Posco and RoseyPosey were walking down the street by the gas station. For whatever reason, Posco had fallen behind a bit and ran to catch up with her. Two kids, one about 8 and one about 14 yelled out to Posco “Punk Ass White Boy!” and the ran away…of course.
My son nor daughter were not that perturbed.This is not the first time this happened. My husband was livid though! The funny thing, to quote my mother directly, is if you know Posco, the “Punk ass” part is farthest from the truth. Posco of course doesn’t see the insult in the second part he said, because he is after all part white…Maybe they were just trying to impress everyone with their anthropological prowess?
My husband went looking for them, I guess to have a word with them. I don’t think Posco would have told us except RoseyPosey mentioned it: “Oh, Posco, you need to stop leaving the house. Everytime you go outside…” Upon hearing that my husband wanted to establish a sense that where his kids are, he is a step behind (I think he was frustrated that that has not yet been established).
To quote a wise woman “I hate ethnic neighborhoods.”
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I am white. I couldn’t be whiter. (ok, I have about 3% Native American blood in me, but it doesn’t show). I grew up in a Cree village in Northern Ontario where the worst insult they could call you was “white man”. I spent over half my life there and even though I still do have some friends there, I will NEVER ever feel like I belong there. I will ALWAYS feel like the outsider “white man”. It was just drilled into me too well, growing up. I don’t have a fondness for ethnic neighbourhoods either, or at least, not those that are closed in on themselves. (Not all of them are). On the plus side, things HAVE changed in that village and I don’t think white people are quite as ostracized anymore. It’s too late for me though.
I hate ethnic neighborhoods
Hmmm. Since ethnos means people, I have to say I prefer the peopled ones to the unpeopled ones. Living at the edge of the East Oakland ghetto, I understand the frictions that happen between the various ethnos. Sometimes I can even understand Apartheid, but then something always seems to happen. Let’s say that the particular source of irritation is a cultural habit of Inuits. I am just about to swear that I will have nothing ever to do with Inuits again, and, bam, one of my Inuit neighbors goes way out of his way to do a good turn for me or one of the other neighbors, or goes out of his way to right a wrong done by some other Inuit.
No, we don’t have Inuits, but fill in the blank. We have South Asians of just about every stripe, Northern Chinese, Mexicans, Indians, Arabs, Ethiopians, Nigerians, Italians (as I explained to someone who asked, in astonishment of my use of the word “wop,” “do you have a problem with Italians?” my answer was “all of my problems are with Italians. Or at least one Italian.”), Portuguese, etc.
No, we don’t have Inuits, but fill in the blank. We have South Asians of just about every stripe, Northern Chinese, Mexicans, Indians, Arabs, Ethiopians, Nigerians, Italians
I wouldn’t consider that an ethnic neighborhood, or at least not in terms of what I am talking about. What I mean is a neighborhood with only pretty much with people of one ethnicity-like Coucoumelle described.
Ah. Mono-cultural neighborhoods. I guess they can have their advantages for mono-cultural people. Sometimes I think I would love to be in an all-Italian neighborhood, but then I think, well, that would probably include people from Southern and Northern Italy, and what I really would be happiest in is a Central Italian neighborhood, but we wouldn’t really need to have anyone from Emilia Romagna, and then I realize that Melanie would have to convert, because the Azores aren’t really Central Italian. And would I have to leave one foot (a German foot, natch) on the other side of the border?
Yeah, perhaps an all-Lapp thing would be good for a Lapp, but I would hate to be the lone Swede in the area.