Paradise Found

I was running around grabbing food and condiments for tomorrow's party for Mailei (my wife). She graduated with a Masters in math from SDSU so we're throwing her a well deserved party at Glorietta Bay.

But here's the reason why I think we live in paradise here in San Diego. I bumped into a good friend of mine at the grocery store. He just got back from Georgia, the Peach State I believe. He was out there doing construction work with his good friend that's from there. Well, the stories he told me weren't so peachy. In fact, I'm still thinking about it and they bother me a bit. So my buddy is Mexican but born in Sacramento and yes, he's an American citizen. But check this out... he told me stories about how racism still exists in the US. And he experienced it 100% for the first time in Georgia.

He told me a story on how he was walking down an aisle in the local grocery store and a white lady saw him coming. She grabbed her son and held him close to protect him from the big bad Mexican man. WTF. I thought that shit only happened in the movies!? Another incident... He said that he was walking on a road with no sidewalk and was ran off the road by a truck with a big confederate flag whipping around off the tailgate. There were a few more stories but aren't we living in 2010?

Sure there's some tension amongst Californians but it's subtle and almost non-existent where I live and where I'm from. And yes, it's more expensive to live in southern California. But I'd hustle my ass off to be able to avoid the bs that goes on in Georgia.

Of course, not all the people of Georgia showed their prejudices openly. But when you have about 40% of a population avoiding each other like the plague, uh... what then?

So I raise my Pacifico and salute all my fellow Californians... here's to being open and understanding the fact that we're all in this thing together. Cheers.

Tall, fat, short, skinny, dark, light... who cares! Leave your prejudices in the 1800's. Salute.