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The Pale White Duke of Hazzard
by anna at 08:48 AM on July 15, 2005
Hard as it may be to believe this actually happened: Two longtime rival companies came together in what was described as a merger but was really a takeover of the one I worked for by a crosstown rival. Its CEO triumphantly breezed into our HQ for a televised speech and Q&A afterwards. He called on a woman who reminded me of that chirpy-voiced, short-haired girl who does the voiceovers for Volkswagen. "I'd like to address something near and dear to our hearts here at XYZ Co," she said, "DIVERSITY!" "I couldn't help but notice that your inner circle consists entirely of middle-aged white men," she continued, much to the dismay of thousands of cringing viewers crowded around TV monitors, "What do you plan to do to rectify this?"
The CEO stammered something meaningless and then bent to whisper something to his aide, who scribbled on a pad. "She's history," we all exclaimed.
I went to the grocery store where you have to bag your own. There's a conveyor belt on either side of the cashier. The space between checkout lines is very narrow. She placed about fifty of my items on the belt opposite me. Between me and my arduous bagging task stood a hefty Hispanic couple and their kid, jabbering in Spanish. Eager to get on with it but unable to reach my stuff, I said, "Excuse me." She looks at me curiously, like a cat scolded for climbing on the dining room table for scraps. He ignores me completely, continuing to bag massive amounts of rice and beans. I'm able to communicate with her via sign language and she gets out of my way. "Excuse me!!!" I holler at him. Still impervious. So I draw upon my pitiful fluency in French, Spanglish and Jamaican to formulate this hodgepodge: "Senor! Excusez mon! Need to get by Si!" Amazingly it worked and I squeezed by.
I wake up to find there's no coffee. I don't exist without coffee. So I make my way up to 7-11, feeling much like David Bowie must have when he dubbed himself the Pale White Duke. I know full well what awaits me. Swarms of Hispanic day laborers, landscapers and whatnot gathered for their morning social hour around my coveted coffee. Jabbering in Spanish about God knows what. Buying massive amounts of Gatorade and Spicy Big Bites and Corona to stock their coolers. A line snaking halfway to hell. Any woman who'd brave this gauntlet would feel like those hapless chicks in the Tailhook scandal at the Air Force Academy. "Mama si ta!," the men all exclaim while making some kind of lewd hand gesture I don't understand. For some reason, when I'm half awake and dazed, this whole crazed scene makes me feel grossly inadequate.
They don't seem to care what the girl looks like. Fat chicks, pockmarked faces, running sores, imaciated, sloppily dressed, they don't care. Everyone gets the same treatment. They do not discriminate. Which brings me to my point.
Everyone would agree that diversity or multiethnicity is a good thing for society. A staid place like Denmark could use an influx of Latinos, with the effusive gusto they bring, for example. But too much diversity means no cohesiveness, no common ethos, no tie that binds a culture together. Indeed, as Pat Buchanan analogized in Death of the West, what we have today isn't so much a melting pot of yore as a tossed salad.
To me the biggest problem with certain Latin Americans having imported their culture here and made scant effort to assimilate is practical in nature. When we speak different languages, we can't communicate on even the most basic of levels let alone have any meaningful discourse. See paragraph 3 above.
As I edge my way through the crowd toward the coffee station, it becomes necessary to reach my hand at crotch level for stirs and lids. The jabbering men are standing so close to these items that my hand comes within an inch or so of their dicks. This is as close as my hand has ever come to another man's package. Now, I don't have any use for this. Ah but I do wonder what they are saying about the Pale White Duke in their midst.
comments (7)
Just as ESL classes must be the underpinning of foreign born students' curriculum, native born students should be required to take several years of Spanish. This will help prepare them for the bilingual world they will be living and competing in. And they'll be able to bag their groceries in due time.
by anna at July 15, 2005 10:23 AM
Assimilate? The only immigrants who assimilated were the asians for the most part... the Latinos Mon? Hombre, most of these hombres, ese, ain't got the abilitos nor the intellligentias to assimilate... The Mexicans, they are workhorses, much respectos... the other Latinos... they be like the blacks... into pop culture and big rimms and banging every fat ass dat walks the block bee.
by LOCKHEED at July 15, 2005 5:57 PM
BUT forget about the LATINOS or BLACKS or ASIANS...
...just look at the Blue Collar White Trash combination... they don't have the ability or the intellect, and instead, they just think everything is a fucking conspiracy by the rich educated white man... QUIT BITCHING I say... I can't stand people who DISPARAGE what they ADMIRE but CAN'T ATTAIN... fucking losers....
....a louie, louie... a way gotta go...
by LOCKEED at July 15, 2005 6:05 PM
I can see both sides of this issue, being from two places (Seattle, WA and Boise, ID) that have very different degrees of integration. Seattle has a very interesting mixture of cultures, most remaining distinct from the others, but there is still a good level of genuine multiculturalism that exists wherein most people speak enough English, Spanish, and Japanese/Korean to do business without a problem.
Boise, in contrast, offers very little integration. The towns in the outer valley are jampacked with Mexicans and other day laborers, and Spanish is the language of choice. It's impossible to exist without being able to speak at least a smidgeon of Spanish. The closer you get to downtown Boise, though, the whiter the culture gets. Right downtown, you will hear Spanish...but none of the clerks will speak it. Even clerks who are clearly hispanic will refuse to speak Spanish to the Mexicans in the establishment, due to the overwhelming belief that English is the American language.
by mr efficiency at July 15, 2005 7:22 PM
It's Lock at his most eloquent here. Funny thing Mr. E. I live in a little town outside DC that used to be totally redneck. When we got here from the snotty enclave that is McLean VA, we were appalled to see all the pickup trucks, gun racks, confederate flags and signs plastered everywhere for candidate for "sheriff," whatever that entails. But seemingly overnight it has turned into San Salvador here. And us and the few remaining townies who are our friends wish the old redneck days would come back. That's what is going to happen in Boise too. High birth rates among Hispanics and a frantic stampede of immigration, mostly illegal, will seal its fate. And might I add that I never want to hear the sanitized term "undocumented worker" substituted for illegal alien. "Undocumented worker" suggests that A) Proper documents will soon be forthcoming and B) that this person necessarily works.
by anna at July 16, 2005 8:35 AM
Fuck Cracker Pride and Fuck Black Pride...
Show me something to be proud about... and then you can have your pride...
by LOCKHEED at July 17, 2005 8:47 PM
sounds like america
by Dale at March 29, 2007 1:12 AM