Long story short: White people run Gwinnett County, despite it being “the most diverse county in the (American) Southeast.” Apparently, this is perceived as problematic to many.
When I worked for ScumTrust, ScumTrust really wanted to get their foot in the door with the mythical untapped wealth that was contained within Hispanic-American communities all across their foothold. It was believed that Hispanics had a very limited number of financial institutions that they could reliably trust, and that there were thousands of Hispanics that alternatively, sacked cash away in pillowcases or plastic barrels buried on their properties.
Eventually, ScumTrust acquired a reputable Hispanic bank chain, and it was my department’s job to produce Spanish-language versions of just about everything we already had in order to market to the wealth of Hispanic customers that they wanted.
It didn’t take but a couple days after the signs rolled out to the test markets before the complaints came rolling in: El Salvadorians were offended that the dialect used in the signage was too Honduran, Puerto Ricans thought the text was “too Mexican,” and so on, and so on.
Despite the fact that ultimately it’s all Spanish, it’s very much not Spanish, to the eye of the beholder. What it all really boils down to is that there’s a tremendous amount of nationalism amongst Hispanic cultures, and they might not overtly hate those that aren’t the same as them, they certainly do not like it when some are perceived to be getting preferential treatment over the others.
I can’t remember if it was ever truly resolved, since ScumTrust ended up giving my entire department the axe, but the last time I recall it being worked on, it was almost safer for the company to use an actual translation robot instead of actual Hispanics, as to remove all possibilities of dialect or any sort of association with one Latin American country over another.
The point is, Gwinnett County is “run” by white people, because frankly I don’t think anyone else could run the county without it stepping on someone’s toes. Racism exists, no matter how much people would like to believe that it’s going away, or is being “solved,” because not all racism is violence, blatant discrimination, and clear segregation. In a way, it’s actually worse, because peoples’ cards aren’t out in the open, and is more actions based on personal biases towards different ethnicities, which don’t necessarily involve violence, but more a subtle, more complain-y manner.
It’s nice that Gwinnett is statistically the “most diverse county” in the region, but the statistics could be clarified a little bit better to paint a clearer picture.
Generalizations such as “Hispanic” and “Asian” don’t help in separating the Puerto Ricans from the Mexicans, the Hondurans from the Dominicans, the Koreans from the Vietnamese.
Basically, if a Puerto Rican is put into a position of power, then Mexicans and Venezuelans will complain if absolutely anything at all happens that looks like a Puerto Rican business or entity is given what might look like preferential treatment. If a Korean person is put into a position of power, then all eyes will be on if they dare give a Korean individual or the Korean community any sort of favoritism. Put a black person in power of Gwinnett, and it’ll be the first step towards becoming a particularly taboo Missouri town that should remain unnamed.
The bottom line is, as nice as it would be to think that putting diversity into political positions of power, doing so would cause a great deal of social angst and paranoia that those of the same ethnic background as those in a position of power will get preferential treatment, and react accordingly.
It’s not that whites are the solution, it’s just more like, they’re the medium, the group that everyone can sort of understand being there, and the group that all minorities will bitch the least about.
Ultimately, I don’t live in Gwinnett County, so I really don’t care one way or the other. But when I read this little snippet:
In Gwinnett County today, 20 percent of all residents are Latinos, and a majority of county residents are minorities (Asians make up 11 percent and African-Americans 26 percent). That blend makes Gwinnett the most diverse county in the Southeast. Yet it is a county almost exclusively represented by white elected and appointed officials.
Whose fault is it really, that whitey keeps the ball? Seriously, if they don’t like it, then they need to go out and vote, instead of giving reason for more of these pitiful, agenda-driven articles to be produced.
