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My best friend is a racist bigot (LONG READ)
We are in our mid-twenties and I figured he'd grow out of it by now. What I once branded as pity rancor has evolved to pure hate! Or at least that's what he calls it, hate.
"I hate fucking guats" He tells me.
"No you don't, how can you possible hate Guatemalans!?" I replied.
"Whatever! I just don't care for them, I can careless about them"
How did all this happen? I've sat and reminisce about our childhood, friends, and experiences.
The main factor to blame for this ignorance is, Mexican chauvinism. Second our friends growing up; the classic stereo typical southern caucasian person. and third Our environment, a small conservative town in southern Florida.
Mexican chauvinism is programmed into our heads the minute we start talking. I know first hand, thankfully my father or close family was never big on it. But I got enough of it to walk around and feel as if Mexico and being Mexican was better, cooler and higher than the rest of Central America and most of our Latin American neighbors. Our spanish was the best! Our food the most original and our ancestors had rule the region with one of the biggest and most advance empires in the world at that time. All this were things one should be proud of! After all we are "la raza!"
Our childhood friends when we were 11 to 22 years old were mainly white. The first 6 years my best friend and I were the two of 6 Mexican kids in our entire town of 25,000. I guess you can say that we were Americanized by them. There was a small black population and tiny East Indian and Asian. We bonded with the white kids what can I say? He specially more, My accent it's still noticeable and his is not! And I've been in the U.S. longer! I branched out, my friends were mainly white but I made friends with more Mexican, Black, Guatemalan and Haitian kids than he did. I never consider my self racist, throughout Junior High we all had clicks typical of teenagers we had grudges against different clicks and groups of people but It faded away with time. Fights were fought and truces were made year in and year out. However it wasn't the same for him. I didn't think much of it than but he held his grudges. I remember when we were 14 we started hanging out with a guy we called "gig" He was 17 and "older" He would use the words 'n*gger, guat and beaner" very loosely around us. Words like stupid, idiot, fag and any other derogatory words were replaced by racial slurs. Most of our white friends did it too.. around us. And sadly we picked it up. We said them so much we didn't think anything was wrong with it. I've refrain from using those words and I have for a few years, however he hasn't
Our environment, I don't know if It's a legitimatize excuse. But I love to blame the South Florida town I grew up in for contributing to my ignorance. I really do. When I paralleled my best friends racism to the town to an other friend she told me that I would probably had stayed the same as my best friend. I really doubt it! There's no way to know how I would had turned out if I've never had venture into philosophy and politics. But I do know just the fact that I moved out of that town into a diverse city like Los Angeles did open up my mind immensely!
You see growing up in that part of south Florida it was like a bubble, at least for us. We firmly believed that Guatemalans were inferior simply because they were typically shorter than us, spoke "funny spanish" and were darker than us. That's all we saw in that town. We weren't born or raised by our parents to think this way. We got this from the racist white friends we had growing up. To the point they made us feel like we belonged to them! since we spoke english and "did american things" We would even call our own "beaners" along with them. What a disgrace... I think back and I laugh at my self but I can't keep laughing at him because he is now 25 years old, married with a little girl and he still talks, walks and thinks like he did 10 years ago. Probably even with more conviction than before.
It has gotten to the point that I can't even talk to him. We have grown apart so much. His way of thinking is so backwards. Calling me to tell me how one of our white friends is dating a "Guat girl" almost like a rhetoric!
"I told him that if he marries her he's gonna become a guat too! I don't get it! She's fat, looks like a total beaner and he likes her! I don't know what his problem is!"
"I'm an asshole I know!" He says laughing.
"What's your problem with her? Just because she's guatemalan? who cares if they like each other!", I try to explain to him..
"It's more than that!, I allow his guat girlfriend into my house, trying to be nice and she is rude! doesn't talk, or knows how to be around other people.. fucking guats! Im telling you! And she didn't have to lie about not being from Guatemala! tried to tell me she was Mexican! fuck that shit! that's what I get for being nice to beaners" He says to try to justify his hate.
Than I tell him.."you know it has nothing to do with being a guatemalan bro. She's from a small provincial town they aren't used to dinner parties and fucking sunday brunch, She's in an entire new country And second she don't speak english. her boyfriend, you and your wife all speak english! she feels out of place! it has nothing to do with being guatemalan and plus you manifest your hate towards central americans so much Im willing to bet she was told to lie about being Guatemalans so you would spare her."
