Mike: what you describe is a long-standing pattern. I have never minded telling stories about myself, because the responses I get allow me to learn something about people, and if someone doesn't like what they hear and therefore decides not to like me then that's okay too. Typically the subjects I put in this category are not the one you imagine: they include such things a Politics, religion, guns, the Marine Corps, pacifism and a number of others. I don't think much of someone who hides himself so that he won't be disliked. What good does that do? Are you (speaking generically) so tender and timid that you are afraid of someone's dislike? Be bold. Tell them who you really are and then if they don't like you, they have clarified something about themselves for you and you have clarified something for them.
Of course if there are misunderstandings they should be corrected if possible -- if some words of yours haven't caused an uncorrectable dissonance, and even that would be illuminating.
I heard something like what you are implying from a Tennesseean who worked for me years ago. He liked to talk about how unprejudiced he was; which struck me as strange because we never talk about that sort of thing out here. I maintained that we were color blind in Southern California and if there were anomalies I hadn't encountered them. He didn't believe me at first because Race is a really big thing back in Tennessee. It isn't anything out here in California. People are people and get to be and do pretty much whatever they like. He finally came to agree and decided we were way ahead of anyone else in the nation.
So revise your views about the Hispanics here in Southern California and our attitude toward them or not. That's up to you. But not only am I not racist, I don't even think about race (unless some Tennessean brings something up in a discussion) and no one I know does either. You took what I said about an immigrant and made a racial thing out of it. That says something about you. It is possible to get beyond your primitive way of thinking, but you may need to move to California to manage it.
If you had read more of my old notes (you seem to be reading more of the current ones than you usually do. Does that mean you missed me?) you would realize that I have bragged about our immigrants and the way Americans treat and integrate them and the way they adopt our work ethic. They are readily accepted, in contradistinction to European immigrants and the way Europeans treat them.
Lawrence At 03:43 PM 2/25/2007, you wrote:
EY: >probably done more hard scrabble than you, Mike.I doubt that very, very much. But even if you could (fat chance) miraculously beat me at hard scrabble, that's totally beside the point -- which is one that I was sure Lawrence would miss, (but never imagined you would) -- that Lawrence's comments put him in the driver's seat of judgment -- judgments based on nothing more than bigotry -- else why would he even mention the incident? It's bigotry, pure and simple. It's of the "a very worthy Negro" -- as they have said in Memphis -- variety. I know you're afraid of Arabs, but there's no need to fear everyone not like you, Eric. I see in Lawrence's comments the seeds of social and economic injustice, I don't know what you see. And I could be wrong, of course, maybe Lawrence pays the guy who cleans his house a living, family, saving wage. But then, you have to wonder, why then is he working at Jack in the Box? Maybe the guy's just greedy, eh?Mike Geary Memphis ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
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