I was eating in a restraunt booth with recently with two friends, one is Caucasian and the other Chinese. We'd been there for about forty minutes or so when my Chinese friend began telling the story of how her mother in China had to give her up for adoption. Unbeknownst to me, a black family sat down in the booth behind me. They were absolutely silent and made not a noise and I was unaware of their presence the entire time. My Chinese friend finished her story and my white friend said she loved having friends with different racial backgrounds (I'm half Mexican) and she thought it was so cool. I smiled and said I was proud of my Hispanic roots. I begin to tell the story of my Dad, who was born and raised on the American-Mexican border. I told of how my Dad was raised in poverty and called derogatory names by Americans. I pointed across the street to our local Steak 'n Shake and said told my friends my Dad literally crossed the street after school to go into Mexico. This story lasted two-three minutes. According to my white friend, the black family said absolutely nothing the entire meal and the mother and father had their heads turned to me, obviously listening. When I pointed across the street, they looked to see where I was pointing. My friend thought they were one of the families who didn't like to talk during meals, but she was bothered by the fact that they obviously easedropping and even considered telling them to move booths if they were going to listen in on our private conversation. She decided not to. I finished my story and we changed subjects.Ten minutes went by and at this point we were talking about people with cancer. I took a sip of my soda when BAM! the black guy stood up and started yelling at me in front of the whole restraunt. He told me and my Chinese friend we needed to stop talking about race/heritage. He yelled at us, accusing us of being racist (
) and said he was offended by our talk of race. He said he never wanted us to talk about our races ever again. My Chinese friend, who has great pride in her heritage, was near tears. I tried to explain to the man I was half-Mexican and I had every right to talk about my father's culture. He said he did not care and proceeded to accuse me of saying racist and using derogatory words for Hispanics (At one point during my story, I said my Dad calls me his "half Taco" as a pet name). Then the wife started yelling at me, saying she was also offended by my language and said I was a bad influence on her "children" (they were both high school boys). By know, all eyes in the restraunt were on me. I wanted to yell right back at the name, asking him why he was yelling, why had he been easedropping, why he waited 10 minutes to confront me about a subject we had finished long ago, why he was trying to censor my freedom of speech and why as a black man was he offended by my talk of MY Hispanic heritage. I was too embarassed to even speak. I grabbed my purse, my friends by their wrists and ran out of there.
I'm still pretty ticked off about the whole thing. I don't understand why people TRY to find racism in EVERYTHING.
](./images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall"){kind=small}
Mexican is a specific Spanish-descended race as well as citizenship.
" - Jelly
" - American Eagle