I have been part of an informal Spanish conversation group since February last year, or almost a year and a half. There have been ups and downs to this group, for me anyway, but I have persevered and the people are generally nice and civil. Most of them are what I call very middle class, or should I say bourgeois. Not all of them, but I would say, the majority fit this category. Yes we are all human beings and we all look very similar under our skin (no visuals, please!) but social class, education, economic and ethnic background also play a role and sometimes a very strong one.
I will be the first to admit that I have not been the easiest person for some of the people here, the facilitators or the participants, to have to deal or cope with. We share very little in common and I highly doubt that outside of this group that any of us could be friends.
I do my very best to live, cope and get along in this world, even if others seem not particularly interested or friendly towards values and principles that I hold dear. This is often a struggle and in some ways I have to sideline or shelve my own values in order to live well and congenially with others, for the simple reason that even though we speak Spanish and English, we otherwise do not speak the same language.
This has become actually quite easy for me in recent years, especially as I have come to accept and respect the many differences we have and I have to say that I have also learned tremendously from others. Where I draw the line is at disrespect. A frequent participant in the Spanish group and I appear to be diametrically opposed on just about everything that I value and hold dear. He even grudgingly mentioned once that he has had to really struggle with my being in this group with him. I was quite surprised by this comment as I had never perceived any problems between us. Since he made this comment I have since come to see not only how different we are but how hostile he is towards me and my values.
This all came to a head today when he began to openly poor-bash. He is from a visible ethnic community and seems to be of the opinion that workers of his ethnicity, be they legitimate immigrants or temporary foreign workers are better workers and by default better people than we are because they never end up on welfare, an allegation which by the way, is quite far from being true. I asked him how many poor people he actually knows. He said very few, which likely translates as meaning none. I asked him please to not judge me or my people as I also am poor and was on social assistance myself for more than three years and contrary to his ignorant opinion my ending up in this situation, as is the truth for many others who have been on welfare, has absolutely nothing to do with being lazy and unwilling to work, and much more to do with a lot of other issues that I already could tell he would not have the patience or interest to hear about. Then I declared the conversation to be over and asked if we could please talk about something else.
There was an unpleasant feeling that, because I was upset and, by extension upsetting others by being upset that I had somehow done something wrong and that I was being somehow violent, but I did not raise my voice or utter threats. I simply expressed out of my own personal experience a difference of opinion and openly challenged a hateful bigot who obviously does not like people who are poor. I will not be put in the wrong for doing this.
It would be very easy for me to abandon this group and the temptation is right now very strong. I will probably keep attending for a while, anyway. Regardless of how upset I could get by this individual he is only one person and I really could stand to learn from the experience. I hope the facilitators don't take sides on this one.
And should anyone from the Spanish group be reading this post. I have nothing to apologize for.
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