Hispanic Fanatic

Hey, I’ve got a great idea. Let’s bring up that whole “What is racism?” discussion again. That’s always good for a few laughs. And nobody ever gets riled up to fight.

Yes, one of my recent posts brought in more critical comments and hate mail than usual. In it, I expressed my opinion that racism requires bigotry plus power. As such, in America, white people can be racist, while ethnic minorities don’t have the cultural potency to express pure racism.

Of course, I didn’t come up with this definition. It’s been around for years, and millions of people agree with it. In all likelihood, millions more disagree with it.

When I wrote the post, this definition of racism wasn’t even my main point, nor did I think it would garner more than a few derisive comments. As such, I was surprised when so many people lashed out, repeatedly. It was a rare moment of naivety on my part.

I addressed the fallout in this post, but I have to add a couple of points.

First, we have to acknowledge our different perspectives. As I’ve written before, calling a white person a racist is about the worst insult that can be leveled at them.

For this reason, it is in the white person’s interest to believe that this derogatory term is not reserved solely for them. It lessens the sting if anybody can be racist. Conversely, it’s in the ethnic minority’s interest to say, “You’re not pinning yet another horrible label on me; that one is all about you.”

Second, and on a more personal level, I still believe that most of the people who disagreed with me have sincere and principled arguments. However, it was impossible to miss a creepy subtext within a tiny minority of attack missives.

Clearly, some individuals were not used to having their opinions questioned, and grew quite irritated at my refusal to say, “OK, you win.” I can only assume that they have some degree of cultural power, and they need others to acknowledge that.

I can only ponder why that is.

“If you really want racism to disappear, don’t mention it!”

Comment on CNN message board

I recently read an article on a mainstream news site that addressed the messy racial overtones of a certain political situation. I expected the reader comments to be a maelstrom of partisan rhetoric and crazed theories. They did not disappoint.

However, one reader took a different approach. The commentator railed against the site for running the article in the first place. The comment was, more or less, “Stop playing the race card. All it does is divide us.”

I couldn’t help but think of a recent comment I received on one of my posts. I had written about some recent shenanigans aimed at Latinos. A reader didn’t dispute my analysis of the event. Instead, he or she stated that I was beating a dead horse and that looking at racial issues was “getting old.”

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When President Lyndon Johnson signed civil rights legislation in the 1960s, he famously remarked that Democrats had lost the South for a generation. Of course, he was an optimist. It’s two generations, and counting, since white Southerners have become synonymous with the Republican Party.

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I recently spoke to my old friend the Bitca. At one point, we talked about my writing.

She said, “Your blog doesn’t need a button that says, ‘Like.’ You need a button that says, ‘You really fucking did it now.’ I would have clicked that button.”

Then she laughed.

She was talking about one of my recent posts, which irked more than a few people over on the Change.org site.

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With hope, this is the last post I will write about the Great Recession. Like every American, I cannot say goodbye and good riddance quickly enough to this horrific period of economic malaise.

By the way, is the word “malaise” ever used in any context other than economic? But I digress.

The past few years have been, to use sophisticated analytical terms, a total financial clusterfuck. And yes, Latinos were hit harder than most.

I’ve written before about the sky-high unemployment rate among Hispanics and plummeting rates of remittances to Latin America and general economic depression in the Hispanic community. To put a capstone on these stats, the National Hispana Leadership Institute released a study showing how sucky it is to be Latino right now, particularly if you’re older. The study was undertaken with AARP, so it looked at Latinos age forty-five or older.

What they found was that Hispanics in this age group were twice as likely to lose their jobs as the general population was. Latinos were also more likely to suffer a decrease in earnings. In addition, almost half of Hispanics had trouble paying for the bare essentials, and over one-third cut back on basic medications. Finally, about twenty percent lost their health insurance (I’m sure the rates are much lower among Tea Baggers).

With stats like that, it would be understandable if we Hispanics curled up in a corner, sucking our thumbs and trying vainly to think happy thoughts. But we’re talking about people who routinely ditch old lives for a shot at a better future.

So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that Latinos have shown resiliency during this nightmarish time. The report points out that Hispanics were more likely than the general population to look for new jobs, to seek advanced training, and to work toward keeping their skills up to date.

Most interestingly, Hispanics were twice as likely as the general population to start their own businesses. Yes, even in a disastrous era, Latinos were among the first to take a chance on making things better.

I can’t say that happy endings are in store for all those Hispanics who got through this mess. But again, I hope that I never have to return to the topic of how terrible things once were.

Recently, President Obama surprised many of us by directly addressing immigration reform. Apparently, the man hasn’t had enough criticism aimed at him. In any case, one of the aspects of the president’s plan is that all immigrants should learn English.

Certainly, it is in the best interests of immigrants to learn the nation’s dominant language. The economic disadvantage of not knowing English is a very real phenomenon.

However, as I’ve written before, we Americans get more than a little self-serving when it comes to immigrants speaking English. The argument that it benefits them is rarely invoked. Instead, we’re told that it’s part of the process of assimilation — necessary for them to become integrated into American culture.

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I once lived near a street lined with multimillion-dollar houses. I myself was crammed into a tiny apartment a few blocks away. What can I say — it was a socioeconomically schizophrenic neighborhood.

In any case, I was in a store near one of these mansions when I overheard the shop’s owner trying to calm down a woman on the phone. After hanging up, the store owner mentioned that the caller lived in one of the upscale houses. The caller was upset that so many people were parking near her mansion.

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Over the years, I’ve received readers’ comments that range from astute to insane. The thoughtful, the witty, the shrill, and the easily offended have all sent me missives. Both praise and damnation have hit my inbox.

However, only a few comments have prompted me to write a whole post in reply. That short list just got lengthened.

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Here’s a quick thanks to Emma, Ankhesen, and Chris for their recent comments on my posts.

I was hoping to unleash a fiery broadside today, about twenty-four hours after SB 1070 took effect in Arizona. However, some federal judge has stolen my thunder by putting the anti-immigrant law on hold.

Yes, Judge Susan Bolton has granted a preliminary injunction that blocked the most odious parts of the law. That means the really good stuff — like stopping Latinos on the street and demanding to see their papers — simply isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Still, protests against the law went on as planned. And a whole mess of people got arrested in nonviolent demonstrations.

As expected, the law’s supporters are appealing, and the whole thing will probably end up in the Supreme Court. Conservatives predict that once it hits there, their heroes (Scalia, Thomas, etc) will come to their rescue and proclaim the law to be the most extra-special really neato constitutionally wonderful thing, like, ever.

We’ll see about that. In any case, it may be years before SB 1070 is either enacted or put out of its misery.

And by then, the country may be mostly Hispanic anyway. Now wouldn’t that be funny?

I’m going to make a bold, even confrontational, assertion: My English is better than yours.

I’m not saying that it’s perfect. If you dig through my posts, I’m sure you’ll find a grammatical error or two. In general, however, I have a solid grasp of the fundamentals. Considering that I make my living as a writer, editor, and copyeditor, I should know my independent clauses from my subjunctive tenses.

In any case, I bring this up to make clear that I have a deep love of English. Having said that, I don’t see why we need to make it our national language.

Now at this point, many readers may object and sputter, “But English is already our official language!”

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