So I’m talking to this guy I know the other day; I’ll call him John Callahan.
“D’ja hear?” John asks me. “Lockdown. All the jails are on lockdown again.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s really bad. All this racial violence is happening. What was it, only a few months ago when all of the mass brawls were happening at High Schools in L.A.? Those were the same thing – Latinos fighting Blacks. It’s escalating.”
John shrugged diffidently. “Ignorance!” he declared. “That’s all it is.”
“Whaddya mean?” I asked him.
“Well, you know,” he ventured, looking for affirmation. No, I didn’t know. “It’s like, people immigrate here, but they don’t bother to learn the language. Then they complain about not having anything, or being poor, or whatever. They get all pissed off and have riots. It’s because of ignorance. They don’t want to assimilate to how things are in this country, how we do things, or speak our language.”
“Mmm… aaaaahIIIdon’t think I agree with you there,” I responded.
“What? Why not?”
“It’s just…” I hesitated, being careful not to go off. “It’s not that simple. There’s always been conflict in America between different ethnic groups. We’re all immigrants, or we all were at some point… unless you’re a full-blooded American Indian.” Which he was clearly not.
“No,” John replied, “like, you and me – when our forefathers came here, they spoke English. You know? They started the country. So if you’re going to come here, you learn to speak English, that’s all.”
I couldn’t resist. “Your and my ancestors – your last name is Callahan, you’re at least part Irish, like me. My Irish immigrant ancestor came to New York during the Potato Famine, which is a pretty typical Irish American background. Yours too, about that time?”
“Yeah, like 1850, they came to Boston, I think,” he confirmed.
“OK, right. The thing is, when those ancestors of ours came over, they didn’t speak English. I mean, maybe a few phrases, but in general, they didn’t. Irish peasants spoke Irish Gaelic. And they didn’t just all of a sudden start speaking English, either – they mostly lived in ethnic ghettos and just talked to other Irish immigrants.”
John didn’t say anything.
“I’m just saying, is all. Things don’t change that much.”
I’m not kidding myself that I changed his mind or anything. Hopefully I at least said something he’ll think about. And, I held off pointing out that the whole thing was a case of the pot calling the kettle ignorant.
That might sound pompous, but I don’t think I am. I try to hold people to the same standard I hold myself with regard to wisdom, i.e., I’m wise enough to realize that there are a hell of a lot of things that I don’t know.
