It is easy to spot hard racism – but soft racism is a bit harder to track down. Except in this case. A group of angry white folks in Santa Ana’s Wilshire Square Neighborhood have screamed so much about Mexicans sifting through their trash that Santa Ana’s waste company, Waste Management, is now testing trash cans designed to stop Alaskan bears from stealing trash, according to the O.C. Register.
Thanks to Republican ex-President George W. Bush the entire world is in a global depression. Santa Ana is number one in home foreclosures – and number one in violent crime in Orange County. Yes – some folks have resorted to taking plastic, glass and aluminum containers from trash cans. But guess what? If they had some other means to survive they would not be doing that, would they?
The heartless Usual Suspects don’t care. So they complain, complain and complain. They say that folks are trying to steal their identities. Well, that is why we should shred our sensitive trash!
This really has nothing to do with stealing of trash – it is just another way for bitter folks to complain about Mexicans. Shame on Waste Management for playing to this crowd!
Oh please! I’m Mexican, a resident of Wilshire and I’ve been at the Wilshire Square Assoc. meetings There are as many brown faces as white faces complaining about transients sifting through trash. It’s not about the stealing of the trash, but rather the mess they leave behind leaving the residents to pick up after them. I’m thankful that the city is FINALLY doing something about it.
Don’t play the race card here. Race has NOTHING to do with it.
#1,
There are plenty of Mexicans in town who hate their own…look at our Mayor, Miguel Pulido, who supported Prop. 187!
Folks come through my neighborhood too – and I have never seen them leave any messes behind.
Race has everything to do with this…but keep saying otherwise so you can feel better about it.
I definitely don’t hate my own and have a lot of passion and respect for my culture. What I do hate is people making a mess of our city regardless of their color.
Apparently playing the race card makes you feel better.
there he goes folks dont you guys know art by now . he plays the race card all the time when it comes to everything . if you where for 187 your a racist , if your not for the dream act your a racist , and if your not for illegas your a big racist . i tip my hat to the people who can see this and point it out to him .
Art,
You have a chip on your shoulder about your own race!!
Its ok that your brown, that’s what all us pasty white folks strive for !!
Give it up with the race shite, it is what allow’s wack job groups like ACLU able to get hard core gang members back on the street of santa ana and orange and believe me its not the pasty white folks they bother.
Really Breath, i think your skin colour is beautiful and mexicans are lovely.
Just as long as they are legal:)
Why does Doug Irving keep doing these stories about whites and rich Mexicans getting harrassed by poor people but doesn’t report on Pudrido’s tax evasions?
Michelle,
LOL! I am probably whiter than you are. I am of Mexican ancestry but my lineage hails from all over Europe, with a bit of Comanche.
The fact is, there are folks in Santa Ana who want to load the poor onto trains and send them to the ovens. That is quite loathsome I think.
No surprise that the neighborhood in question is where Usual Suspect Tim Rush lives…
As far as the Mr. Pulido is concerned regrading 187
There has been a vast increase in one parent families in Santa Ana and other Minority cities.
The state has taken over as the father, providing for the mother and the kids, when it should be the father’s job!
Maybe Mr. Pulido is alot smarter and more concerned about the welfare of families in Santa Ana, than you!!
All you cripe about is race this and race that!!
Maybe the Major does not fixate on the race of his city but its future!!
Please get a crip, i am more Mexican than you and i am as white as the unsunny bits on your body!
I mean Grip!! Not Crip, thats Irish for chips
I am hunger for a taco!
The bigger question here is who is paying for this and at whose direction was this done?
Mr. Rush and others have long wanted to criminalize being poor. They want to make those less fortunate who are desperate enough that they need to dig through others trash to survive into criminals. That is kind of ironic considering Rush’s own history.
When Rush and company recently approached the council wanting to have our police step up their efforts to arrest scavengers the council, with the exception of Councilman Bustamante, rebuffed this idea.
If city money is paying for these cans our if someone at city hall is behind directing Mr. Ross to provide these cans then somebody is directly disobeying the will of the council. The council can only direct Mr. Ream and it is his job to implement their direction.
There must be an immediate and thorough investigation into this. The council specifically stated they wanted to move on from this issue.
In these tough economic times it is simply astounding that people would be so callous as to want to criminalize folks simply trying to survive.
You will here plenty on rhetoric about the “mess” left behind by these folks and I agree that is wrong and they should not do that. However the “mess” left behind is simply a smokescreen and not as big of a problem as they want us to believe.
This may not be about race, but it is surely about class. Folks like Mr. Rush have long expressed their disdain for poor residents. He has long pushed for ordinances and regulations that disproportionately punish the poor and less fortunate. In Santa Ana the overwhelming majority are Latino, but Art to be sure they have disdain for those that are Anglo and poor as well.