"yeah, fuck i guess! but still" he replies.
It's hard to see my best friend grow into this fucking prejudice prick. I love him as I know he's down for me and I can trust him with my life, but this kills me.
However immature and ignorant I was in my teens, I honestly think I would had grown out of it. Maybe not as class conscious as I am now. But I would of grown out of it. Last time my mother came to visit me I thanked her. For taking me and my brother to live outside of Mexico City into a small farm town. Where I was exposed to the country, farming, and even poverty. I believe it was that experience and upbringing that is now making a comeback and having a greater impact and influence on my life. More that that fucking ignorant garbage i picked up in South Florida.
we need more revolutions and less "isms"
Yeah some of my friends have ****ish tendancys.
" I dont like pakis unless they open a kabab shop"
I know its ment to be a joke with shock in it but it just not right.
I think this is down to the media and enviroment. Were i live the newspaper of choice is the daily mail. That leads people into thinking they live in a world were at any second they live in a paranoid world.
PETER
Human beings weren't meant to sit in little cubicles, starring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about mission statements.
MICHAEL
I told those fudge-packers that I like Michael Bolton's music. God.
[FONT=Arial]You are best friends with someone who hates people of a different race. Why are you friends with this man? People like him do not deserve friends, and if you disagree with the opinions he holds, and the things he says, why are you still friends with him? He doesn't deserve you.[/FONT]
When she embraces
Your heart turns to stone
She comes at night when you are all alone
And when she whispers
Your blood shall run cold
You better hide before she finds you
I haven't seen him in 3 years. And I don't know... He has always been there for me. Im supposed to just cut him off because he's ignorant? aren't I supposed to help him?
we need more revolutions and less "isms"
[FONT=Arial]It seems that you have spent a good portion of your life trying to change him, and it doesn't appear to be working, so yes, I would say you should cut him off. You'd be better off without hanging around someone like him.[/FONT]
When she embraces
Your heart turns to stone
She comes at night when you are all alone
And when she whispers
Your blood shall run cold
You better hide before she finds you
Well, there are two kinds of racism.
One kind is harmless and is when you observe you don't like many people of a certain race. I don't like many black people becuase all the ones I've met are ghetto g-dogs who are the most lazy, unmotivated people I've ever seen who's single goal in life is to be "thug". However, I also have met WONDERFUL black people who I adore becuase of their self-determination and friendlieness. (I realize that this has to do with capitalism, but since we currently live in capitalist society as of now....)
However, when you take the first kind of racism and apply the stereotypes to all people of that race you have a problem, which is what your friend has. He's obviously gotten to a point where he's so comfortable with his racism that he's cracking extremely offense jokes.
Anyway, don't be friends with him. He sucks.
EDIT- I'm not pretending I'm 100% non-racist becuase we all are a tiny bit, sometimes without even no it. But, I blame capitalism for it. Go figure.
Last edited by CXR; 3rd June 2008 at 01:51.
No I have not spent a good portion of my life trying to change him. If you read the story carefully I grew out of my ignorance and started to get into politics and philosophy only 3 years ago. When i moved away.. It only been like a year since I noticed he hasn't changed. I haven't really spent that much time trying to change him.
we need more revolutions and less "isms"
MEXICANS ARE WHACK! GO CHAPINS! ahahah good shit RPAS
ur freinds not a racist just dumb thats all i got freinds like that and we argue all the time but moslty out of just joking around, he says he hates GUATES but i bet he doenst say that when hes eating a tamale!
We must be freed Politicaly by Anarchy, Economicaly by communism
-kropotkin
Lenin is not comparable to any revolutionary figure in history. Revolutionaries have had ideals. Lenin has none.
-kropotkin
GTFO; you're the cancer that's killing RevLeft.
Last edited by Post-Something; 3rd June 2008 at 16:59.
wtf why would he be racist if he's mexican unless he is of spanish descent, but if he's mestizo that would make him racist against himself. Shoot he sounds guatemalan himself since the most of the mestizos there are racist towards the indigenous population. And culturally we're not much different from mexicans except for our "strange" way of talking which is also spoken in southern MEXICO.
No, dont cut off contact with him, he is your friend and you are not an opportunist. just challenge him on his racism every time he says something racist.
Honestly, the bolsheviks like Trotsky who was Jewish had to endure awful racism, but they didnt leave the side of striking workers, they just argued against the racism.
