NIMBY

 I'm damn-near 20 years removed from Memphis, but reading an article this morning about the ICE 'mission' there took me back. There isn't a lot on the news about the ICEholes in Memphis, because there is less resistance from the citizens than in Chicago, Portland and LA. Memphis is the largest majority black city in the country and that has to be a factor. A big part of the story of America is ethnic rivalries in cities where other minorities are viewed as competition for the US dollar. A black majority is still a minority in Memphis though. Being from the Chicago suburbs, I was a bit of a migrant myself, and at times felt the distancing and persecution from what I laughingly call "my people". This was, of course, before Trump and Maga, but the seeds of republican assholery were long ago sown in the south, and thrived in Memphis where, if they don't cherish the lost cause on a daily basis, they will upon hearing a Yankee voice. Such uncivil war sentiment was rarer than you would think, as I lived there at a time when television and movies had long-since homogenized, at least the bigger cities in the south. "Seinfeld" was as adored down there as it was back home or in New York City. And being white, I blend in anywhere white people are. I think that is the extent of my white privilege. Goes a long way at times, though. 

My work as a commercial painter took me all over Memphis and little bit into Arkansas and Mississippi. Mostly Memphis though. I worked with white rednecks from Tipton County Tn., Mississippi and Arkansas and got along with most of them. The blacks mostly came from Memphis, and I generally got along with them (when Wayne Fishman wasn't around. I wrote about his evil many posts ago) but they were a minority in the trades. Any given company I worked for was mostly white and Hispanic. My redneck and my Spanish were pretty good, so there was communication. 

A lot of Hispanics were in town then. They were all over the Nutbush neighborhood where my buddy Tim lived. No real problems beyond multiple Mexican men living in the typically small Nutbush houses once meant for small American families. At night, the backyards of these homes would be jammed with their trucks and cars. I had heard the local landlords had quickly learned to rent by the headcount rather than the flat monthly white rate and they made out pretty, pretty good doing that, as did the English-speaking Mexican who would initially rent the house. A similar rental situation had briefly happened in the nice, quiet complex I lived in for the bulk of my time in Memphis. I came home from a road trip to Dothan, Alabama to find trucks parked all over the small complex. Parking had not been much of a problem until that night. I went to the office to pay rent the next day and to complain to Evelyn about the new neighbors. She tried to assure me that there was only the one guy on the lease but there was maybe a dozen by my count. I had counted trucks and bicycles. I had also run across the coyote who rented the 2 bedrooms from the office and sublet to the amigos. I wasn't happy about the noise in the parking lot and told him so in Spanish when he pretended to not speak English. When you live with a bunch of guys, alone time is hard to come by. He at least had that guy behave after that. In a few weeks the landlord had them evicted. A neighbor who was home that day said the Sheriff's deputies hauled out a dozen or so mattresses and not much more. Yes, it was a nimby thing. I could be friendly and appreciative of the Latinos I worked with- and welcome them into my home or neighborhood- but not so appreciative of a dozen or more strangers and their vehicles.

When I was there, Latino markets were already opening up to serve the growing community. I can't say that there was much conflict amongst the races, beyond anything I've already detailed. I did often work around a Mexican everybody called "Cheech" because he sounded just like Cheech Marin of Cheech and Chong fame. A bullshitter, he was fun to chat up, but, yeah, generally full of shit. He was from LA and told wild stories of defending his hood from the blacks during the Rodney King riots. Might have been a little bit of truth there, but he also had insisted that there had been a big brawl on a job in Memphis where the Mexicans on site took on the whites and blacks. For something that was by his account so very violent and bloody, I never ran across anyone else who had ever even heard of the fight. And I had friends in all the trades. I was a couple degrees of separation from everyone in the commercial community, not just painters. You ladies out there in this blog land will never find a gossipier bunch of bitches than construction workers in Memphis. Anywhere, really. Us fellas like to spill the tea!

By and large, these Latinos come to work and be part of the American experience. You may start out crashing in a pad with a dozen other guys, but most want to move up, just like anybody else here. They send money home, or they bring family here. It has always been this way in this nation of immigrants. If anyone is offended by a supermercado in their area or an expanding section of Latino foods in the Kroger, they don't understand America or capitalism. The big NIMBY of Trumpism doesn't understand that this is the way it has always been in America. It should always be this way, for it has been immigration that has made this country anywhere close to great. Never as great as the brochures say or Trump claims now, but the potential has always been there. Our problem is we forget that our roots are intermingled with the roots of our fellow American immigrants. And motherfuckers like Trump exploit that loss of historical memory. And that is where we are today with these insane, abusive deportations and the literal whitewashing of America's past, present and future.