h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today was the first time I have ever been ashamed to be an American.

I work in a jail. In some of the blocks, the inmates have rooms with three walls. The fourth side is open, so we can see in. I was in tower where we watch the inmate blocks.

I was watching an officer who was supervising some inmates cleaning their walls, when the neighboring block started making a bunch of noise. One inmate was imitating a siren, and I looked over at him casually, and didn't think much of it. Then I saw several inmates running out of one of the 'rooms' and one inmate chasing them. He was throwing papers at them.

I called the other officer and we went into the block. I asked the inmate who had been making siren noises what they were doing, and he said that they were, "Bombing Baghdad." The inmate who had just chased the other inmates out of his room looked like he could have been Arab.

The guy, who looked like he was Arab, was an American citizen who was originally from the Philippines. He offered to let him move, but he declined.

I don't moralize to inmates. I'm a law enforcement officer; I'm not a preacher, a judge, a jury, or anything like that. I almost never raise my voice. These guys drove me to far. I yelled at the inmates in the block. I said something like:

This is America. We're not supposed to do things like this. We're supposed to be better than that. That man is an American citizen, and he's from the Philippines. You idiots can't even get your racism right. You're supposed to work against us, not each other. I'm embarrassed and ashamed of you.

There was also a lot of cussing.

I realize that these people are idiots, or they wouldn't be in jail. If they weren't scum, they wouldn't commit crimes where there wasn't any bond, or someone would put up their bond, if they had one, so they could get out. This was lower than I expected of them.

This is supposed to be a country where we are judged on individual merits, and not group identity. I shouldn't be advanced at my job because I'm white. I shouldn't get into college because I'm black. I should make it on my own.

Seeing these guys tease the other inmate because of his facial features pissed me off. What's worse, they were too stupid to realize that he was from the wrong background.

I couldn't believe I witnessed something like that in the United States.