So yeah, I’m pretty well fed up.

Honestly, I wanted to call this “Liking Something Called ‘I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO PRESS 1 FOR ENGLISH THIS IS AMERICA’ Is A Great Way To Lose Friends Because You’re A Bigot,” but I’m really trying to give everyone who may be making this mistake in logic a chance to get some reality through their heads.

The reality is this, folks:  some of you I really like personally, some of you I honestly don’t know personally, but here’s the thing.

I’m John Henry.  The Low Genius.  I have a reputation to uphold.  I have principles and standards.  I’m a bastard to other people about things like integrity and ethics.

I’m also a bastard to people about being stupid bigots.

Now realistically, I don’t think that everyone who “likes” one of these groups is an ignorant bigot.  That’s actually what bothers me MOST about it:  I know people who are otherwise intelligent and full of love for people in general, that actually buy in to crap like this.

I don’t want to push those people away from me or hurt their feelings.  I like them.

But I really hate that they paint me into a corner with this shit, because I can not in good conscience support, condone, or appreciate the intellect of anyone who participates in this line of thinking.

It’s fearmongering, it’s xenophobic, and it stands directly in opposition to everything that makes this “the greatest country in the world” and “the freest nation on earth” and all those other things that supposedly establish our moral superiority over other nations, and by publicly declaring this to be your feeling, you are also publicly declaring that you have no respect for my feelings.  Furthermore, you’re forcing me into a situation where I have to renounce you publicly or stand rightly accused of hypocrisy, and I resent being put into that position.

Pressing “1” for English never killed anybody, and this ridiculous, small-minded, petty bitching about it has got to stop.  It’s just plain wrong.  Hell, some of you have family, friends, or even lovers for whom English is their second language.  How do you think it makes them feel, knowing that you are disgusted by them simply because they speak another language?  How do you think you would feel if they started acting – and they would have far more justification to  - as though you are a blithering idiot for only knowing one language in a world where multilingualism is compulsory in public education in every developed nation except the United States?

Why do you people hate freedom?  Is it because you’re frightened and confused by a language you don’t understand?  Is it because you feel inadequate because that “stupid beaner” knows two or more languages and you only know one?  Do you at some level resent these people for being able to communicate in a language that you don’t understand? 

I’ll confess:  That’s how I feel.  Seriously.  It’s embarrassing to admit, it makes me ashamed, but you know when I was driving taxi if I picked people up who conversed in a language other than English, I really thought it was rude and assumed that they must be hiding something from me…and I know better.  I know better.  They weren’t being rude or talking shit about me or likely even thinking about me, I’m just the stupid car jockey who’s taking them to the movies, I’m an invisible man to them.  They couldn’t care less if I can understand them or not.  I understand all of that…and yet there’s still a part of me that has that broken, sick, and wrong gut-level reaction:  “These people are Not Like Me, and therefore I am afraid of them, and I resent being afraid and I don’t like to admit my fear, therefore I will be angry and intolerant toward them instead.” 

I know it’s wrong, but there’s still that gut-level resentment in the back of my mind at being excluded, my shame at not understanding any language but my own, my intellectual humiliation and embarrassment at having been born in a country that claims to be a great “melting pot,” whose greatest symbols include things like the Statue of Liberty, and the words upon which She rests:

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

A nation founded on immigrant labor, on illegal immigration, on the very premise that it was our “manifest destiny” to take this land over, eradicate or assimilate the people who were already here, and make it our own.  A nation whose very founding documents assert the right of all people to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”...and yet we also remain a nation where speaking another language is reason to be hated and feared. How embarrassing is that?

Our history has been one of often failing to live up to the promise of our principles, and sometimes that’s embarrassing and shameful…but it becomes no less embarrassing and shameful when, in the twenty-first century, we continue to perpetuate those failures.  I would be far more ashamed of myself if I didn’t work diligently to get the hell over my fear of things I don’t understand, and instead chose to reject and denigrate them simply because I am ignorant and fearful.

So I’m sorry if it hurts people’s feelings.  I’m sorry if I lose some friends over it, and I probably will.

But you need to know that by making a public declaration of opposition to the very foundational concepts of this nation, you are deliberately declaring war against my country (and in most cases your own), and you are declaring that my friendship means less to you than your fear of languages you don’t speak.

If that’s how you feel, then that’s how you feel…but you may no longer claim that I didn’t give you fair warning.

Here’s hoping the damage is minimal, because I really do love you.  All of you.  Even those of you who would hate me if I spoke something besides English.