Even "liberal" Seattle can't shake-off ignorant anti-Hispanic stereotyping

There is a very thin line separating negative stereotyping based on race and being racist. I see this at the Seattle’s Central Public Library, which I will discuss shortly. Seattle’s so-called “liberalness” is based on little more than the expectations of “rights” that the currently “favored” demographics—white women, the gay community, Asian immigrants—have that they don’t see as a “priority” of the other side of the political spectrum. But then again, “equality” is not necessarily something to be passed around lightly, especially since many of not most people around here are “superstars” in their own minds, and not everyone should be allowed that particular “right.” While a token number of blacks—or at least enough to find if someone looks hard enough to explain otherwise—are allowed in a typical private business office environment, you still to have to have someone you feel comfortable feeling “superior” to, and in Seattle that is those “Mexicans.” I have said it before, and I will say it again, that there is a “culture” of prejudice against Hispanics in Seattle, because they don’t really “belong.”

And that brings me back to the downtown public library. Just inside the Fourth Avenue entrance, before you start up the escalator to the next level, there is a little box which contains moistened anti-bacterial tissue paper, with a notation admonishing people to take one so as to not touch anything with their dirty little hands. But it wasn’t enough to simply say this offensive thing, but a photograph of the likely offender was provided: someone looked like a, well, a “Mexican.” Who decided that it was not racist to apply this ongoing negative stereotype? This is the kind of thing you would expect to hear from Tucker Carlson and Lou Dobbs on Fox News, but in a “liberal” city like Seattle? Yes, I am afraid it is true, there are a lot of “liberals” in Seattle who hold racist beliefs that they try to “justify” by the usual ignorance and paranoia. If anyone is bringing “dirt” into the library, it is those indolent 90 percent white vagrants camping out in their dirty clothes and their dirty belongings—people who apparently “deserve” to be treated more “humanely” simply because they are, well, white, and they “belong.” Of course, we could talk about how the library discriminates against Hispanics in their hiring because they don’t have the “equipment,” which not just about ignorance, but perhaps more about “cultural comfort.”

The library isn’t the only local institution that engages in both discrimination against Hispanics and trafficking in stereotype. A year ago, King County Metro started a “report it to stop it” campaign in regard to “sexually inappropriate” gestures or words. The opportunity to create a “problem” where there was none before is obvious. I have been riding Metro buses for 28 years and this “conduct” is in fact rare in the extreme (I’ve never seen or heard it), and what the “campaign” does is invite false claims by “superior” types who feel “discomfort” sitting in crowded buses with “inferior” people,  “defining” this “discomfort” in sexual terms  rather than merely as personal “issues.” Who is causing this “discomfort”? In the “report it” poster, a Hispanic woman is putting her palm forward in a “stop” gesture, so we know what stereotype is being played here. This sign is in both English and Spanish, despite the fact that Hispanics are only a tiny minority of bus ridership, at least on those buses traveling to and from Seattle. A few Metro buses  also carry an advertisement on the outside, warning an obviously Hispanic female  to take care when walking about at night, again “suggesting” that she is a likely victim of a “predatory” Hispanic male.

There is nothing “amusing” about being beaten on by ignorant bigots, and the occasional anecdote is not “proof” of anything--no more than just being there is evidence that they are planning on breaking into your car. It is entirely ironic that in the wake of all news reports about the Weinsteins and the Epsteins of the world, and those celebrities, musicians and politicians being accused of sexual misbehavior, there doesn’t seem to be any Hispanic names among them—yet when a gender victim advocate needs a “go-to” demographic as an “example” of a sexual transgressor, the Hispanic male is readily available, because if someone like Trump says they are all “rapists,” at least he has said one thing that they can use. After the El Paso massacre revealed what anti-Hispanic bigotry, stereotyping and prejudice can lead to, the question if “liberals” have taken the time to reflect on their own bigotry and prejudices is a moot point. They haven’t, and they are.