We’ll call him Steve. It was a nice March afternoon, and we hadn’t hung out in a while. We both have families and jobs. So life just kept us busy; We were also in situations with circumstances out of our control that made socializing out of the question. But I had carved out time in my schedule to spend with him.
Steve had been my roommate for years before I got married. He knows my mom, dad, and the rest of my family. He was the best man in my wedding. He was close friends with my wife before I married her and her family. We’d spent a lot of time together; pray for each other. We’d study or discuss theological topics often, but most of the time, just hung out or joked around. At some point, we had a small falling out after he left our church, but we reconciled. I had babies, then he got married and also had babies. Life was happening.
I have about six or seven folks people I consider best friends. I don’t really have one I have multiple ‘timeline’ best friends, people who I was close to at different times in my life, who have impacted me in so many ways that our relationship is essentially unbreakable. I need not update them on everything. I don’t need to text or chat every day. I know they will be there for me, and vice versa. As cliche as it sounds, we always just pick up where we left off. They are all low maintenance best friends, slow to take offense and always understanding. They are those the Proverb speaks of;
A friend loves at all times.
and a brother is born for adversityProverbs 17:17
They’re the people I think of when I’m in a situation similar to this:
I think you get my point.
I think highly of them; I respect them and try to return the love they give when I can. Admittedly, I’m far from perfect, and if I consider the last few years, I’ve been a horrible friend.
A few months back Steve texted me a link to a video about the accomplishments of Western civilization. I thought it was a good video. It did a great job of showing how Western civilization had done many great things. He made a comment that I had joked at one point that ‘white people have no culture’ I clarified and told him I’m about 100% sure that I didn’t mean it that way. Especially since I was probably referencing the fact that white people always make casseroles out of everything. Seriously. Think of any ethnic dish, then add casserole I bet it exists somewhere in the US. We discussed the video, and while I agreed with most of what he said, I couldn’t help but feel as if he had sent it to me as an argument. I think it surprised him when I agreed; Western civilization is superior. That conversation eventually ended in discussion about other things, back and forth texting, etc. But it set off a few red flags to me.
A few months later I noticed Steve started posting some strange, seemingly racial epithets on Facebook and promoting ideas not only contrary to our confessed faith but hostile to it. I wondered what was going on. In a specific post, a mutual friend who is an African-American had gotten into a discussion with Steve about racial issues and equality. Steve’s responses seemed brash, aggressive, and rude. The conversation devolved into Steve hurling insults at my black friend, claiming that his lack of understanding (my black friend didn’t misunderstand him by the way) the overall position may have been because of his genetics. It infuriated me. What a pompous claim. I had drafted several responses over a matter of days, then re-wrote, changed and then deleted. I gave it time, figure out what’s going on, then ask later. The people Steve had debated on his thread are not leftists; they were not dumb millennial social just warriors either. So I thought it strange. I forewent my involvement in the conversation, and just to address it when it came up during our time together. There had to be a rational explanation.
Steve hilariously looked like a racist-neo-Nazi-whatever that day. He had a pair of straight leg jeans on with these wide-looking brown work boots, a regular polo, and he had buzzed his entire head. I thought, ‘he must not be trying to hide it now’… after he got into the car, he clarified right away that it was only because he messed up on his haircut I jokingly rejected his explanation.
We grabbed lunch and then headed to a local bar;It was nice the decor gave it a sense of sophistication, and the atmosphere was relaxing. We loosened up with a few drinks, and we talked.
I was not prepared.
It was clear he had given into the Baal of Racism. He told me he doesn’t trust the Jews and therefore can’t trust the writers of the Old and New Testament. He believed Christianity weakened culture and therefore society by tolerating too much. He thought prayer was silly. He couldn’t confidently say he believed in Jesus and definitely didn’t think he was a Christian anymore. He believed that separate ethno states could solve our social and cultural ills. That a black ethno state would better serve blacks, and a white better serve whites.
He admitted to me that if the times were different, the population of Hispanics was not so large he would probably advocate sending Hispanics back to their home country.
Finally, he shared with me the glories of the white race. Its accomplishments, greatness, the rich history and civilization building tendencies of its people.
It shocked me. Here I was, just spent a whole day with my buddy of years, best man in my wedding, a friend to both sides of my family — and the homeboy was telling me he wouldn’t mind sending me back to Mexico.
I kept it together, and I just shook my head: “You need to repent of your idolatry Steve. Your sin isn’t doubt it’s an idolatry of your race, and denial of the new you in Jesus.”
We had already arrived at his house at that point. We sat in the car talking for a good hour and a half.
I kept trying to pull him back, to argue that his union with Christ was stronger than his union with the ‘white race’, that is his new humanity.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 1 Peter 2:9
After that conversation, I think I knew that he was gone. He had given into the temptation and he was enjoying this season of rebellion. I left that day discouraged.
The more I thought of it, the more it upset me. I realized that his new ideology was an existential threat.
