Thoughts from the ammo line

Ammo Grrrll investigates HORRIBLE RACIST AMERICA: FACTS ON THE GROUND. She writes:

One of the strangest parts of Election Night 2016, results of which I play at least a couple of times a month when I need a lift, was the grieving, caterwauling commentariat yapping on and on about the “fear” that “everyone they know” was feeling. I have mentioned many times that I do not regularly watch television at all, let alone the pretend news programs, so I did not know one talking head from another. Disappointment, I understood, from 2008 and 2012. Mild anxiety, okay. But FEAR!? And especially among the Professionally-Diverse.

I was only vaguely aware of some of the Droning Diversity Hires. One black woman gave the questions to Hillary in advance of the debate and then dumped every diversity card in her purse out on the table in a huff: “I am a black Christian woman…” No matter. She did it. All those cards couldn’t save her, but she just moved on to her next well-paid gig.

There was a humorless homophobe and general bigot with the wildly inappropriate name of Joy. There was Professional Hispanic “Republican” Ana Navarro, hatin’ on Trump and predicting that it would be “sweet sweet justice” when Mexican voters would put the final nail in Trump’s coffin. Oopsie! Hate must be fattening because this fake Republican seems to be getting puffier by the week. Have another churro, honey, and calm down.

At that point, mercifully, I had never heard of “credibly accused” Don “Stinky Fingers” LeMoan. But they all talked about FEAR FEAR FEAR. It was surreal. Afraid of WHAT? Not one single Hillary cough-fest or BLM or Antifa riot had ever been interrupted by icky white people. No white people stood at polling places with clubs as the unprosecuted Black Panthers had done in 2008. So what in blue blazes were they talking about?

I did recognize out and proud commie Van Jones from the little clip where Valerie Jarrett had singled him out in a crowd for reflected glory from Obama. She said that “we’ve got our eyes on you.” That never hurts. My guess is that he makes more in one year than I have made in my entire working life. And I did OK. Oh, the fear! We all should be so scared.

So what are the facts on the ground in America? How do our fellow citizens – black, brown, “red,” “yellow,” tan, beige, and pinkish-white — get along with each other?

The Dusty Little Village – which actually harbors around 50,000 souls – is more truly “diverse” than any place most of the Virtue Signalers live. To my certain knowledge, we have no $15 million mansions here. Every spring, the graduation pictures of our students are run in the local paper, and it looks to be roughly divided in fourths in the incessant racial bean-counting. White students appear to have a slightly bigger “quarter,” followed closely by Hispanic kids, then Indian kids, with African-American kids having the smallest “quarter.” That is not a scientific head count, just eyeballing it. There are several different kinds of East Indians and Asian kids in the mix too,

But here’s where it gets complicated: intermarriage is extremely common. Yes, all these ethnicities that allegedly hate on each other daily in a racist way seem to fall in love and marry or at least cohabit long enough to produce interesting offspring. If a baby’s mother is black and Mexican and his father is Indian and Filipino, you tell ME what the hell “race” he is. And why it matters.

Here is just one day’s observations at Copper Sky, our Intergenerational Community Center and gym. In one corner was a muscular young black trainer working with a middle-aged white woman. In another corner, a pregnant white woman was monitoring the sit-ups of an older black woman. The track on which I was trudging fatly along with my walking buddy is built over the basketball/volleyball court. Below us was an intense pickup basketball game of God knows WHAT races, only one kid identifiable as “black” and one as “white” and the rest various exotic mixtures. Oh wait…that blonde “white” kid up close has some “Asian” in him too. They were laughing, teasing each other, playing quite a physical style of the game, and not one person looked terrified or hateful. They might have even been (gasp) FRIENDS!

A limping older black gentleman, fresh from Physical Therapy, heard my walking partner say we had done 40 minutes, and he said, “Boy, I hope to reach your level some day…” which we both found to be a pathetically low bar, but nonetheless, sweet. We chatted with him a minute or two as we walked. Nobody was hostile or scared.

After our workout, my buddy gassed up his truck and headed for the cashier while I turned up the AC as high as it would go, even though it was only 118. A thin black teenager in a do-rag hit the store’s door at the same time as my friend of even later middle age. The kid opened the door for him and also held it for a comely Mexican lass. Manners, nice!

Once, near home after a long road trip, I took a shortcut across Indian land and decided to gas up at the Indian gas station. As I approached the door of the attached convenience store, an Indian man, 30-ish, rushed and beat me to it. Silly me, I thought he was hurrying to open it for me. To my surprise, he butted ahead of me, opened the door JUST far enough for him to squeeze through and let it slam in my face. Way to stick it to “The Man,” kiddo!

When I got inside the convenience store, I saw the Indian elders looking daggers at him. In every Indian culture with which I am familiar, elders are held in great respect, and there was no need for me to present ID to see that I qualified. I was not only a senior, and a lady, but a paying customer! The woman at the counter was clearly embarrassed. She said, “Sorry. Everybody thinks he’s a jerk.” Ah well. I was more sad than offended. Made it all the way home without any Play-Doh or my support otter. In fact, I’m going to bet that when the guy got home, he actually didn’t feel very good about himself. A conscience is a naggy thing.

Then last Saturday night, we drove 50 miles to a play in Peoria, AZ. Suburban Arizona – the EPICENTER of intolerance, if you believe our betters. We were very early and stopped into a dark little bar for a drink. Two large Mexican bartenders were tending to three lesbian couples, a heterosexual couple, two elderly black men (not together), and a couple of Jewish geezers of late, late middle age. Most of the others seemed to be regulars. Nothing but friendliness, laughter, generous pours, and a very loud jukebox that careened wildly between country and rap. Mr. AG put in the earplugs he carries all the time and nursed his double-Jack.

So how is our rainbow Family of Man doing? Pretty damn well, all slanderous accounts to the contrary. Absent the race hustlers and people for whom stirring the perpetual grievance pot is a lucrative career, most of us get along just fine. And that’s the truth.