviously white.Over there,white means Western and Western means slut.Upon visiting the US it would take me a bit of time to get used to normal reactions to my being a female.I also experienced an unexpected form of bigotry,anti-Americanism.Post 911,this is a given.But this was many years ago and I found that some people from Canada and England(white like me!!)that had the most horrible things they felt they could say,right to my face,as if I was one of them and we were all just hanging out ripping on those fucking Americans.And these were people I considered friends!It was like I was passing and getting to hear what the world really thought of my country.In the end,I just kind of detached from the opinions of others altogether.I came to understand the bitch sessions as a bonding ritual of sorts for them.But I did find it interesting what specific people would chose as their pet peeve as it was invariably something that was a big-time obvious problem that they themselves were harboring inside.It was as if they were revealing a secret weakness to me and didn’t even know it.Seeing it that way,somehow made it easier to swallow.During the worst of it, trans. Pluto was opposing my 9th house Mars.Pluto makes you grow up.
Cripes. Like SaDiablo, I often wipe my hand after shaking hands with anyone because it makes me conscious that my palm is sweaty, but as a white woman in Louisiana I now have to wonder how often I’ve offended somebody by that and I never knew….:-(
It’s true, asanamama, Pluto does make you grow up. And I think your experiences there were ridiculously Plutonian! (I have a natal 9th House Pluto)
When I was about 21 I had this conversation with an upper middle class white man about racism. I can still remember how shocked i was that he truly believed the color of some one’s skin was a reflection of their inferiority . . . He was from Colorado originally, and lived most of his life in the greater Seattle area. My family has their failings but racial bigotry is not one of them.
I used to give my Aries deep massage before my wrists wouldn’t let me do it anymore. Often used knuckles & elbows to bring the most pressure to bear I could. He loved it! Mars in Scorpio on the ASC gives an ability to sense those points that need the most work . . .
I learned how to do Thai massage last year, it’s so fantastic Neith, you’d love it! Basically you use your entire body as a lever. Very good for the body. And as much pressure as your body weight can give.
Uranus transit?
Yeah - I’ve heard of those subtle responses before from my friends’ of different races. It’s things we don’t notice but once you’re aware of them you see them more clearly…..I’ve had friends’ tell me about walking into a restaurant and having people moving their handbags away as they walked past their table. Sad but true.
My country has a sad history of racial oppresion but I think because we have so much to make up for and we’ve faced our demons (collectively), most of us are acutely aware of trying to heal the past, our people and our beautiful country.
Peace and light,
C
About asanamama experience with anti-americans, this phenomenon started with the bush administration. It didn’t always exist. I was born in the states incidently, all my familly is from portugal and that’s were i grew up since i was a baby, but in school I was known to be american, maybe because i’m blond with blue eyes wich isn’t very common here, and throughout my life it was seen as something glamorous by these kids around me, and everyone else. Since the war on irak though, it became a pet peeve to hate the US, and I understand why, americans elected this guy. I’ve heard the news in the US are filtered so people don’t really know some facts about what is happening in irak as we do here in europe. the anti american hate is all over europe now. But it’s recent, it used to be the opposite. 
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i’ve heard of other louisiana transplants having similar experiences of shock at the differences in how they’re treated elsewhere.