He wasn’t fond of miscegenation, he probably never really thought of this but as a Mexican-American the term usually used to refer to Mexican-Americans is mestizo — the Spanish translation. The entire history of the Mexican people is one of miscegenation. We’ve miscegenated for over 500 years. “Mexican” is not a race; it’s a nationality. Mexico has whites, blacks, natives, etc. Strictly, I’m not a Mexican in the same sense as I am an American. I’m not from Mexico. Strictly if I were to have to pin down my race, it’s white and native. ‘Mestizo’ is not a race because mestizos are mixed. Steve vehemently opposed what me, my wife, and children have always been — mixed.
Mexican / Hispanic heterogeneous physical appearances and features make them hard to categorize. If you’ve seen my children, you would understand. My son has lighter hair, lighter eyes, and is very light skinned. People have asked if I’m married to a white woman before, and they have asked her the reverse. My daughter is much more olive toned, with dark eyes and dark hair. And it often surprises people when they learn they come from the same father and share the same mother. All Mexican Americans have the darker tone uncle and the lighter skin auntie. For the longest time, as a boy, I thought my step mom was white because she had green eyes and light skin. I have a cousin in Mexico, mi primo Pepe who looked like Opie from the Andy Griffith Show, yet my tio his dad looks like he worships Huitzilopochtli — the Sun God.
I also realized that Mexican Americans were more of a threat to the alt right than any other group. Their subconscious attitude toward race (ambivalence or as a utility) pose a direct threat to the ‘pure’ white man. Whereas one group is consumed by it to the extent that it is central to their entire identity, the other group doesn’t even care enough to break it down for them. That’s why everyone uses “Mexican” as an identification — it’s convenient but really says nothing. At least not about race. The current population pose the greatest threat in the form of toleration for mestizaje or miscegenation.
As Gregory Rodriguez puts it, race for Mexican-Americans is fluid, malleable, and utilitarian.
- Why do 50% of Mexican-Americans in California choose “white” on census surveys and the rest choose “other”?
- Why is interracial marriage tolerated much more in the American Southwest than other parts of the country?
- Why did Mexican-American activists fight for inclusion as ‘white’ and legally considered white until the 1960s (because of citizenship eligibility after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo) and afterward considered themselves ‘people of color’?
- Why were Tejano’s (Texans of Mexican ancestry) vilified as abolitionists by white immigrants after the Texas revolution?
- Why did Tejano legislators pass laws redefining slavery as indentured servitude after the mass migration of white settlers into Texas? Yet there are records of black former slaves who had a business and treated as regular people in San Antonio?
- Why were Mexican American activists arguing that segregation didn’t apply to themselves? They were not fighting for colored people but arguing that the laws didn’t apply.
There are other fascinating facts that support the idea that Mexican-Americans, and mestizos forged race in a utilitarian sense and not as an unchangeable identity. I would recommend the book; Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans and Vagabonds | Mexican Americans and the Future Of Race in America by Gregory Rodriguez.
The point being that these seeming contradictions present a set of data points that imply there is no consensus among an entire people on what exactly it is that they are. This lack of consensus has consequences on the current racial regime.
The established ‘color spectrum’ used by these racist movements assumes we all approach the issue the same way. But Mexicans Americans have established themselves as ignorant, or willfully ambiguous therefore tossing a wrench in this system institutionally, culturally and socially. Steve was looking for a white ethno state where whites lived with whites, and married whites, and everything was all white. But his eschatology clung to the hope that all of us thought along the white/black polarity in the United States until the Mexicans arrived. Mexican American strategy for fighting the racist regime in America is the same today as it was then, which is doing nothing.
Identitarianism doesn’t work for Mexican Americans it’s been tried before, look at the Chicano movement. For Mexicans in America the simple strategy for fighting racist tendencies hasn’t been a Richard Spencer, Malcolm X, or Reies Tijerina strategy but to continue the tradition of being racially ignorant, ambivalent or utilitarian.
I’m not saying that we should be inactive or discourage involvement in the political sphere. I’m only saying the most effective weapon has never been one of direct confrontation. In fact, perhaps the most effective weapon has relied on the individual Hispanic/Mexican American living life, marrying and raising children. Those children then marry and raise more children a some of them having been in inter-racial marriages. That’s it. Very simple.
Eventually, I had to cut Steve off. I still get sad to this day. I wasn’t able to save him from the fire. Not only is he an American deviant, but a Christian apostate. He traded the perfect savior, for other saviors. He abandoned the new Jerusalem for the old. He was as racist as the Jews were in the book of Galatians. I had to tell him I could not tolerate his beliefs at least for our friendship to continue. I doubt he would have ever verbally or physically hurt my children but was afraid of what he would teach his own family. I was afraid that my kids would play with his and would be treated differently. Maybe I was being too cautious but as their father it’s my duty to protect them.
I pray for my friend daily, and hope he repents but until then I have accepted the idea that by living and raising my children I’m militantly opposing him.
His efforts to stop what I do or am will exhaust him because his require active suppression, yet my efforts require very little to nothing maybe a little bit more of this margarita.