Get the fuck back to /b/.
Guatemalans and Mexicans are different nationalities, but not so much different ethnicities. There is no Mexican or Guatemalan ethnicity as such. Both countries contain the same ethnicities, from caucasian to caucasian-indigenous to indigenous. The amount of indigenous is bigger in Guatemala.
It seems more like stupid xenophobia than racism.
If I, as a Swede, say that I dislike Finns or Norwegians, I am no racist per definition, rather xenophobic or chauvinistic. I do not dislike my fellow neighbors, I merely used it as an example.
If I say that I dislike Slavs or any specific cultural ethnicity independent of any currently existing nation-state, then I am starting to border racism.
Way ahead of you.
Anyway, your comment could be perceived as racist. Not only do you think that "race" exists, but that it innately affects aspects of peoples life such as "motivation" when these are clearly not genetic factors.
the thing is that Latin America is built on racialised social hierarchies. "Mexican" is not an ethnicity in itself, and neither is Guatemalan, but there are different ethnicities within guatemala.
from my experience of Mexican chauvinism, when people from the northern/central aprt of the country talk about southern Mexicans or Central Americans in a certain derogatory sense, what they are refering to is indigenous people. the person spekaing, regardless of appearance, probably does not consider themselves idnigenous, but mestizo or white....this is an issue where class and race overlap hugely, as it's about things like dress, language, culture, occupation etc., and not just physical appearance.
it's the same in Argentina (I use this exmaple because I know much more than baout Mexico), when people tlak about "norther argentinians" or "bolivians" or "paraguayans" in a certain sense, they aren't talking about the white minorities from those areas, rather, it's a derogatory reference to "Indians".
So in this sense, when you see a middle class Mexican talk about southern mexicans or Guatemalans, or when you see a middle class argentine talk about bolivians or northern argentinians, there is quite likely a racial undertone.
Last edited by Zurdito; 3rd June 2008 at 22:20.
Lenin’s internationalism is by no means a form of reconciliation of Nationalism and Internationalism in words but a form of international revolutionary action. The territory of the earth inhabited by so-called civilized man is looked upon as a coherent field of combat on which the separate peoples and classes wage gigantic warfare against each other. No single question of importance can be forced into a national frame.
Leon Trotsky
TVPTS - 24hr news, analysis and opinion, from a revolutionary perspective
Okay, I understand the situation now.
you guys are right. it's more xenophobia than racism. but it has not gone away.. Central Americans and other South Americans have done NOTHING to him that can trigger this hate. All they do is "talk funny" and "look different" thats it. and when it comes to blacks he had lots of fights with them in high school... so that one there makes sense.. not that it justifies it but i can "get that one"
we need more revolutions and less "isms"
Zurdito explained it very well hence why lots of mexicans dont like the EZLN cuase thier "Indians" or "Indios" etc.. Or for any country in latin america for that matter were their is a peasantry uprising
We must be freed Politicaly by Anarchy, Economicaly by communism
-kropotkin
Lenin is not comparable to any revolutionary figure in history. Revolutionaries have had ideals. Lenin has none.
-kropotkin
Who said I wasn't racist? I am only slightly racist, but still racist. I don't pretend I'm not.
The fact that many black americans are forced to live in slums is because of the past oppression. I do not dislike black people per say, but rather people who are ghetto. This includes ghetto white people. Is it their fault? No, its the way my country was conceived and run that has put them in such a position.
If it makes you feel better, I HATE white trash. A lot. It all has to do with ethics, not ethnicity.
EDIT- I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore. Point- I dislike unmotivated people. Sometimes these people are unmotivated due to causes beyond their control.
Last edited by CXR; 4th June 2008 at 02:58.
Actually, there's only one kind of racism
Whereas,to dislike subcultures which happen to occur in certain ethnic communities is not in and of itself racist. To dislike an ethnicity due to cultural trends resultant primarily of a socio-economic history of economic repression combined with a siege of the mind in the form of media projections aimed at exploiting and diminuating the aspirations of an economically repressed community is bourgeois to say the least. Frankly though, believe it or not, the introduction of the minimum wage as a safeguard to protect northern white jobs from an unskilled black labor force was the most efficient weapon used in the repression of the black community in the United States.
So, yes... it is capitalism... but not the side of capitalism that one ever hears the left complaining about
