In which I experience racism first hand from the people of Colorado.

Yesterday I was sitting at a bus stop in Fort Collins, Colorado, minding my own business, when a white SUV full of young white men slowed on the street in front of me and they all started shouting things like, "Hey, vato!" and various other barely-Spanish phrases in not-very-good accents.

I happened to be on the phone, and didn't want to interrupt my call by shouting obscenities in Spanish (obscenities being one of the few things I actually know how to shout in Spanish, in addition to MAS TACOS POR FAVOR). My Spanish is not very good.

Anyway, I didn't think anything of it, really, except that the boys actually returned, slowed down again and started shouting in Bad Spanish and yelling racial slurs. Again, I was on the phone, and it was probably good, because I have a long history of not keeping my mouth shut and it's likely that I would have shouted something that would have either shamed or enraged them, and then they would have had to stop the car to try to beat me up.

It really is a shame that this sort of casual racism still exists, and being caught up in it even for a minute made me think of my Hispanic and Latino friends who often catch this sort of thing. It saddens me (but doesn't surprise me) that college kids today are still working through this.

Notice the super hairy Greek arm delivering "Archimedes Screw"

Also, if they had started a fight with me they would have discovered that I'm actually Greek and I would have had to punch them in the head with my special punch I like to call "The Archimedes Screw Punch." That would have been too bad for them.