Distance and racism

Pub date June 11, 2013
SectionPolitics Blog

Right now, I’m approximately 116 miles from the Mexican border.

When I was growing up, I was 1600 miles from the same border. I was in Boston–I had a discussion today with some musicians from Boston that are “alarmed” at “the end of America” because of “amnesty”. When I pointed out that in the last 24 years, LA had become more “Latino” (I sussed out that the issue wasn’t illegal immigration as it never really is, when they started in with “press 2 for English”) and that crime and pollution was down and land values up–might as have been talking to my toenails.

I think it’s the same syndrome that crazy white folks in gated communities have about “the end of our way of life”–the further removed they are from the actual human beings that terrify them the more terrified they are.

Why do you think Coeur D’Alene, in Idaho’s northern tip was the capital of white power, hundreds of miles away from non whites?

It’s race.