Tman wrote:
-Legal or illegal Latin immigrants are still looked down upon by white establishment. Sorry to bring up the race issue so much, but while not as in your face as it was mid century, there are still very obvious signs of racism and attitudes towards "otherness". Just hang around a city elementary school that is integrated sometime, and you will see these behaviors learned from a very early age. While initially K*ds will play together, they still notice and mimic comments and behaviors learned from the adults in their homes. Where else do they learn inflammatory words and epitaphs? Wop, Spic, Nigger, jewboy...all these originally came from the mouths of adults.
Maybe in other states there might be a racial element, but not in California.
Race is actually a minor factor when it comes to K*ds. I've seen first hand in the schools where during lunch filopino K*ds hang with filopinos, chinese K*ds hang with chinese K*ds, black K*ds hang with black K*ds and white K*ds hang with white K*ds.
To me, it is food, culture, language and all the life experiences around these 3 things that separate us way more than the color of ones skin. What's in your lunchbox? YUCK! You aren't going to hear YUCK if you are dealing with your own culture. You aren't going to have to explain that your parents don't know English or not very much English. Black people, though they speak English, speak in terms that they've grown up using so the comfort level is there. When you are dealing with your own culture there are a lot of things you don't have to explain to others and this has to be more comforting than having to explain away why you, your sister, your brother, mother, father, cousins, grandparents are the way they are. Often, people take the path of least resistance in life and dealing with what you know is taking the path of least resistance.
Race could be a issue where there are few minorities in a community though race alone is not the only issue even in these communities. Much of the time, people are just afraid of the unknown, afraid to reach out and this comes from both sides of the fence.
Chris Rock once said that white people aren't racist, they just don't like POOR people! He went on to say that MJ, Oprah, Micheal Jackson, T Woods had plenty of white friends.... OJ too. He hit the nail on the head, because when black people (professional black people, not rappers!) are successful, they aren't hanging out in poor neighborhoods and they aren't living in them either and they don't drive to poor neighborhoods for an after work drink.
So, add money to the list: culture, language, food and money.
Sorry Tman, I just don't like to base so much of why things are the way they are on race. To me, race is just the tip of the iceberg and when race is a factor isn't always necessarily white on "whatever" racism.
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