Posted by parhad (158.252.240.165) on September 28, 2001 at 22:38:18:
We'll be leaving in about a week. I'll probably be hassled at the border by Mexican officials who want to curry favor with Uncle Sam. "Why are you getting out of the country NOW?" etc.
It serves me right. All these years I shouldn't have been hiding behind the White Man's ignorance, counting on his never noticing that I came from an I-rak. I didn't take the time to make our own unique ethnicity known...and now I can't complain if a Mexican border guard doesn't know the difference between us and "them".
I'm reminded of the incident last year in Turlock when a red-neck started a fight with a couple of Assyrians because they were "talking funny about him"...you know, in "that" language. You suppose today the police would only arrest the red-neck? Are they supposed to know the differnece between Aramaic, Assyrian, Chaldean and ARABIC? Hell, WE don't even know what we are...how are they supposed to??
It will serve us all right...you gain nothing by counting on the ignorance of others...no matter how long you get away with it...sooner or later that ignorance will turn on you, and the same sublime stupidity you hid behind will think of monstrous and stupid things to do to you.
When you keep quiet as they come for your neighbors, who are "different"...it's only a question of time before your own peculiar differnce is noticed. You can bet on it.