Recently we celebrated Martin Luther King Day. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a man who had a dream that little white children and little black children would one day walk hand and hand without thought of skin color, etc – when he made that famous speech in in front of the Lincoln Memorial, I imagine that he meant that dream to include little red children, little yellow children, and yes even little brown children.

As much as I admire Martin Luther King ’s dream, this blog post is not about Martin Luther King or his dream, this blog post is about my sister and what happened to her on Martin Luther Day. Before I continue with the story there are a few things you need to know about my sister:

• My sister lives in a nice area of Las Vegas called Summerlin .

• My sister is about five feet tall and looks like she’s 14 years old

• My sister weighs less than 100 pounds.

• My sister can be sweet and charming.

• And the most important thing – if pushed too far my sister can be a terrifying bitch.

So my story starts with a phone call from my sister. She wants me to meet her at a place called The Children’s Pottery Barn because she wants to buy new bedroom furniture  for the kids. I arrived at the store before she did, as a matter of fact I had enough time to go into the store and look around. It was funny because as I walked around the store not one salesperson came up to see if I needed help. No one talked to me and not one salesperson even looked my way. They all ignored me. At first I thought it was just because they wanted me to look around at my own pace, but then I noticed that as other potential customers came in the sales force jumped like Pavlov’s dog salivating at the sound of a bell.

I can’t say that I’m not used to this sort of thing – I guess I look thuggish. I’ve stood next to women who move their purse to the other side as soon as I come up. I’ve walked through a store where security blatantly follows me around. I’ve been called Julio, Pedro, etc and on more than one occasion I’ve been asked if I understood/spoke English. As much as those things piss me off and when I think of them I just want to vent and write about those occasions – this post is not about my experiences with the ignorant, this post is about my sister’s experience with one ignorant person.

So, as I mentioned before I arrived at the store before my sister – it doesn’t take much longer after I leave the store that she drives up. As soon as I saw her I could tell something was wrong. She was dressed nicely and her hair and make-up were done up like any other girl would have, but something about the look on her face told me that things weren’t right.

“What’s up?” I asked as she approached the car.

She started her story, “I was pumping gas in Summerlin of all places and as I’m filling up my car this big, guy comes up to me. “ She raises her arms to show how tall he was. “He was tall. He was huge. I was minding my own business, pumping gas when he looked at me and said, ‘Go back to Mexico you fucking Mexican!’ I just stood there. I could feel myself getting hot, but I kept quiet and kept pumping gas. I was minding my own business.”

As I listened to her tell her story I felt bad for her. I felt bad because she had never experienced anything like this and never so bluntly and in your face like this.

She continued her story. “ I could feel myself getting hot and I was clenching my hands.” She looked down at her hands and clenched them tightly, then opened them. “I wanted to say something but I knew if I did things would get worse and I didn’t want that, so I just ignored him and kept pumping my gas.”

“What did he do then?” I asked.

“He looked at me and said, ‘yeah bitch, I’m talking to you. You fucking Mexican Bitch. You need to go back to fucking Mexico.’ Then he…” She paused, looked down at her feet, then looked up at me. As she looked up I could see a hardness in her eyes – to me it was as if a part of her innocence had been taken away from her. She looked at me and said, “Then he spit at me.”

When I heard that the first thing I felt was anger, but then it turned to surprise and shock. I know racism and prejudice exist. I’m not so naïve to believe it doesn’t, but most of the time it’s kept at a down low and it’s not so in your face.

According to my sister as soon as the guy spit at her she lost it. She said she ran after him yelling that she was going to kick his ass. The big, huge guy then huffed and puffed his way back to his car. He got in and locked the door while my sister started kicking the side of the door, daring him to come out so he could get his ass kicked. 

She said there were two guys watching, one white, one black. The white guy held my sister back and tried to calm her down. The black guy yelled at the guy in the car to get off so he could kick his ass too. The guy in the car sped away.

My sister ended her story by saying “I hate white people.”

As she said those words it made me cringe because that was just proof that prejudice just encourages more prejudice. It’s been almost a month since this happened and I don’t think my sister actually hates anyone. She seems to be back to normal. I think she just said those words because it was a traumatic experience for her and she was speaking out of frustration.

The thing that gets to me about this whole situation is that even in 2011 there are still cowards who would do this sort of thing