Just Looking ...

I just finished watching a show called "What Would You Do?". It's basically just a hidden camera show where unknowing people are placed in a staged situation and their reactions or inactions are caught on camera. A segment that really got my attention was regarding racism against Mexican migrant workers in the United States. An actor was hired to play a cashier at a eatery and 2 Mexican actors would walk in and attempt to order coffee and sandwiches in Spanish. The cashier would respond with really racist comments like "Go learn some English and come back" or "Go to Taco Bell where they speak Mexican". His job was just to be as rude, racist and ignorant as possible and see what the other patrons would do.

There were of course people who stood up for the workers, but there were also people who just stood by and didn't do anything, even when the guys were pleading to them for help. What really shocked and angered me was that there were people, who actually took the side of the cashier. According to the show, 9 out of the 88 patrons did just that. They made comments, and these aren't staged, such as "I couldn't agree with you more, it's house cleaning time" and they would help the cashier to tell the guys to leave, one man even threatened to physically take them out. After, when the camera crew would come out, some recanted their comments and made it seem like that they didn't really mean what they said, or that they were only directing these comments at illegal immigrants, as if that would make it ok. There were others, however, who blatantly admitted that they did not want these migrant workers in the United States, and that they were "stealing our jobs". When one man was confronted and asked whether he thought whether that was racist, he said yes, but still thought that refusing to serve the Mexican men was the right thing to do.

I just couldn't believe what I saw, I mean, I know that racism still exists, but seeing it concentrated and out in the open like that, it was still surreal. Mexicans, and Spanish speaking people are being tossed into one undesirable category by these people. They automatically assumed that a non-English speaking Mexican person must be an illegal immigrant, and that they have no right to be here and don't deserve to be treated like a fellow human being. It simply blows my mind.

I don't know what these people are thinking, but if it were me in that situation, I probably would have gone off at the cashier.