I am not the new white

*Classism among U.S. Latinos? You bet. VL


the daily californianBy David Gayton, The Dily Californian (4 minute read)

A few weeks back, while walking through downtown Santa Barbara with a good friend, I witnessed an unsettling interaction between a homeless man and a young man.  Walking past the pair, both my friend and I heard the young man exhort the older homeless man to get a job “like the rest of us Mexicans.”

“What an asshole!” my friend exclaimed and went back to give money to the homeless man.  As he did so, I watched the young man proudly walk away into one those bourgeois Santa Barbara restaurants.

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While I can’t positively assert why this young man felt compelled to say this to a homeless man, I can say one thing with certainty. It was clear that he intended for everyone to hear him.

When I tried to explain to my friend what had just happened, I told him to look around.  We were walking through the “nicer” part of Santa Barbara . . . READ MORE



David Gayton writes about modifying social change through identifying uncritical behavior within cultural politics from the perspective of a gay Chicano United States Marine Corps veteran.

[Photo by Kat Northern Lights Man/Flickr]

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