Sunday November 18, 2007
The Sahara Hotel of North Miami Beach. If you’re like me, you’re thinking this place will be torn down, for vague political-correctness reasons, any second now (or at least the crazy lawn ornaments will be). Then again, I’ve been thinking that since the 1980s.
Monday October 22, 2007
Here’s a crazy racist/homophobic election flyer sent out in Miami Beach. There’s a weird fake poll, too.
Thursday June 21, 2007
“[W]hen you came to Miami in 1964, were I-95 and I-395 already built, ripping through Overtown and basically converting it into the slum it is today? Did you drink from the segregated drinking fountains or eat at a segregated lunch counter? Did you see the ID cards blacks needed to come to Miami Beach? Or when the hotels advertised ‘Always A View, Never a Jew’? [. . .] Miami was a divided city long before the Cubans arrived and it will continue to be.” — Alex cuts to the heart of the matter, which almost makes this post (which accuses me of accusing Rick of being a racist — no wait, it really accuses me of accusing Rick of almost being a racist — no, sorry, I think it actually accuses me of thinking that Rick is a racist but not saying it) worth it.
Monday April 16, 2007
This is rich: Carl Hiaasen serves up a stale summary of the Don Imus story, taking time out to call Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson “hypocrites and phonies.”
Wednesday November 8, 2006
On the difference between the immigrant experience and the African-American experience
[I was just reading this post and comments at 26th Parallell. I tried to leave a comment, but Robert’s system doesn’t let me link my name back here. So here’s my comment:]
When I was voting yesterday, there was a black guy hanging out and talking with the poll workers for a long time while his eligibility was being figured out (he’d been out of the country or something). When he finally left, I heard several of the poll workers remark, loudly and conspicuously, what a nice young man he was (he was 27; I’d overheard his birthdate as he was giving it to them), and how rare that was these days. Would they have remarked the same way about me? Of course not — it would have been absurd and weird. It’s not-so-subtle shit like this that I notice from time to time that makes me realize that subtle signs of racism are very prevalent in the US to this day.
On top of that, the legacy of Jim-Crow laws (which are not very far in the past) and slavery are very difficult to shake off for reasons that are no less real for being complicated.
The experience of immigrants is, indeed, very very difficult. It’s probably an oversimplification, but I’ll offer this: some people are just more motivated then others to get up and DO stuff. This is genetic. 100% of immigrants, almost by definition, fall into that category, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to find them succeeding at high rates. This group is roughly comparable to the many successful African Americans.
Statements like “those people should stop complaining and do something about their situation” are roughly equivalent to “I refuse to look into this situation and try to figure out what might be going on.”
Statements like “anyone from South Africa whose white can call themselves an African-American too,” while logically accurate, miss many important cultural truths. The fact is that white South Africans have a lot to answer for. If I was them I wouldn’t be arguing labels with a group of people who have a lot of persecution in their past, and who in my opinion have earned the right to call themselves what they like.
Permalink · Comment [23] · Tags: immigrants, racism · Post to del.icio.us, digg, reddit
Sunday May 28, 2006
It never fails. I’ve got some news for you, guy: they’re not Latino. Also, Ed McMahon called to say, “you may already be a racist!” Personally, I’ve lived on South Beach for five years, and I’ve never noticed Memorial Day weekend as anything more then a bunch of people hanging out and partying.
Saturday May 27, 2006
It’s nice to see that these promoters learned didn’t learn shit from last year’s fiasco about throwing a ‘White Party’ on Memorial Day weekend. To wit: they inserted the word ‘wear’ between ‘White’ and ‘Party.’ Nice job.
