BIGOT'S BANQUET
I'm sitting in a dimly-lit, thatched chalet on a Caribbean island just off Colombia's northern coast. There are no shops here, or many tourists. Just a bar, a salt-water pool and beach with sand imported from neigbours in the archipelago.
It is the volcanification of boredom and it's only 9.20pm. Already, I've left the other four castaways in the dining hut; I just couldn't stand to be in their company any more.
The conversation had begun innocently enough. We were on the beach, the full moon's glow mingling with the neon floodlights to brighten the sea as it nibbled at the shore. Maria-Jose, just remarried and here on honeymoon, was bemoaning the loony liberalism of Spain's current PM, Jose Luis Zapatero.
Pro-immigration, anti-US; my G-d, he's even taking down statues of Franco! The main problem, she says, are the Moroccan (i.e. Muslim) immigrants. Apparently they government pays them 150 euros per child per month on condition that their brood is sent to school. They take up half of all subsidised school dinners, she added; and they use benefits destined for school textbooks for other fripperies.
How much of this is true I don't really know.
Later that evening, as I was swallowing my boiled rice with mashed potato, former jumbo-jet pilot Eduardo Espinoza was moving seamlessly from talking about Hugo Chavez and his plans to monopolise South America's oil production, to how some races are better at some things than others.
So, for example, blacks are good at sport and boxing (sic); whites can do anything; but Indians (like Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales) can't lead: it's not in their DNA, said Espinoza.
"Maybe it sounds ugly or racist," he said, "but it's true."
"It is ugly and it is racist," I told him.
"Not for me it isn't," piped in Maria Jose's shiny, new hubby Julio.
"Blacks are racist too," continued Espinoza. "If I tried to live in one of their areas they'd drive me out."
He declined to add that as a wealthy, white, Latino businessman he has no desire to live in a downtrodden, black ghetto. But he hadn't finished.
"Most crime - drugs and murders - are committed by black people," he said.
Not to be outdone, Julio chimed in with: "Gypsies are the most racist people in Spain."
I scratched my chin thoughtfully. Do I launch an unwinnable tirade against this trio of Hispanic bigots? Do I stay and say nothing? Or do I leave?
I'd already told them how I felt, I reasoned. If I leave, they'll know why.
"Buenas noches," I announced, as I abruptly left the table. I may be sitting in a dimly-lit room with a fan blasting warm air at my burnt and mosquito-bitten body, but at least I can sleep tonight.
I'm sitting in a dimly-lit, thatched chalet on a Caribbean island just off Colombia's northern coast. There are no shops here, or many tourists. Just a bar, a salt-water pool and beach with sand imported from neigbours in the archipelago.
It is the volcanification of boredom and it's only 9.20pm. Already, I've left the other four castaways in the dining hut; I just couldn't stand to be in their company any more.
The conversation had begun innocently enough. We were on the beach, the full moon's glow mingling with the neon floodlights to brighten the sea as it nibbled at the shore. Maria-Jose, just remarried and here on honeymoon, was bemoaning the loony liberalism of Spain's current PM, Jose Luis Zapatero.
Pro-immigration, anti-US; my G-d, he's even taking down statues of Franco! The main problem, she says, are the Moroccan (i.e. Muslim) immigrants. Apparently they government pays them 150 euros per child per month on condition that their brood is sent to school. They take up half of all subsidised school dinners, she added; and they use benefits destined for school textbooks for other fripperies.
How much of this is true I don't really know.
Later that evening, as I was swallowing my boiled rice with mashed potato, former jumbo-jet pilot Eduardo Espinoza was moving seamlessly from talking about Hugo Chavez and his plans to monopolise South America's oil production, to how some races are better at some things than others.
So, for example, blacks are good at sport and boxing (sic); whites can do anything; but Indians (like Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales) can't lead: it's not in their DNA, said Espinoza.
"Maybe it sounds ugly or racist," he said, "but it's true."
"It is ugly and it is racist," I told him.
"Not for me it isn't," piped in Maria Jose's shiny, new hubby Julio.
"Blacks are racist too," continued Espinoza. "If I tried to live in one of their areas they'd drive me out."
He declined to add that as a wealthy, white, Latino businessman he has no desire to live in a downtrodden, black ghetto. But he hadn't finished.
"Most crime - drugs and murders - are committed by black people," he said.
Not to be outdone, Julio chimed in with: "Gypsies are the most racist people in Spain."
I scratched my chin thoughtfully. Do I launch an unwinnable tirade against this trio of Hispanic bigots? Do I stay and say nothing? Or do I leave?
I'd already told them how I felt, I reasoned. If I leave, they'll know why.
"Buenas noches," I announced, as I abruptly left the table. I may be sitting in a dimly-lit room with a fan blasting warm air at my burnt and mosquito-bitten body, but at least I can sleep tonight.
posted by David Cohen at 11:13 pm
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