Lotta ‘Tinos, No?
Tennessee’s treasured and all around good man, Hippie Jack, sends me stuff in messenger sometimes, because he says I’m one of his angels.
I don’t deserve the title. He calls me that just because I helped somebody once with some money that they needed during one of our increasingly frequent government furloughs. I did so because I could, and because if somebody didn’t help them, they were going to lose their car, and they were a young, blended family with kids, recently married. It was a bad situation, too long to explain here, but absolutely no fault of their own. I didn’t know these people from Adam’s house cat, but it was clear they needed somebody to help them or they were gonna fall down a really bad crack. Desperation was apparent, as was community judgement.
At any rate, Hippie had been posting these videos of himself talking to church groups about needy people, particularly those who he serves in his community by providing them with the necessities of life, you know, food, clothing, help with minor financial needs, and the like. In one of the videos he was talking about a lady who approached him and asked, “Well, are these people Mexicans?” And then she went on about how we’ve got to “take care of our own first.”
Where did Jesus say THAT, exactly?
I wrote Hippie back in July 2019. This is edited for grammar, clarity, and updated for relevance to today. L.c.Lorraine, July 8, 2025
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“I’m going to tell you a true story, Jack.
One day, not long ago, I had to ride the bus downtown to get my car from my mechanic’s shop. It was the middle of the afternoon and there wasn’t anyone else on the bus but me and the driver.
On this day, the driver was a big, burly, middle-aged, white man – long pocket chain, tattoos, facial hair, black leather belt and boots. I call this “the works” when it comes to the signaling of self-proclaimed identity by virtue of one’s fashion choices. No judgements. It seems all humans are inclined toward this signaling. Basically he was the kind of guy that could’ve been a GOB (good ol’ boy), or he could’ve been a jerkoff racist redneck.
At this initial exposure, which way the needle would swing remained a mystery. I don’t judge a book by its cover and I give everybody a chance to show me what kind of fruit their tree produces before I make any judgments about flavor. Yet I am keenly aware that, around these parts especially, the chances of getting one or the other of these two social lottery balls – GOB versus Jerkoff Racist Redneck – don’t run at even odds, but lean heavily toward the less pleasant prospect. Maybe a 0.25 GOB to 1.75 Jerkoff Racist Redneck ratio? I don’t know. You tell me. The ratio may vary based on location. I perpetually hope that we can, on average, bring the ratio to at least even odds. Alas.
I’m just saying he was a big old white boy with a “certain look.” Things could go one way or they could go the other, and I was rooting for the GOB to come out and bolster my self-prescribed pleasant day, but I was catching other vibes.
Dread descended upon me through the cloud of the inevitable ratio. This was 1.75’s day.
The math asserted itself and my frail hopes were dashed up upon the rocks of bitter Southern life when Big Bad Bubba Driver did that thing that I call “the southern-racist-white-folks-thang.”
You know, it’s that thing when white folks of a certain persuasion think that it’s OK to commiserate their racism with ANY other white person, because, well, you white too, ain’tcha? And you gon’ sympathize, right? You get where I’m comin’ from, right??
They’re just certain that we want to hang our heads with them, wag ‘em back-and-forth, and tsk tongues about how things are and what things are coming to, RIGHT???
I’ve always found this to be the worst part of the whole exchange with these folk – other than the white supremacy, obviously – their willingness to impose their odd and inappropriate presumptions about my identity based solely on my skin color.
Oh, wait!???
I think, if you lived down here long enough and have paid any attention at all, you are maybe familiar with this “phenomenon.” It’s very much akin to “the other phenomenon,” the one where Southern white folks ask to know – upon first meeting you – what church you go to.
The inevitable ratio having never been in my favor, most days the near certain prospects of running into either of these phenomena exhaust me to the point that I prefer never to leave the house.
Have a blessed day!
Oh, I’m sorry, but I’m going to need more from you to make that happen.
Aren’t you, my fellow white people, exhausted by it all at this point? Aren’t you exhausted by white supremacist bigot codes that go hand-in-hand with performative, radical fundamentalist Christian codes?
Anyway, back to the story.
I was trapped. On a bus. Big Bad Bubba Driver looks up into that giant mirror that shows the entire back of the bus. I was sitting near the front and we made reflected eye contact. The doors closed.
He pulls a bead on me and he says – honest to God he says –
“Y’all got a lot of LaTinos up in this neighborhood, doncha?“
He emphasized the “T” in “Latinos“ as if he’d been practicing it “the way THEY say it.”
Now, this was one of those moments that I’m always anticipating in life, because the previously estimated inevitable ratio dictates it, and it’s always a moment where I wish I had a really smart and sarcastic retort to put people right where they belong, with the added benefit of immediately silencing them.
Maybe I could’ve said something like, “Well perhaps you and the boys should just get together, put on some costumes, and burn some crosses in their parking lots or something, eh?”
But my head, my brain, was just about to implode, because there were so many thoughts racing through it, one of which was that, if I said something like that, Big Bad Bubba Driver might just get some old boys and go do it. He had set off a brain bomb and I was its victim.
The brain is a weird and amazing organ at moments like this, capable of holding so many thoughts instantaneously in the same moment, and it’s funny what comes to the fore of one’s multitude of madness.
Having its way with me, as it usually does, my sadistic bean decided to seize upon the arithmetical problem that he’d posited as its primary thought, and I asked myself:
What do you mean by “a lot” of Latinos?
Do you know the answer?
“A lot” of Latinos, in this instance, is any number of LaTinos represented by any integers other than zero or uno, and Uno had better watch his suspect immigrant ass!
That’s what “a lot” of LaTinos is to this man. End of story. No further investigation is necessary. Sufficient reason to deport achieved.
I then realized that whatever I said to him would just be sounds that would fall – either unheard or misunderstood – into the vortex of a twisted morality that sucks wind through a vacant heart.
I lamely said something pitifully meaningless, I honestly don’t remember what, and shut it all down, sad that the journey to my destination was only just beginning and that I had to ride this bus for several more minutes WITH A TOTAL WEIRDO.
We were never going to be pals anyway. Sad, not sad.
As it so happens, all of that story happened inside of two blocks, when the bus was about to pull through a major intersection where there are several Hispanic-owned businesses – a tienda, a tax service place, a place to get TNDLs and car insurance, a laundry. You see, some motivated, enterprising folks came into a rundown, vacant neighborhood in the late ‘90s and early Aughts, where a bunch of businesses had closed, and bought or leased these properties that were abandoned by white America, and they have been running successful businesses for several years now, at least ever since I moved in, in 2004.
What’s happening with immigration in the States makes me so sad and angry, because these Latin folks in my community don’t cause any trouble. They work hard. They are enterprising and entrepreneurial in the greatest American sense. They are very family oriented. They walk their kids to and back from school to make sure they are OK. I don’t see the white mamas or daddies doing that, perhaps because they don’t have to worry about their children’s’ safety as much, or not for the same reasons. But the Latin people up here are not the ones causing mischief, perpetrating misdemeanors, thefts, etc.. It’s the little out-of-control teen-aged white boys, and out-of-work white men that are doing that, at least if the reports on the neighborhood list serves are to be believed.
If you really want to feel it fully, especially given what’s happening on the border right now (July 2019) with the recent death of the young father from El Salvador, and his baby, listen to Springsteen’s ‘Matamoros Banks’. But I warn you, this song will rip your heart out.
Keep it real out there, Hippie. Much ❤️, L.c.”
