continuation of Racism and the submitting Hispanic Poet
The one thing that made racism a lot more devastating in Philadelphia was the fact that it came from all directions. That was something I never expected. I was white enough to be hated by blacks, dark enough to be hated by whites, and educated enough to be hated by my own. To the people in my religion in Philly, mostly whites and blacks from the city, I had the last name of a dear friend (I say friend, but we had not yet met), Lucas Ortiz, who just happened to be as loud, opinionated, and as visible as I was. No surprise there, he was a a Social Work academic and we all know they tend toward the left. Everyone thought we were brothers. We shared the same vision of how racism had affect our religious community, and so neither of us was popular. Until I reached out to the blacks in my religious community. Mr. Morris, an HIV positive black man (Lucas was also living with HIV), moved in to my house. That meant I had greater contact with a healthy group of highly educated blacks,