The Children are the Future

The good news is the Gypsies are no longer the most hated immigrant group in Spain among students aged 13 - 19 years old, according to a new survey by a Complutense University group written about in El Pais, now the Moroccans are the most hated.

The bad news is an average of about 20 percent of these enlightened young people think that pretty much all immigrants should be kicked out of Spain entirely - including the Asians and the Jews, although I think there are only about four Jews left in Spain, but still, they gotta go...

If we're only talking about the Moroccans, 40% of native Spanish students in 2008 think they must be kicked out of Spain. Wow! This is actually an improvement, in 2002 the figure was 48% of students who thought they should be sent packing.

How about the Latinos? They are brothers right? Same language, same religion, should they be allowed to stay? Nope. 25% of students said get rid of them. Nice! And this percentage is increasing.

They even write in the article that the results of the survey were so bad in 2002 and then again in 2004, that they did not dare to make them public. Well, that's one way of believing all is well, just don't talk about it.

I wonder what a year or two of the current bad economy will do to these figures? I'm thinking it could get ugly.

Racists? Who Us?

Spain is learning what a minefield the subject of race is to everyone. It is a very, very difficult subject. What do you think we have been doing over here (in the U.S.) for so many years? Well … learning about different people, learning about ourselves, learning what other people think is offensive, trying to figure out how to help people previously hurt, trying to make things fair – and many times in that process making things more unfair (i.e., quotas). We have had a head-start on Spain in the race department, but it seems that Spain wants to skip the first basic step. And that first step is to simply recognize that there is a problem. They would rather jump ahead to we are doing fine…. "You people are crazy, for saying there's a problem."

The Spanish do not realize that they have inappropriate views on race because that’s the way it has always been and everyone thinks the same way. I guess that’s a fair argument. A white man from 1950’s Alabama was a product of his environment. But it is time to start to change.

Maybe Spain needs their own Archie Bunker to teach them what is offensive. Archie Bunker from TV’s, “All in the Family” was a ground breaking 1970’s TV character. He was a good man but a bigot. Everyone knew that whatever he said was what you were NOT supposed to say and think. He was very effective. Spanish TV would like him too because he taught that everything politically conservative was wrong (no slanted viewpoint there!)

One of these days, and pretty damn soon too, the people of color in Spain will not be just a small minority afraid to get together to demand their rights from the Spanish “Man”. I wonder what the Spanish equivalent of the NAACP will be? And which minority group will start it?