Hating Your Own: Racism in the Modern Age

In early November, seven teenage friends got together looking for something to fill their Saturday afternoon. Unable to think of anything, they decided to rely upon their old stand-by; hunting down men of colour, specifically Hispanics. Their ritual usually consisted of shooting at men from moving cars with BB guns with the occasional mugging. Unfortunately for Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorian immigrant working at a nearby dry cleaner, November 8^th, 2008 would not be a usual day. It was on that day that one of the men, 17 years old and a star high school athlete, allegedly stabbed him in the chest. He died hours later in hospital.

If this description evokes imagery of the rural White South you can be forgiven. Years of movies depicting the Southern United States as backward racists tormenting helpless blacks (A Time to Kill and Mississippi Burning spring to mind) later saved by enlightened Northerners have conditioned us to think that this type of overt racism is the domain of the Confederacy.

And yet this occurred not only in a Blue State, but in multi-cultural New York. And not only did it occur in New York, but the group that attacked Lucero itself was multi-ethnic, made up primarily of fellow Hispanics.

Obviously, to label all Hispanics as some sort of homogenous group is wrong, but considering most share a language and a similar immigrant experience, it does seem odder than the typical White-on-Blank violence that springs to mind when we think of hate crime.

But maybe it shouldn’t be such a surprise though; after seeing how Hispanics are vilified every night by the Lou Dobbs and Tom Tancredo’s of the world as literally, leprosy-carrying job-stealers, wouldn’t you expect at least a modicum of self-loathing to build up in the mind of a young Hispanic?

Not to equate my Diaspora experience with that of Hispanics, especially these young Hispanic men, but I can certainly understand the feelings of insecurity that come with being a minority. Growing up as one of only two people of colour in my class, (the other happens to have founded this website), I can remember more than anything wanting to shed that otherness; whether it be through adopting Western tastes in music, including an unfortunate albeit brief tolerance of techno, or an appreciation for the first and second season of FRIENDS.

In retrospect, there were definite moments of misguided idiocy, such as taking pride in the fact that I could not speak fluent Vietnamese, or that I had little to no contact with the Vietnamese community in and around Toronto. I remember even going as far as to hyphenate my middle name to my last name in order to give off the vague impression that I was Dutch or something.

Of course, as you get older the crippling insecurity that plagues your youth begins to fade, as you get more and more comfortable in your own skin. That feeling of otherness moves more and more to the back of your consciousness until you almost forget that it’s there, especially living in a city as multicultural as Toronto. But imagine you never get the opportunity to forget? Imagine your otherness is shoved in your face every day on CNN, or via the Congress that is supposed to represent you? During the 2008 Presidential primaries, not one, not two, but three major candidates ran on platforms almost solely dedicated to stopping illegal immigration.

Jan Wong delved into this very issue in her article “Get Under the Desk”, noting that the famous school massacres that occurred in Quebec, (Ecole Polytechnique, Concordia, and Dawson College) were perpetrated by men who were racial or ethnic minorities. Wong reasoned that Quebec’s obsession with racial purity, epitomized by Jacques Parizeau’s famous “money and the ethnic vote” speech, created a culture of alienation that pushed marginalized, and mentally unstable individuals into violence. Of course, Wong’s position is a huge over-simplification, but it is not without its elements of truth. Any region as obsessed with maintaining some sort of static identity as Quebec is bound to exclude those who do not fit its ideal. Did that play a role in turning these men into murderers?

Similarly, who knows what was running through the mind of those Hispanic men as they drove past Marcelo Lucero. Did his working-class appearance remind them of their own humble roots and shame them? Were they hoping to gain acceptance into their group by distancing themselves from him, ultimately by killing him?

A few months ago I was in Tanzania, and while the vast majority of Tanzanians were more than accepting, every now and then as one would walk past, I would hear one mumble something underneath their breath.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Mzungu”, Hannah replied. “It means white person. Foreigner.”

Over the next few weeks, some would say Mzungu, others would bow and shout out “Jet Li!”, or “Jackie Chan!” And while most said it in jest, after a while the stares and giggles brought me back to grade school. I felt uncomfortable. I was the other again.

“Does it bother you?” Hannah asked me.

“I didn’t think it would. But it sort of does.”