. . . and then there was pickle.

We all have our prejudices. Some are created through personal experience, and others are built through paranoid ignorance.

I have managed to avoid the biggies of my generation and make-up. I have a true heart-felt respect and empathy for the Black Man, Muslim, Oriental and Jew.

Where I fail is my gut reaction and perspective on the Hispanic culture as a whole.

What I would like to clear up, right off the bat, is that I don’t necessarily think that my prejudice is wholly accurate or truly justified. It is, however, how I feel inside when I see the behavior of the Hispanics that are most evident in my environment.

We all fear what we don’t understand, and I don’t get it.

My father loathed his father’s prejudice. My grandfather hated all “Ni**ers, Jews, and Camel Jockeys.” My father worked very hard to make sure that my brother and I judged each person on the merits of their own actions, with no preconception of nature based on religion, or color of skin.

I bought it, and time after time he has been proven right. Almost every injustice that has been done to me in my lifetime - has been done by a White Christian Male.

I want my daughter to judge men, and women of course, on the same scale. I want her to see that each person is as capable of good, bad, or the cruelty of indifference on equal ground. True, there are varying socio-economic barriers that every person must conquer to get to that equal playing field, but nature and will are not predetermined by color or creed.

These are the prejudices of ignorance.

Mine is unfortunately a learned behavior. I do not know why karma has chosen to expose me to the sects of Hispanic culture that it has in the order and way in which I have been – but the end effect is a very low opinion of the nature and positive attributes of the culture.

Here is the overview:

My neighborhood is adjacent to Cleveland’s largest poor urban Hispanic community.

I have never known an educated Latino.

Over 50% of all Latinos I have known are criminals or liars.

My only general contact with Hispanics are the wandering youths in my neighborhood that harass women, children, dogs, me . . . in public places and convenience stores.

When driving to the highway all I see is teenage mothers and entire families on front porches at 1:00 in the afternoon.



This is what I see. It makes me distrustful, and it has created a very negative stereotype.

How do I hide this, or guide The Pickle in such a way as to not carry my perspective with her? Or do I chose to not hide my preconception and let her resent me the way I know she will when she plays out her own personal ‘West Side Story’.

I would like, most of all, for my opinion to change – but short of that I don’t know how to approach this. My primary flaw is my core indecision of what I want my desired result to be.

In the ideal world my goal should be to make sure that my daughter is happy and comfortable in her environment. We have no plans of moving anytime soon - so I need to make sure that The Pickle is open and accepting of other children as she is introduced to them in the various ways (i.e. daycare, playing in the park, carjacking . . . ) over the next several years.

My true fear is that I am not going to get over it. She is going to rebel as a teenager by running into the arms of some Teenage Latino Hood, and I am never going to see my daughter again – just so she can prove how ignorant I am.

What I am hoping will happen is that I will meet some nice Hispanic people that I like, relate to, and respect - that will change the way we all see each other, and maybe someday make me happy to accept their son as my son-in-law.

Pickle’s Papa