Am I a racist?

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I am afraid I am becoming a racist, or maybe already be one but am not sure. For the record, I am gay, and I have fought a lot for civil rights in college back in the 1990s. I also have had friends that are of all different races. However, I have been becoming very disgruntaled by many people in this country from Mexico on both a general and specific bases.

Last year my lease was not renewed for my apartment because this large family from Mexico moved about me, and they blasted their music, and I complained about it. They said it was OK for them to do that because they pay rent there and they didn't care about me or if it was bothering me. So they complained to my landlord for me complaining about the loud music and told me they would not be renewing my lease because I could not get along with the new neighbors. Of course the joke was on the landlord because she could never rerent the unit I vacated and she had to terminate their lease.

I know it is just one family, but I encounter this all the time with Mexicans, I don't mean Latinos, I mean, just people from Mexico and their children. They are rude in pubic, cut in line, and they stair at me if I go to a place where Whites in the area are a minority. I feel disrespected as a person. They are exteremly confrontationial at times and violent even amoungst themselves. They spray paint everything, and like to claim every piece of public property as their "turf".

I feel this way in general too. Because I see those damn Mexican flags flying over the US Flags or in place of them. I see the Mexican neighborhoods are just trashed, torn apart, untaken care, I don't mean like they are poor, I mean they are just sloppy unkept dirty untaken of yards, fences, and animals even their yards.

I also get mad when they don't have to pay taxes and they automatically get food stamps and I don't because I am not a "field worker" or "immigrant worker". I think it is unfair someone gets food stamps automaticially because they are immigrant workers while the rest of us pay taxes and get none.

I am also angry at their ability to walk into an emergency room and get free treatment because the government cannot track them down and garnish their wages.

I know that most people in general are good people, and that it is unfair to judge someone soley because they are from Mexico, or because of what others in their country do. But I cannot help but to feel resentment toward a culture and people that are thrashing mine, disrespecting others, creating violance, raising my taxes, ruining property, and making me "press 1 for English" every time I want to operate a machine or take to a person on the phone. It is maddening for me.

So am I justified in being angry at the replacement of my culture, and my mistreatment by people, or am I just a bigot in the making?

Well, for the most part, you are perfectly entitled to your opinions in the matter.

I'm sure you have the sensibility to remember that not all Mexican immigrants are bad. But there's nothing wrong with being angry about an imported culture replacing your nation's own, especially if the culture is bringing along negative side-effects.

If you have consistently met Mexicans who are bad for various reasons, it is not at all unreasonable to speak of "the majority of Mexican immigrants" in a negative way, as this is simply as your experience has been. The key factor is not applying it by default to all Mexicans, but rather to wait until you actually see if they have a bad side.

After all, you're not hating them because they're Mexican. You're hating them for the things they bring along with them, which most Mexicans apparently do. This in itself makes it not racist. If you can remember not to think of the Mexicans as a single group with single qualities, then you are not racist.

I live in Finland now but for a while I inhabited a flat in northern Manhattan. Finland is wonderfully quiet and peaceful but northern Manhattan has a high percentage of Latinos and the loud music and very noisy parties they had until 4am drove me nuts and there was nothing I could do. Personally I found them civil and had no problems but the cultural tolerance for noise I found intolerable. It's a cultural thing and I have no solution but to move away.

I am a racist!!

I admire Japanese culture. I also admire the fact that they want Japan to be for the Japanese.
They don't want a few million Mexicans or Blacks or Arabs moving to Japan. Good for them.

How would Ireland be improved if a million Greeks moved there?

How would Greece be improved if a million Japanese moved there?

Each to his own.

The truth is, everybody is a little prejudice at times. There is nobody that doesn't judge a particular group of people negativly, and those that say otherwise are liars. Lets say one person isn't racist towards black people, that doesn't mean they're "not prejudice", they may hate homosexuals, white people, or people with mental disabilies.

Exactly, people will always hate a particular group of people that they classify by something unique that they all have. The hate isn't always because of that, but because of either bad experience with that group or hearing about bad experiences with that group from others.

Being prejudice is wrong, but so is farting, and everyone does it. The key to both is to be discrete about it.

i am considered to be extremely racist. i am not racist however.
i believe every person alive is no less valuable than anyone else.

australian aborigines are not made for modern living. they have a very primitively angry mindset.
they think we stole their land, but they still have so much fertile bush to roam in.

they want to be in our cities because they can get alcohol and mcdonalds food.

it is strange to me that they are so angry at the invasion of their land when they cling like iron filings to all the western magnets like alcohol and bars and petrol and takeaway food.

if we said "ok guys! you win!. we are all going to go away", and then we demolished our cities and took all the rubble away and left them in the stark bush where we first found them, they would beg for our return.

i am a bit annoyed at how many people see us white people as pompous egotists.

but every individual person no matter what race they are from deserves complete fairness.

i do not know how to answer this topic really. i am not very "uber" minded.

It's OK to dislike certain acts of a certain group of people, but it's not OK to dislike an entire race based on those acts. None of the complaints you mentioned are unique to Mexicans either. I used to live in a neighbor just like that with blasting music, disrespect and violence, trashed yards, flags from other nationalities, and none of them payed taxes either. Most just worked in construction off the books and collected food stamps, welfare, etc. Most of them spoke english, but I usually couldn't understand it. Oh, and by the way - they were all white. Each human is different and sure there are cultural differences between races. Personally, I like it that way. I also believe that class is what tends to be responsible for the behaviors you mentioned. I seriously doubt that you'd see those activities over at a wealthy Mexican's house. Applying your observations to an entire race, rather than the specific individuals, is pretty racist - I think by definition.