Here's the situation... my 81 year old mother needs a caregiver for some basic cleaning and possibly personal care. Everyone else can see (and smell) that she needs this help but she has fought me on it for 6 months. She has finally agreed but insists that she won't tolerate anyone who is black.
It embarrasses me to even bring it up to an agency, but I know if a black person shows up, she will fire the person and the agency on the spot - and it will be another six months of arguing with her that she needs help.
Can she or the agency discriminate like this?
But then even when the caregivers were more similar to herself, she wasn't user friendly.... thus for her it became pride, that she wanted every ounce of independence to manage her own household and she would die trying. And she did.... [sigh]
But if she's really nasty about it, feel free (with my white privilege permission) to take the path of least resistance. It's no special treat to wipe the butt of a racist, even an elderly out-of-date racist.
My mother was spitting fire adamant that no non-white person would ever help her. Ever! She was from the rural south in the 1940s-50s during the hey day of the KKK and pure white rhetoric at school, church, and home. She was raised to believe that every black man on this planet was out to rape her at the first chance they might get. Black women would steal her blind. Never mind that had never actually occurred to her or anybody she ever knew or read about.
WELL....Miss Daisy doesn't always get her way.
When push came to shove and she had to let a great big black man wipe her butt. I felt sorry for HIM. Momma ranted for days about him getting to see her undercarriage. I laughed out loud and long at her. "Getting to!" don't you mean "Having to!" see one as old and tired as yours is no day at the park mom.
I told her that it doesn't matter if somebody has plaid skin with polka dots and day-glo antlers if they are willing and qualified then they are going to help and she's going to keep her fool mouth shut to let them. "There is not exactly a line of family or relatives lining up to wash your behind now is there? You have to take help where it comes. Red, yellow, black, white, pink, purple, green, whatever."
That was 2+ years ago. All her caretakers now are from Africa, many from Liberia who fled horrendous war and unspeakable atrocities. They didn't know they were "black" until they got here and heard it from a bunch of shriveled up demanding old white women. How insulting.
I had a really bad day one time and told mom to just stick that nonsense of hers where the sun don't shine. This is not anybody's idea of a dream job, to come in here and deal with you and your mouth or your fanny. Especially after what a lot of the attendants had already been through. She actually has calmed down with a lot of her racist b.s.
It had everything in the world to do with the adjustment of her anti-psychotic meds. I think she's had more day to day interaction with non-white people in the past 2 years than she had in the 76 years prior.
There will be many other things on this journey that momma won't like and it does not matter one whit. You have to do what you must to keep her safe and clean and what color somebody is, is simply not a choice on the table at this point.
I am so glad that was not an issue for us, but I do understand how it might be for an old set-in-her-ways person, and I'd try to avoid conflict rather than to try to teach an old dog new tricks. There are plenty of households that won't care.
In touring a nursing home for my mother, I asked if all the aides spoke English. Of course! was the answer. It is a requirement. But then in an aside the tour guide admitted that she often couldn't understand them herself.
I am most definitely NOT anti-immigrant! But in some jobs clear understandable English is more important than in others, and I think in working with the elderly and impaired it is critical!
I hope you won't have to, but if necessary remind her that abusive behaviour towards an employee of any description is not acceptable. Meanwhile cross your fingers that the caregivers have met her kind before and know very well how to deal :)
Racism was the norm in their era. These days kids of all colours, races and cultures go to school together, accepting whoever as a friend, which is so much healthier.
Request exactly what appearance will work best for your mom. If the first agency you call cannot fill the bill call another. It is about what will make mom most comfortable.