A few days ago, as I was about to write this column, I reviewed a few phrases that were growing in my mind, thoughts that I was nurturing for possible publication. They were a rather mixed bag. Some felt original, some were pieces of conversations I heard while sitting in one of my favorite cafés, eavesdropping on strangers. The subjects varied, but there seemed to be an overwhelming need to speak about the impending beginning of the “Donald Duck” era, plus related issues like the end of the world as we know it.
Although not everything was so clearly stated, fear and apprehension seemed to dominate the exchanges. Doom seemed to be lurking right around the corner. For example, an older white woman who sat next to me and spoke to a concerned-looking man (also white), confided, loud enough for me to hear, that she did not have any friends of color. She talked rather freely, maybe because she thought that I also was a white man, which I am, but of the Latino persuasion (“lucky for you!” as a black friend always jokes).
The woman then said to her interlocutor: “I have lived in Bernal Heights for close to 45 years, but I do not have a single friend who is not a ‘gringa’ like me! I mean, I know this Mexican woman… a nanny for one of my neighbors, but I have never broken bread with her. You know what I mean? Nothing personal or meaningful seems to happen between us. Why is that? Is it possible that we have nothing in common? Should I worry about that? I mean… she seems like a nice person. Why can’t we be friends? Is it me? Am I a racist?”
The man listened to her and then muttered something like: “That’s the way things seem to be set up.”
It reminded me of a phrase I first heard years ago, when I began to learn English: “That’s the way the cookie crumbles.” In The Urban Dictionary, I learned that the phrase is used for saying that “you must accept a situation that you do not like, because you cannot change it.”
So, I was right to feel that the man did not offer much help to that woman. He just flushed the inconvenient question away. I beg to differ: That woman can change her situation. We all can.
What the woman was experiencing was a rather awkward national malady: We pretend that this is a post-racial society, when it really isn’t. We also pretend that we live in a democracy, but really we do not. It is a bad product, one that should not be exported or forced upon “lesser” societies. In order to provoke change and realize the wonderful possibilities of multiculturalism, people like that woman, and that man, should inhale deeply, exhale slowly and then knock on their neighbor’s door and ask, or offer some food for thought.
Maybe we should all do that, because I did not follow my original impulse to break into their conversation, introduce myself, offer my card and say: “I am a Latino. Give me a call sometime. We should talk.” I let it slide. Nevertheless, I am telling about it now. Better late than… you know.
As fate works, before I could write my column, eventually bringing up the subject of our Pussy Grabber Emperor To Be, something heavier took place: Fidel Castro died. Change of plans! Donald Duck had to wait, because this was more important.
It was also so very sad. I cried when I heard the news, because with Fidel, an era also died with so many of us, all over the world.
I am acutely aware that there are many who are not sad with his death and they actually sing and dance with glee—not me.
I was barely a teenager, still in Chile, when I learned of the triumph of the Cuban revolution. I remember exactly where I was, among some eucalyptus trees, the beginning of summer vacation, on a sunny day.
My imagination flew to Cuba, where Fidel Castro, Ché Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos (who actually lived for a brief moment right around the corner from the SF General Hospital, on 23rd Street, near Potrero) eventually entered into La Habana, that fateful Jan. 1, 1959.
Around the world, many were at first sympathetic to “the bearded ones.” Eventually that changed, when it became clear that the revolution would no longer submit to the economic and political control of the United States. So, the United States cut off relations with Cuba. Then, when Fidel declared himself a Marxist, well… a game changer. The new game was to obstruct, to embargo, to impede, to attempt to assassinate. Over 600 attempts against Fidel! Not close… and no cigar!
Without the Cuban revolution, we Latino/a Americanos/as could not even raise our heads because of shame. The Cuban revolution, with its faults and shortcomings, has allowed us to understand the meaning of dignity.
Communism is such a taboo in these latitudes! Nevertheless, if Fidel survived more than 600 assassination attempts, I can survive a little trepidation when I praise him. One of my favorite phrases helps: “Do not fear the enemy’s dagger. Fear his indifference.”