Ian, please forgive me for ignoring your comments for the moment, and concentrating on the flood of memories your name, genuine or not, brings back.
In the 1950s our friends in Cuba included one who became a friend of mine. He had pale skin, red hair, and fought for Franco in the Spanish Civil War. I went down there to Cuba when I was about ten or twelve years old and visited his family. I forget why.
But he happened to be in our house when Castro suddenly took over the Cuban government on January 1, 1959. A few months later, his brother, an aviator, was shot down trying to escape. Their crime was that they had set up businesses in Cuba that gave Cubans the highest standard of living they have ever had.
I wish I could give you his name, but his family is still in Columbia, SC. He escaped with his family to work on our brick plant. He was enormously grateful to us and we were the ones who really benefited from his work and intelligence.
That’s how white folks work things out.
He was from Majorca and he could sing “The Horst Wessel Song” in Spanish. We would give each other the fascist salute when we saw each other, quite a thrill for a 18-year-old who was honored to be dealing with a real warrior. G. Gordon Liddy is right about one thing for sure, NOBODY could be counted on back then like the anti-Communist Cubans. One of my greatest advantages in intelligence was that they knew about me well before I started to work with them.
Once again, I have to apologize to Ian. Your NAME brings back a flood of memories, none of which you need to IDENTIFY with.
When I was in international aviation negotiations, the head of the Civil Aviation in Spain was Emilio O’Connor. He was black-haired, but nobody could mistake him for anything but a Northern European, a Basque, or a Finno-Ugrian. Brown Hispanic he definitely wasn’t. He descended from some Catholic Irish aristocrats who were dispossessed in Ireland because they would not give up their Catholic faith, so they went to Spain.
And down in Saint Augustine, Florida, there are people with Spanish names who have been there since 1535, seventy years or so before my family got here. They are as Southern as I am, and that’s pretty damned Southern. When blacks tried to use one of their motel swimming pools in 1963, they dropped an alligator in to keep them company.
“Hispanic” is about the nastiest insult anybody ever devised. Lots of blacks are named Whitaker, but nobody confuses me with them. They are not referred to as Anglo-Saxon. But “Hispanic” makes every white person with a Spanish name a colored person.
I don’t LIKE that.
#1 by Elizabeth on 11/19/2006 - 11:37 pm
There’s a semi-open secret about blacks: they have a caste system.
The lighter, the higher caste. Dark, African features = low, unless VERY intelligent
or otherwise a real standout.
In the DC area, you can tell the ones whose ancestors have been there for hundreds of years from
those whose ancestors were field hands in the Deep South: the natives are light, usually
very yellow in complexion. I worked with one who was very yellow, who had red hair
and freckles. I knew another one, from the Virginia mountains, whose family made fun of her
for her dark skin and African features.
#2 by Alan B. on 11/20/2006 - 2:26 am
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The word Hispanic, is now used as a label to define those who speak spanish in the United States, the label was coined during the Nixon presidency. The word Hispanic is defined as, being from spain. When I hear or read the word Hispanic, the image that comes to mind depends on the situation the word is related to. For example, if the word Hispanic is connected to illegals, I envision a family of poor, soiled mongrels stooped over a mellon patch or the illiterate non English speaking welfare queen with 8 kids living off working Americans. Then we have the crime reports, these images revolve around the crack dealing, tatoo covered skank in baggy pants and a tank top, to retarded to find work at the local goodwill. My Egyptan professor has this to say on day, not all arabs are muslims and not all muslims are arab, see why Bob hates the label, Hispanic.
#3 by Alan B. on 11/21/2006 - 3:15 pm
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Hispanic IS an insult, it really specifies a group of cultureless racially mixed decendants of the Spanish conquestadors and their immigrants. They are a prime example of what multicultrialism and the racial mixing will result in, totally dehuminised and cultrially bankrupt peoples. To think how racially bias this word is to all those who speak spanish, yes it is an insult. Bob’s friend who fled Cuba was one hell of a man. He fought the communist in Spain, few realise how close these heros came to losing that fight, Hitler and the volunteers along with Bob’s friend haulted communism in modern Europe. Just think the US sold out the few brave Cuban anti communist, hell Hitler did more to stop communism, it surely is an insult.
#4 by Elizabeth on 11/23/2006 - 1:03 am
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Most of the lower-class “Hispanics” have little or no genetic relationship to any European.
A lot of them are from the Indian tribes of the remote jungle and quite a few would have learned Spanish as a second or third language. In the really remote areas, there are radio stations that broadcast at least for hours a day in the native language.
If you get a chance, look up pictures of the Indian tribes of Mexico and Central America.