Dinner Table Conversation

For this week’s post I would like to talk about a conversation that I witnessed this weekend. For confidentiality reasons I will not give any names. It is not uncommon (to me) to see internalized racism. It is also not uncommon for minority groups to have racists or discriminatory remarks about another minority group. I would like to write about this experience in a form of a story.

               I sat in the kitchen table, as we were finishing our dinner the topic of Chicago violence arose. I was interested in knowing where this conversation would lead. Two middle aged Hispanic males began the conversation about the most recent crime that occurred in the south side of Chicago. A family of six had been murdered in their home and their seemed to be no signs of forced entry. One of them suggested that they were probably part of the Mexican Cartel and that the Cartel had been the one that had ordered the kill. The other male joined and mentioned how he had heard that the father, who was not murdered, had been the one to call the hit on his family. At that point, the wife of one of the males joined in disbelief that someone could not do that to their own family, but quickly withdrew her statement after acknowledging that there are “sick” people out there. It was at this point that the conversation soon turned to police violence and African American people. One of the males stated with confidence “they [African American] are the worst, why do you think so many of them are in jails and prison because they commit the most crimes! Latinos are also right up there and they also commit a lot of crimes. But of all the races those two are the ones that are incarcerated. But the Blacks are the worst and they are lazy”. It was here that I immediately wanted to interrupt and say that there was a reason why minority groups, especially Latino and African American populations, were the ones that fill up our jails. But I didn’t, because I knew that would not get me anywhere, they would end up using circular logic to make their point. They often turned to the young female next to me asking for validation “isn’t it true though, they commit the most crimes that is why they are in prison”. Now coming to think about it was more of a rhetorical question. The young women next to me didn’t know how to respond. Just like me she knew that was not the case, but didn’t want to enter an argument because she knew she would not get her point across.  Instead, she instead nervously laughed and shrugged her shoulders. They began to discuss recent police brutality cases and stated that if they—the victims of police brutality—would have stayed out of trouble they wouldn’t have gotten stopped/frisked. In other words, it was their fault for being criminals. Once again I had to “bite my tongue” not to say anything this time because I wanted to see how this conversation would continue. I wanted to continue to be an observer and not engage in the conversation.

               They began to talk about the news and how every single time they watched the news, there is some Black guy that has committed a crime. Once again they used this statement as evidence that the majority of African Americans were criminals. After all, they were in jail and they committed the most crimes as reported in the news therefore they were the worst. One of the older women responded by saying that some people do deserve what was coming to them. The police have every right to do what is necessary especially when the “criminal” is resisting, and they have a weapon. The public shouldn’t be like “oh poor them they were treated injustly”.  One of the males agreed and reinforced that sentiment stating, “parents should be educating their kids not to be criminals and to cooperate with the police if they ever get stopped instead of protesting and striking for Black Lives Matter and questioning ‘why did they do that to so and so?” They agreed that unless the individual had been truly defenseless then yes, it deserved attention. However, I know that police brutality is present and in most cases than not the presumed “criminal” –especially if a person of color—will be treated with disrespect and often beaten and abused. This seemed to be the final consensus of the conversation, “they deserve to be punished if they are “bad”. Therefore, they should not do “bad” things so the police doesn’t have a reason to look for them”.

               It was very interesting to sit as an outsider to this conversation. From what I have learned in class I could have dismantled their arguments. But also taking into account their age and years of ingrained imagery of African Americans, the media, and internalized racism I knew my word would not get far and I felt somewhat powerless. It was a weird sensation of felling empowered by all the knowledge and powerless of changing someone’s opinions. I wondered if would have at least gotten them to understand my perspective, even if they didn’t truly by into my explanation had I spoken up and participated the conversation. It was clear that Latinos and African American (particularly African Americans) were profiled criminals.

Side Note: There was a point in the conversation when one of the males was very sure—almost  as if he had read it as a statistic somewhere—that African Americans and Latinos were the ones who sold ALL the drugs. He was certain that almost every drug dealer is African American or Latino as well as the ones that consumed the most drugs. In my observation this opinion is heavily influenced by media and T.V shows. Shows like hours, Criminal minds and Mexican soap operas tend to portray dark skinned and African Americans as criminals. It is something that has been ingrained and part of their values and to some extent part of the culture’s values.