I live among bigots!!

Last year, I attended my homeowners association meeting for the first time. Our state senator, who was running for a seat in the U.S. House, was a guest speaker. In response to a question about illegal Mexican laborers in our neighborhood, he made a comment about a building that was being refurbished next to his office and him not hearing anything but Spanish the whole time. A couple of minutes later he made a comment about "Mexicans picking peaches in south Georgia." Now, this guy knew what he was doing. He spoke for over an hour without actually saying anything. These comments were delivered in what I considered a disparaging tone, but nothing he said could be construed as offensive (since they didn't have any actual content). But he was playing his audience; he knew the anti-immigrant feelings of his audience and he played to them like a master. After his speech, I approached him and told him I didn't appreciate his comments and that some people could have found them offensive. He told me nobody could consider him a racist because he (a) supported George Bush's proposal of amnesty to illegal immigrants, (b) favored giving Georgia Hope college scholarships to illegal immigrants, (c) was opposed to a proposal before the state legislature to deputize police officers as INS agents when they stopped suspects on other grounds within the scope of their usual duties, (d) favored giving illegal immigrants driver licenses, and (e) supported the expenditure of Medicaid funds and other public assistance on illegal aliens. Well, guess what? I have the diametrically opposite position on each and every one of these items. But, hey, I was Hispanic, so I must favor these things. Another question that occurred to me was why didn't he mention these things during his speech? Well, that question had an easy answer. Because they would have run him out of town. I made it my life's work to make sure he was defeated in his bid for the U.S. House. I'm glad to report he didn't even make it into the primary runoff. Good riddance.

At this year's meeting, I had an even more annoying experience. After the meeting, one of the homeowners was ranting and raving. She wasn't intelligent enough to form a coherent thought, so I'm not sure what was up her butt, but she was talking about how our city council members must be taking money to allow "this Mexican trash..." I don't know the rest of her sentence, because I walked away. But the thought that in the year 2005 somebody doesn't know better than to utter a phrase like that boggles my mind. The fact that this person is actually my neighbor pisses me off beyond belief.