The subject of immigrants came up in a local conversation. People who read this column know I love and respect LEGAL immigrants of various cultures. I have special fondness for Poles, Russians, Cubans, Copts, Dominicans, Phillipinos, Indians and Guyanese and countless other groups. I have interacted with many people from these cultures as friends and coworkers. On numerous occasions I was privilaged to date women from some of the above cultures.
Imagine the horror when I heard ethnic slurs and stereotypes of blacks and these immigrant groups at my local bar. There is some truth that some of the drug dealing up here is done by Blacks. However they are far from the only people doing that evil function. Moreover their customers are overwhelmingly white.
Immigrants are blamed for high taxes and taking welfare. I readily pointed to white people we knew who haven't worked in years and are literaly drunk six days out of seven. In fact there was a joke about a local friend that I fill up my car at the gas station and pass her a bottle of Vodka.
I do not understand the illogical hatred for people that the locals have never even met. How many Dominicans or Guyanese do you know ? Then kindly shut up. The amazing part is the fear and hatred is related almost to the distance. Vermont is not as progressive as some think. I never heard talk like this in NYC ever except for the Anti Semitic and Hindoooooo fulminations from the Comuleft in Union Square. For the record all of these bigots were also against the war.
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Plato, "Statesman"...
STRANGER: All things which we make or acquire are either creative or preventive; of the preventive class are antidotes, divine and human, and also defences; and defences are either military weapons or protections; and protections are veils, and also shields against heat and cold, and shields against heat and cold are shelters and coverings; and coverings are blankets and garments; and garments are some of them in one piece, and others of them are made in several parts; and of these latter some are stitched, others are fastened and not stitched; and of the not stitched, some are made of the sinews of plants, and some of hair; and of these, again, some are cemented with water and earth, and others are fastened together by themselves. And these last defences and coverings which are fastened together by themselves are called clothes, and the art which superintends them we may call, from the nature of the operation, the art of clothing, just as before the art of the Statesman was derived from the State; and may we not say that the art of weaving, at least that largest portion of it which was concerned with the making of clothes, differs only in name from this art of clothing, in the same way that, in the previous case, the royal science differed from the political?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Most true.
beak,
Ever think of what the fullers and carders and dyers and spinners do to the wool before they weave it?
Time to renew the "peplos" at the Parthenon. Later.
-FJ
We Southerners are often stereotyped as being racists. Well, certainly some are.
But I've always maintained that bigotry is not confined to the South. In fact, some of my Northern acquaintances are quite bigoted.
PS: The Southerners whom I know are mixed as to the Iraqi war, along more or less liberal/conservative lines, or along Democrat/Republican lines.
I was amazed that "desegregation" was still an issue when I moved from the South (Alabama, where I grew up) to Missouri. Here the Democrats are still re-enacting the Civil War and fighting to stop inner city black kids from being bussed to better schools in predominantly white neighborhoods. It's a perpetual war here in St. Louis, as there are two major political parties - white Democrats and black Democrats. Republicans don't live in St. Louis city limits because it's a money pit of corruption and racial politics.
I'm not opposed to immigration (I have Mexican-Americans in my family) and I realize that they are crossing the border to find a better life in the United States, just as people move out of America's shithole Democrat-dominated cities for the Republican suburbs.
It's like a fractal of demographics charts, the same thing down to a local level.
The sad part is these people have never met 90% of these people. Most legal immigrants come here to work.
The bigotry here is relative I am not talking about Bob but those others are.... There is plenty of social disfunction up here.
The myth that Vermont is progressive paradise is bunk. People should travel outside of Burlington. I love Vermonters but that conversation shocked me.
Vermont's interesting where the government in general is progressive and the people who have lived there all their life are not. As a state I think it is quite divided over homosexuality. I have the seen bumper stickers 'Let's take Vermont Back' and 'Let's take Vermont from the back' on the same drive. There are a lot of different view points up there, I think maybe they just do it to the extremes.
Mr. Beamish,
I didn't know that people felt that way in St. Louis.
And you have a way with words: "America's shithole Democrat-dominated cities" LOL!
The bigoted and racist comments,
It the same old song and dance no matter where you go or what group you are talking about.
I've heard them from whites, blacks, Indians, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, whatever. Its not only whites vrs some other group and visa versa.
The Mexicans have a big problem with other latinos. I've had Puerto Ricans tell me how lazy and stupid Mexicans are and Mexicans tell me how filthy Puerto Ricans are. And both of them hated Cubans.
I had a white South African tell me how inferior blacks were, (black Africans, that is), They don't consider our "blacks" to be black but call them colored.
People trend to cluster together among their own "kind" and talk trash about the "other". It may be a sign of ignorance and poor breeding, (as grandma used to say), but it seems to be pastime among the chattering classes.
Then as Beak pointed out, we have the bigots who divide people into caste or social status while at the same time finding bigotry in everyone that doesn't agree with them. They are as completely unaware of their bigotry as a cow is unaware of the dung it stands in.
H
The anti gay statements I have heard from the locals are shocking. There is resentment at the power grab by transplanted NYC and MA people. I am sympathetic to the locals who are having their world turned upside down by deranged far left transplants who have zero respect for the local culture .
That being said I have zero acceptence for bigotry against LEGAL immigrants or gay bashing. Interestingly, there is a highly visable contingent of Lesbians who are accepted with some reluctance but Gay men are invisible and would be subjected to all forms of verbal abuse.
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