The Rude Pundit: Northern Racism Alive and Well and Stupid

meegbear

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Wed Sep-02-09 10:19 AM
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The Rude Pundit: Northern Racism Alive and Well and Stupid

Here's a fun little story from about ten years ago: the Rude Pundit was once sitting around with a group of professors, and the subject got around to how one defines "white trash." It's one of those charming theoretical discussions you get to have when you're overeducated and proud of it. He sat there for a moment while this circle of Northerners trotted out every trailer-living, tobacco-chewing, hick-talking stereotype (which, to be clear, exists in numbers far too large). And, of course, there was the defining element of these awful people from the South - their racism. Finally, the Rude Pundit spoke up and said, "As the only person here who has actually lived in a trailer in the South, I've gotta say that there's neighborhoods in Brooklyn or Boston where you'll find white trash racists who make the residents of Backwards Ass, Alabama, look like hippies." This was met with blinking and agreement and a change of subject.

It hardly needs to be said, but every once in a while, as all the redneck townhall protesters from the south, the midwest, and the west are paraded out on the airwaves like a barn beauty pageant, we need to reminded that violent, stupid white people exist all over this devolving nation of ours.

Suffolk County, New York, out on Long Island, is the place where the wealthiest of the wealthy have homes (like, you know, Steven Spielberg), where the Hamptons are, as well as a bunch of towns whose name ends with "gue." Wherever there's a clusterfuck of rich people, there's gonna need to be people who serve them, who build their pools, who make their food, who wipe the sweat off their balls. And in contemporary America, that's gonna be Latinos, many of whom will be illegals, who will live as close to their jobs as they can afford, generally gathering in a few towns. And in contemporary America, whenever there's an influx of cheap labor in that particular demographic group, there will be asshole white people who will do what asshole white people have always done.

So it is that a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center singles out the white people of Suffolk County for a decade's worth of harassment, violence, and, in at least one case, murder, all against the county's Latino population. This includes recent charming seaside village incidents such as notes left at a church in Patchogue that said, "White people rule the church" and a beating and robbery of a Latino man by three white kids who, of course, used racial epithets during the incident. (By the way, in a look-how-far-we've-come incident this year, three black guys also beat a Latino while insulting his race.)

Where there's motherfucking going on, there will always be motherfuckers. In this case, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, who has mocked the racially-motivated murder of Marcelo Lucero in November 2008 and wanted the police to be able to detain Latinos simply on suspicion on being illegal immigrants. The police union refused. By the way, Levy's a Democrat. The county is also rife with stupid fucking white people joining stupid fucking white people gangs and groups that exist solely to demonstrate how fucking stupid stupid fucking white people can be.

The point here is not to say anything new. We know there's northern racism. We know there's racial profiling. The Latinos of Suffolk County say that you can't tell by looking who is illegal and who is not, thus they all fear attack. And in the area of enclaves where rich liberals gather, now heading into the last weekends of their summers before they close up their homes except for the occasional trip the rest of the year, one is always left to wonder who is the white trash and who is not.

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