Unexpected Bus Ride to the Intersection of Class, Race, and Prejudice Part III: Reflection

As soon as I sat down, I pulled out my notebook as if to run for cover and wrote down everything the drunk had said. What the hell just happened? I felt like I had just been run over at the intersection of class, ethnicity, and prejudice. The disenfranchised disenfranchising the disenfranchised. How do you untangle that? Surely the color of this drunk’s skin didn’t spare him from destitution. Is prejudice rooted in class or ethnicity? Where does prejudice come from? It doesn’t come from your socioeconomic status, but to the best of my knowledge you don’t find too many hate groups springing up in bourgeois neighborhoods either. For example, Vidor and Jasper aren’t exactly playgrounds for the wealthy. Nothing seems breeds prejudice like ignorance, and nothing breeds ignorance quite like poverty. And no matter how much lip service we might give it as a society, we just accept poverty as part of our status quo. We generate enough wealth to make a considerable dent in that problem if we really wanted to. And what about my biases? Aren’t I an enlightened individual? Don’t I stand up against hatred and prejudice? No matter how I spin it around in my head, I can’t deny my own prejudice. I have always harbored resentment towards the wealthy. But what’s my reason? I’m white, not poor and male. Socially speaking, that’s more preferential treatment right off the bat than most ever get. Then the word surfaced. Xenophobia. I always come back to the notion that, on some level we are all fearful of those different than us, and this is the root of hatred and prejudice. And that fear flourishes where people have to fight over crumbs just to get by. Sometimes, during fleeting moments of clarity, I think I can see myself in other people and when I do I wonder why can’t everyone see this? It’s so clear. It’s so simple. But it’s not. To see yourself in others is to sometimes face your own ugliness. And really, who the hell likes to do that? I can almost hear one of Townes’ many laments, “All things in our life are brothers in the soil and in the sky. I believe it with my heart if not my eyes. I don’t know why we can’t be brothers here, I know we should be. Answers don’t seem easy, and I’m wonderin’ if they could be.” I hear you Townes, I hear you.