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I think it would be safe to say that Patricia is a little broken from the various tragic things she’s gone through. To the point where she’s numb to the tragic on some level. That’s her coping mechanism. A sort of happy nihilism that makes it possible for her to continue. To some that might read as crassness.

Racism is a spectrum. There’s stuff like being compelled to say “all lives matter” when someone says “black lives matter” and then there’s thinking a group of people is genetically incapable of success, or what have you, all the way to wanting to exterminate people who don’t share your phenotype. (I may be mixing that up with genotype…) Rulette’s dad is one of those low key racists who are awful, but also basically harmless. The kind of people who can’t accept responsibility for their failures so they have to blame the Mexicans, or whoever happens to be to hand, but never really double down and actually do anything super harmful. A shit talker basically. They just want someone to listen to them and commiserate about how the brown people are stealing jobs, or health care, running drugs, etcetera, etcetera… There are tons of them in Kansas & Colorado. I assume they must be pretty common in other places as well. Even though Patricia managed to grow up not racist she’s stuck in that unpleasant place of still loving her dad in spite of his flaws. Almost everyone has to go through this with someone. What interests me about the whole thing is how knowing more about someone will shift the level of sympathy someone else is willing to expend on them. A few days ago people thought maybe her dad died doing what he loved in a noble way. Today I wonder how they feel about things. Can a person who thinks wrongly be saved? Should we try? How much is another human’s life really worth to you?