Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006...9:53 am
More Enlightened Commentary From the Star/Citizen Message Boards
I read once that Russell Baker was having trouble thinking of a column to write, so he went outside to take a walk and a potato fell out of a window. When you are Russell Baker, that takes care of your column right there.
This morning I woke up wanting to write something interesting, but I couldn’t really. There were some things over on Sonoran Alliance that I wanted to respond to, but alas, the synapses weren’t firing.
Before work, I stopped over at LeCaves, a southside institution. Their donuts have been confirmed by taste tests to be better than Krispy Kreme. The hordes that flocked to Krispy Kreme would have none of this, but which place is still open?
On my way in, I ran into my friend Eric who said, “Oh, that’s right, you work on the South Side, and as we know, you are worried about your car getting stolen.”
“Eric, have you been reading the Star and Citizen message boards again?” Yes, I do talk like this. And, by the way Eric is a South Side resident who made his statement most satiricly.
“Yeah, did you see those comments?”
A few words about the Star and Citizen message boards: I sincerely hope that out of towners don’t judge the whole of our populace by the slope headed, slack jawed, knuckle dragging bigots that post to the boards. Apparently, there is a whole crew of neanderthals that have figured out how to type and do so in between readings of the Turner Diaries. Their vitriol is so unapologetically racist that one wonders if after reading it, the NAACP would consider giving a medal to Michael Richards.
The article in question was one about the rezoning of 68 acres near Irvington and I-19 for an “outdoor shopping mall.” I am a bit suspicious of the phrase, which sounds like another way of saying, “newer looking stip center.” That aside, it will be nice to see a movie theater and decent shopping in an area of town that has been neglected for a way too long.
It didn’t take long, the first comment was from Beto N. (Is it former New England Revolution midfielder Alberto Naveda? I always wondered what happened to him.):
Another southside place to get robbed or have your car stolen while you enjoy a movie.
An ignorant statement for a couple of reasons. One is that there are no first run theaters on the South Side now, which would make it hard for it to be “another southside place to get robbed…while you enjoy a movie.”
It is also ignorant for another reason: the South Side has it’s problems (I know, because I work here) but it is not the den of crime that folks seem to believe. You don’t have to believe me, you can check the crime statistics maps on TPD’s website. For each category, there is a small cluster on the south side, and one on the east side and some places here and there in midtown. But what is this dark green and black stipe in the middle of the map? A sliver of neighborhoods between First and Oracle moving north, yes north, from Downtown to River Road. Golly.
I take it from Beto’s name that his assumptions about the South Side are not about race, but are instead about geography and the generations long assumptions that any person wandering the South Side is subject to all manners of predations. I hear this all the time from people who really ought to know better.
Of course, it was only the second time out that we get the racial comment:
You’ll need a translater if you don’t speak Spanish to go shopping in that part of Tucson. I’ve been to the Super Walmart out that way and it felt like I drove down to Mexico to go to Walmart.
Being one that has actually shopped on the South Side, I can assure you that you are free to use English anytime you want. I am also pretty sure that most of them even know the proper spelling of the word “translator.” Have these guys ever actually been South of 22nd? Or even Broadway? I’m sure that this person would tell me that it isn’t about race, but would he say such a thing if he was comfortable around Hispanics?
Some of the comments degenerated straight into outright racism, one fella who calls himself Socrates O. alleges that Hispanics are just not polite and civil, but the tone of his comments just proves that lack of civility is not unique to the Hispanic community. Of course, Socrates claims he isn’t racist or anything, he just knows the truth. Oh, yeah, and those Messicans will steal your car because this mall will be closer to the chop shops, which are apparently all over the South Side.
One fella name Shea B. has an explanation for the conflict between the prejudiced notion of the South Side and reality: South Siders don’t call police because they are all worried about getting busted by the Border Patrol. Shea isn’t racist, he just assumes all Hispanics are illegal aliens. He helpfully provides this little dialogue, aparently inspired by the ground breaking work of Bill Dana and Speedy Gonzales:
all the victims on the southside are illegal…this is how it goes…
lady says: aye chihuahua someone stole the carro!! call the policia!!
husband says: shut up puta! dont you know that if we call police, la migra comes!!! then they take us back to the border, and damnit, ill leave your ass before i try to get stuffed in the dashboard of a car again!!!!
Who the heck are these people who post to these boards?
Oh yeah, and although these comments are pretty ignorant, the racism is pretty mild compared to what I sometimes see on the boards.
3 Comments
November 22nd, 2006 at 1:52 pm
Interesting observations, Tedski.
I’ve thought about racism more in the last few years than I have in a very long time. When I was a kid growing up in the south most of the adults I knew were racists to some degree and didn’t think twice about racial slurs. Lucky for me, the Dominican nuns who taught at my school were not southerners and they were not racists. Nonetheless, racism was ever present and disturbing. In the post Civil Rights era, social pressures to curtail outward signs of racism grew to the point that people were not so loose with their tongues regardless of how they felt. I thought this was a good thing, because even as a child I understood that leopards do not change their spots and we would have to wait and hope that the next generation would be more enlightened. But, in the interim, some of the worst racists had to engage the filter between their brains and their mouths. I was hopeful back then.
Eventually, I learned that racism is not regional, it can be very subtle, and it’s everywhere. But what I’ve noticed these last few years is a resurgence of that in-your-face type of racism that I grew up with and I’ve got to say that this is extremely disturbing. I believe that the two predominant issues are hatred of illegal immigrants and hatred of Mideastern people. All of this focus on illegal immigration and the “war on terror” has more or less sanctioned a more vocal and blatant form of racism not unlike that in the pre-civil rights era. The victims may have a different ethnicity, but the hatred is essentially the same.
In the blogosphere, of course, anyone who is even partially literate and able to access the Internet can write anything without suffering social consequences. It is the perfect forum for racists to spew their hatred, find their kindred spirits, and to shock the nonbelievers.
Don’t look for it to get better, my friend, at least not any time soon.
November 22nd, 2006 at 4:23 pm
Back when I lived on the west side of Phoenix, everyone used to tell me that it was a crime ridden place, that I should never walk around at night because I would be beaten up and all sorts of bad things would happen.
Nothing ever did but I was once asked directions by a lady who was on something while walking home on Van Buren at 11 at night.
November 22nd, 2006 at 9:30 pm
When you take a look at who publishes their inner most thoughts on the Star’s and Citizen’s message boards-I am comforted by one thought:
It’s a very minute part of the population.
You have to remember one thing about those boards-it is Lee’s and Gannett’s way of increasing citizen participation within the newspaper community.
Unfortunately, it is those who still have their sticker of Calvin peeing on a Chevy logo on the back window of their 75 Ford F-100.
In all seriousness-the type of comments you see on the Star’s and Citizen’s boards only enforce my thought that the posters are a representation of larger problem within this area of less enlightened people who seem to flock here.
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