quote:Compared to Benton, Paducah is large, ugly, polluted, and fairly crime-ridden. "Well," people would tell me sometimes, "it's because they've got blacks there."
You cannot believe how much this reminds me of sentiment where I live. This is a town of nearly 19,000 people (as of the 2000 census; I'd imagine there are probably at least 20,000 now). We have no movie theatres. Whenever I mention that it would be nice to have one again (back in the day, when my mom was young, there were three - for a much smaller population) because I'm tired of having to drive half an hour or more to see a new movie, almost invariably if I am talking to a white person they will say, "There's no point in getting a theatre here. The Mexicans [their term] would just ruin it." I've been hearing this for years. Excuse me? What sort of idiotic statement is that?
Of course, it isn't just the white folks here who are prejudiced. Around here, it isn't at all unusual to hear Hispanics who were born in the States to refer to Hispanics who weren't born here with the same sort of racial slurs that some whites use toward all Hispanics. Can't quite figure that one out.
I don't know. Maybe I'm just incredibly naive. But I was raised to judge people by their individual personalities and habits, not by some stereotype of the group of people with their same ethnic or national background.
quote: But I was raised to judge people by their individual personalities and habits, not by some stereotype of the group of people with their same ethnic or national background.
I, too, was raised to judge. Not upon the trivialities of the transglorious specificalities of the colorific and patriotific identificalization, but upon the bass presence of the woofer (in prostrate conjunctivism with a workable tweeter - 'nuff said). "Background," as the sages of sound are wont to repeat, emulsively extrudes an equanimity of melody.
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