But the gathering at Mt. Calvary Baptist Church occasionally grew heated. One speaker said Haitians “have smells to them. They’re not like us. They’re not here to be Americanized. They don’t care about schools. They’re scary, folks.”

Other comments dealt with city police, which some said don’t have enough officers or funding to deal with issues caused by immigration and proper code enforcement.

If the city was able to adequately enforce housing codes, some said, it would cause a homelessness problem.

  • @[email protected]
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    4228 days ago

    Well, one can’t say that they tried because they didn’t.

    Honestly…they “have smells to them”? Jesus fucking christ people.

    • enkers
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      28 days ago

      And they’re right. But goddamn, so do you, asshole. You’re just used to your own stank. People eat different foods, they sweat, they smell, they’re meat machines. Get over it.

      Open up your brain to experiences outside your tiniest of bubbles, Alabama. Sheesh.

      • @[email protected]
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        28 days ago

        And they’re right. But goddamn, so do you, asshole. You’re just used to your own stank.

        Alabama random:

        Enkers:

        😏

      • @[email protected]
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        627 days ago

        My mother told me that my father went vegetarian for a year or so (when I was a little kid) and that his dirty laundry smelled different from the rest of the family.

    • Flying Squid
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      928 days ago

      Is the smell Haitian food because they’re cooking a lot of Haitian food? Because I’d be cool with that.

  • @shalafi
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    827 days ago

    They’re not here to be Americanized.

    That part rings true, depending on the group it seems.

    This is obviously anecdotal. Your experience may vary, and if so, I’d like to here it.

    My wife is an immigrant, as are all her friends. Filipinos are very well integrated here. They have good jobs, run successful businesses, speak perfect English, all that. Hispanics on the other hand…

    She supervises a cleaning crew of Mexicans and Hondurans at a hotel. They’ve been here for years and none of them speak a lick of English, she says they flat refuse to learn. She brought a good friend kayaking with us, fun Honduran guy that walked two months to get to America. I admire that! We could hardly communicate, but my wife speaks Spanish/English pidgin well enough.

    When we got home I was telling her how much I like the guy but I was surprised he couldn’t use the most basic words. I was really surprised when I found out he’s been here for five years. FFS, he won’t even say “yes”, doesn’t know the word for “year”, super simple stuff.

    Another anecdote; Dated a Jamaican women from south Florida back in the day. We were talking about the Hispanics down there and discussing why they won’t learn English. She stated there was no reason for them to do so. They have entire communities where no one speaks English, nor needs to. I argued that English would give them a significant leg up in America. She argued that they were quite successful and happy without it. That was a new viewpoint for me.

    Living in Chicagoland was a mixed bag from my experience. Seemed most Hispanics spoke enough English to get by, and in any case, they seemed more integrated into America than they do down here in Florida. Went in a check cashing place and the cashier was snotty because I didn’t speak Spanish, but that was an edge case I think. My best friend up there was a Mexican guy who was all about getting his kids educated. LOL, miss that guy terribly. He talked like Yogi Bear. :)

    • @[email protected]
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      127 days ago

      One of the reasons why Latin American immigrants don’t learn English is that a) it’s not a requirement (I think it should be, require learning English, history, culture , etc) and b) especially in the southern eastern states, historically it was Mexican and Spanish was the main language and a huge part of the population still speaks Spanish, it’s easy to love there without speaking English.

    • @Zannsolo
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      023 days ago

      We don’t have a national language, why don’t you learn Spanish?

  • @[email protected]
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    827 days ago

    You can be racist without slurs.

    Remember also in 1981 that the late Republican campaign consultant Lee Atwater explained in an interview with a Case Western Reserve University political scientist how Republicans could win the votes of racists without resorting to overt racism:

    “You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘[N-word, N-word, N-word].’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘[N-word]‘— that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites. … ‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘[N-word, N-word].'”

    https://digitaledition.baltimoresun.com/tribune/article_popover.aspx?guid=90fa275f-7eca-4fdd-8120-8ba0fd1e8474

    • @militaryintelligence
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      627 days ago

      I was a white kid who was bussed in the 80s in Louisville KY. I was a minority white kid in my class and I fully believe I broke out of the racism cycle I was in because of it. Luckily it happened before all that crap was firmly instilled in my pre-racist little brain

      • @dogslayeggs
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        427 days ago

        I had the opposite experience but with the same good outcome as you. I was a white kid in the 80s who moved from an all-white school (I think there was one black kid in the entire school) to a suburban school that would have been all-white but it bussed in kids from the inner city. I know that added exposure helped me break out of the cycle of racism I realized later was so prevalent at my earlier school. It’s almost like having experience with something helps you understand it better… wild concept.

        • @militaryintelligence
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          227 days ago

          I was bullied relentlessly in school, but not by black kids. Maybe they understood being different, or the experiences of casual racism made them more empathetic, but it left a lasting mark.