On Racism, Poverty and Get Over It

Earlier this year, Vicente Fox, President of Mexico made a statement that ruffled the feathers of a few people in this country. The statement was along the lines of "Mexican immigrants in America do the jobs that even blacks won't do." At first I was kind of pissed of then I did some thinking and thought to myself; "damn, he's right."

I used to work at McDonald's and various shipyard facilities in San Diego many years ago. One constant at both jobs was the number of Mexicans and Mexican Americans who worked hard to get their pay. No slacking on the job. Proud to be working and being able to send money back to their family members instilled a sense of pride in them that I have not witnessed in a long time. I was one of maybe five "Black" folk working at McD's and the shipyards had more Latinos than I could count. One thing that I also found interesting is the high number of my Latin brothers and sisters who took the long trek from Tijuana everyday in order to get to work.

Look around you and see how many of the African tribe sweeping up trash, emptying trash cans at the mall or working on what some of us may perceive as shit jobs. Not too many of them are black. So, I can see where El Presidente is coming from on that one. Maybe because of the English/Spanish language dynamic things got lost in the translation. Who knows, but the man was right.

On Sunday, Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam gave credibility to what Fox said.

Disagree with me if you like. But look around you and see for yourself. Ask yourself if you would do menial low paying jobs. Would you tell me the truth if I asked you?