The Back Passage

I'm probably not a sociopath, but how would I know, really? Odds are I'd probably be a narcissist also, with the emotional intelligence of a kitten. Oh, did you think I was going to say something big and scary, like a gorilla? Well, my animal-racist friend, gorillas happen to be able to read and transmit complicated emotional cues across species. Sure, more than one of those exchanges can result with the forcible removal of your spine, but that doesn't negate the validity of the emotional exchange. Especially since, be honest, you'd pull out a spine or two if you had the grip strength, too. Kittens on the other hand can seem cuddly and solicitous, but remember these have been bred to be pets. Cuddly and solicitous are pure survival strategies. If you have any questions, go pet a feral cat, one who hasn't had to rely on a human for warmth or food. Tear your face clean off in a hummingbird's heartbeat, Jack. And they know how that works as a measurement of time because who do you think is eating all the hummingbirds? Kittens are killers. Go ask your living room upholstery if you don't believe me.

I don't want to be racist against sociopaths, even though they don't constitute a race in the classic sense. It's only irony that the sociopaths tend to be a) the most racist people due to a paucity of basic human empathy and b) the least capable of recognizing their own racism due to their own disinclination toward self-reflection.

Here, look, I'll give you an example. It requires you to accept the premise that people move from one place to another usually driven by need. Internally within the United States within the last 15 years or so, the reason to move has usually been the "need" for a walk-in closet long and wide enough to land a small plane in. Other people come here, however, because they've been chased out of wherever it is they came from* or because the conditions there had become incompatible with what their dignity or ambition could tolerate. Maybe you're an English person disturbed and frustrated by the ingrained classism of the social, political and economic structure. Maybe you're an Iraqi Assyrian Christian squeezed out by Arabic, Kurdish and Muslim pressures on all sides. Maybe you're an Eritrean who caught an episode of Property Brothers and now you can't dislodge the idea of walk-in closet out of the deepest part of your human soul. All of those people can do better in every one of those circumstances in the United States. And ostensibly they'd get the exact same chance to realize all of those dreams and maybe more, for their own sakes and the sakes of their children, either born or conjectured.

But of course we know it's not the exact same chance. The English dude already speaks English and, with the exception of a few stupid word choices, melts into the culture, with the added benefit of an accent Americans for some reason find adorable. The others are subject to a more circuitous and painful process of assimilation starting with language, then dress, food, social cues and responses, familial expectation, etc. Not to mention the potential suspicion or aloofness of neighbors or even authorities adding layers of instability and displacement English-speaking Europeans never have to fathom, much less consider.

So if you were to assess these kinds of immigration stories and make the determination that the non-white, less affluent countries of origin are "shitholes," it should be clear that there is, to some degree, an at-best xenophobic, but more likely just totally racist assumption behind it.

But again, that would take self-awareness. Reflection. Critical thinking. Basic honesty. A working human conscience.

Or! You could go out in public and declare yourself "the least racist person." Again.

Emotionally, my first instinct would be, on behalf of my Haitian immigrant next-door neighbors and their all-American son, to invite you to maybe go fuck yourself. But what good would it do, really? We've already established an inability to see what's in front of you, kitten.

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*by enemies, hurricanes, shrinking coastlines, pollution, feral cats... anything that might follow you home.