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My wife and I have lived in Yuma, Ariz. for five years now and while we could have probably purchased a home before now, we have lived those five years in fairly low cost ethnicly-mixed apartment complexes and trailer parks. There has always been a bit of racist tension we have picked up on over the past five years but it really has seemed to crescendo over the past few months. Today alone, (Christmas Ever mind you) I have been confronted with so much of what I can only classify has hate speech by anglos towards Hispanics that I am seething with rage. People I liked. Liked past tense. I am sorry. I am done understanding hate. It's fucking Christmas Eve.
I am a 29 year old monolingual white male - so I am supposed to hate the illegals, the damned dirty mexicans, the mexican whores who come over here to just have their babies and collect WIC and foodstamps, the Wal-Mart worker who can't speak English even though they wear the blue shmock that says "How can I help you?" (this is a big one lately... the big issue, filling up the opinion page with rants and hate and such - and these people, the hate-filled anglos seethe with anger when they talk about it... they are personally offended. It is a personal affront to them).
Today - Christmas Eve, mind you - at work (I work as an insurance agent in a telemarketing place)there was many anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican conversations between the anglo agents even though the bilingual (more highly skilled) agents were near by. They pretend not to hear, but I am sure they hear and they have learned to ignore it. I argue til my face turns red with anger and I need to stop because it is a losing battle, they (the anglos) refuse to listen to me. I get home and my wife is all upset because she was over at our neighbors exchanging presents and our neighbor (an Okie in her upper-fifties) informed my wife that she has decided that "she hates all Mexicans." She told my wife that she always hated some of them but now she hates them all because... she was at Wal-Mart yesterday and she went up to a worker to ask a question and the worker responded "Pardon, no habla ingles." OH MY GOD!!!!! OF ALL THE INJUSTICES!!!!! HOW DARE YOU COME TO MY COUNTRY AND SPEAK A LANGUAGE OTHER THAN MY NATIVE TOUNGUE. Get this, my neighbor tells my wife that she started yelling at this poor girl about how if she wants to work in this country she needs to learn the language, etc. etc. When I heard this I got so mad I want to go over there and re-exchange presents. I mean, Jesus. Today, also at work this guy I thought I liked and I thought was tolerant declared that "if they declared open season on illegals, that'd be reason enough for him to become a hunter." I was about ready to report him to management to file a complaint but there was no member of managment there today. just a few supervisors.
If the situation keeps getting worse like this, the ethnic tension will be unbearable (and doesn't it take two sides to be tension? just think what will happen in the anglo community if the hispanic-mexican community starts standing up for themselves. It will get ugly. It just tears me apart.
Feliz Navidad, gringos estupido.
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