Enemies

Yes, of course you're fat, as a gay man I cannot lie.

You know at some point in your 40's, and I'm at the halfway point, you collect enemies.  My enemies are generally people I've insulted after a few drinks. By insults, I generally told them a truth, which they found too hard to take and then when I tried to apologize they lashed out in anger....and hence became my enemies. The hard part of the group I just mentioned is that I still have to deal with them on more than one occasion. Some of them have been mentioned in this very blog. (http://miamiafter40.blogspot.com/2011/01/is-fat-the-new-fuck.html).

There are other enemies too, people who've hurt me along the way through cruelty, mental illness or maliciousness. Those enemies come to me at weak points, where their humiliations, put downs or anger come to me on restless nights, low points or days when I've forgotten to renew my prescription for Xanax. Usually those enemies are just in my head and have long since move out of my life.  But they haunt me because I ceded the battlefield to them and spend a lifetime trying to let go, forgive and forget.   (http://miamiafter40.blogspot.com/2009/12/descent-into-madness.html)

You might think the enemies in the first group would be the harder to deal with. After all they are still in your life and thus you must constantly try not to engage them. Sadly, most of my enemies are women, or gay men and you can read into that what you want.  Another thing I want to state is that very few of my enemies are fat (with one exception) and one has put on a lot weight recently, which makes me happy. The German word is schadenfreude which means joy in someone else's failure. Fat is a failure folks. All of my enemies are white, since we white folks (today my Anglo side is speaking) and I hate like white people.  

Did you steal my wedding gifts?

How white people hate:  Condescension. Unlike my Latin side, which is all heat,emotion and passion, my white side hates like ice.  It’s the kind of cold that if you touch it will damage skin. It's a narrow squint in the left eye that just stares unblinkingly.  It's a passive aggressive hate which leaves short, well timed phrases guaranteed to stir doubt about your enemy among those who associate with them. Whispered comments like "she sure like's her gin" and "she just can't quite seem to get it together."  It's the "oh how nice to see you," with your nose scrunched up like somebody farted. It's addressing your enemy only when they're seated and you're standing, that's condescension. Be aware when a white person says "oh don't get up," high ground gives advantage.  White enemies don't forget, we nurse past slights and wait for occasions like Thanksgiving to throw them into the mix. I'm still waiting for that apology from my stepmother for accusing me of stealing her wedding gifts 20 years ago.....at some point I'll bring it up....but the right moment has come up yet...

I said: BRRR it's cold in here!

I don't really have any advice to give. I often hear "move on, forgive". Yes, forgive and forgive, whatever.  Enemies come with life, like wrinkles and grey hair.  In some cases you hold them close because you know they keep your life interesting. Other times they are a burden and weigh you down.  You might think you don't have any enemies.....but you do.  Out there are people who don't like you, not just a passive dislike....but a "I will CUT her" kind of dislike.  It might be someone you hardly know or a wicked stepmother. In any case they are yours....and enemies make you stronger, more interesting. If they don't.....find better enemies. 

Can You See Us Now America?

Yeah, but they vote as we learned on Election day. 

As a bi-cultural person, half white, half Latino, the first thing I notice about white people in general is that they don't see brown people.  Really, they don't.  Kinda the way that you don't see, maids, or doormen or refrigerators, or toasters on kitchen counters.  White people see black people.  There is a mix of emotions that whites have for blacks, fear and guilt being part of that mix, whatever. But my white friends and relatives outside of Miami really don't see Latinos beyond Mexican lawn men. White people also get upset at Latinos who don't want to be lawn men. One day my Cuban husband came home upset one day because during a board meeting, as a joke, the company VP pointed to the gardeners working outside the conference room and said to him: "You're lucky you're not out there with them." Everyone in the meeting laughed. He just happens to be a nuclear chemical engineer. 

But blacks and whites really don't see Latinos. Until this Election Tuesday. For years smart white politicians like Jeb Bush, John McCain and Marco Rubio have been saying, ignore Latinos at your own peril.  Well the old white men who run the Republican party just opened their eyes and saw brown for the first time. White men could always look to Miami Cubans and say "hey, but the Cubans vote for us!"  But two days ago, 47% of Cubans voted for the incumbent http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/07/3086875/cuban-american-support-for-obama.html.  I think Cubans, like all other Latinos can read between the lines about things like "self-deportation" and laws that are passed to make Latino looking people walk around with "proof of citizenship."

When I say I was born in Honduras, to a Honduran mother, they say, "you're not Latino, you have blue eyes!"  Well, in all honesty, Hondurans say that too.  Yet my point is, that my heart is very latino, and that all brown people are not lawn workers and maids. That we do not all come from Mexico. That we are diverse, we are beautiful in our shortness, our browness, in our Latinoness.(Yeah, we can be tall and blond and blue eyed too.)  We are a hard-working, growing group in these United States. We got this President elected, same as we will the next one.

Can you see us now America?