My dad was a complex man, full of addictions and failures.

But he was brilliant. I wish he had been a tortured writer instead of an electrical engineer so y’all could listen to his great liberal ideas from the 60s.

One time, I complained about a Native Canadian boy.

He had just been released from a Residential School and was being mainstreamed in my school. He decided all his (legitimate) angst and anger at having been taken away from his parents and culture should be emptied out on me. I was his punching bag day after day.

I whined to Dad

Dad took me aside and said, “you don’t get to complain about him. Suck it up pudgut. (That was his nickname for me when I was an asshole).

“He has been shat upon by all of us all his life. And you think a few schoolyard scraps with him are worth complaining about?”

“Fuck, you don’t even have any bruises.”Then, he proceeded to tell me about their life in that school. About the abuses. About the sexual assaults. About how they were forbidden to speak their native language. He then invited a close friend of his—Native Canadian—to fill me in.

This man told me about his days in a Residential School. I was almost sick hearing about what he went through.

So let me summarize Dad’s philosophy: If you are in the dominant, privileged culture, endure the anger and rhetoric of a marginalized group. Listen to their stories.