It is absolutely appalling that in a city with the problems that we are facing that a small faction of folks led by Tim Rush feel that declaring war on the poor should be priority number one.
I have an Idea!!
Why don’t you sean and Art go clean up mess that the underserved and vunerable leave behind and bring the people to your area/home and feed them!
Everyone happy:)
michelle,
I know, why don’t you move away from Santa Ana if you insist on hating so many of our residents?
Michelle,
This isn’t really about the “mess” that is just the talking point that has been put forth.
Don’t you find it tragic that some of our neighbors, fellow Santa Anan’s, find it necessary to dig through garbage just to survive and feed their families?
Have you no compassion for the less fortunate?
This anti-scavenger movement is just the latest attack on the poor in this community. It is shameful that rather than wanting to help those in their time of need that some in our community want to punish them.
Just remember the age old saying, “There but for the grace of God go I.”
Hey everybody. Let’s organize and stop complaining about the mess left behind by the scavengers. Let’s drop it off on Art’s front lawn each week. We’ll see how understanding he is then!
#14,
The last thing I need is all those empty Usual Suspect wine bottles and cracker boxes on my lawn! Just give them to the poor scavengers…
Michelle do yourself a favor and go back to school. Honestly, you are a horrific speller and your grammar and syntax are terrible.
Anon Teacher you need to get together with Michelle and tutor her English.
Anon you idea is just plain sophmoric.
**Newsflash**
Santa Ana is a POS City. That’s PIECE OF SH*T City. I’m in escrow and on my way out. Hallelujah. I’m sure the Usual Suspects are going to love the new family moving in.
#14 perhaps you can have Thomas Gordon and his friends drop off the trash the next time they are out egging peoples homes.
Easy Art. Especially when it is you who would have no problem loading the whites into the ovens and claiming reconquista!
You have no love for anyone other than your own and have no problem making yourself a victim of everyone.
Every deplorable thing done in history has been done by someone who first set themselves out to be a victim.
You are a prime example of awful intentions wrapped in victimhood.
Sean,
Your failure to understand the solution to the problems you see are found in your mistaken tendency to make your “government” your first line of defense to local problems, instead of the last.
The first, is YOU. You think there’s a problem, go out and HELP. Second is your family. Third is your CHURCH. Then your city, and your county. finally, in times of disaster, your federal government.
To argue that keeping people from scavenging in your trash and making a mess I have to clean up is “attacking”… the next step is finding someone on my couch who says they’re homeless and im “attacking” them by saying “get out”.
You abandon the rights of the law-abiding to make room for the lawless. Take your car and bring them to your neighborhood.
What’s disturbing about this exercise is that the Wilshire Square folks don’t care if the scavengers scatter to Henninger Park or any other part of the city. Talk about being self-serving and not a good neighbor. Santa Ana’s band-aid solutions suck.
Terry,
How can you say that when you are one of my best friends and you are white?
Moreover you don’t know Santa Ana the way I do.
This isn’t about victims at all, it is about compassion – a quality mostly lacking in you Republicans.
No. it is lacking in people who try to decide who is a “victim” and that their actions, therefore, are unassailable.
You have to keep changing the subject and point to the “intentions” of others, rather than the objective actions of the subject at hand.
you are one of my best friends, and yet you continue to spew venom and bile about those around you.
the hatred and nastiness of those in your camp and in your philosophical stream think you can treat people like Clarence Thomas, Miguel Estrada, Janice Rogers Brown and others with complete disrespect, yet you are somehow above reproach and anyone who disagrees is suspect in their attitudes.
you and your ilk tried to persecute those individuals because you hated their background, class, looks, race, or whatever. it certainly isnt because you bothered to disagree with what they thought. i dont think left side of the aisle ever even gets that far.
the more you side with that side the more i have to remind you – you are not granted the benefit of good intentions by me – in anything you say or do. once you start attributing good intentions to others, you might earn it back.
stop now. i have more in my arsenal!!
Terry,
I am not the one who turned to the government and asked them to crack down on those less fortunate then ourselves.
This is about compassion for your fellow man and it seems to be lacking amongst many of us.
You are naïve to Santa Ana politics and that is why you by into the talking points being put forward.
Some of those behind this war on the impoverished have long sought to punish the poor in hopes of running them out of town. This goes back 15 or 20 years.
As far as Art wanting to put us all in ovens that just isn’t true. He opposes the death penalty and would prefer to blog his enemies to death. He kills them by constantly raising their blood pressure.
LOL!
oh that ovens comment he started pissed me off!
Most of you are missing the point. Trash haulers make money off of trash. If the valuable recyclables are removed, then so is part of the profit. The result is that the “cost” of trash service is increased and either the hauler (and its shareholders) or we, the ratepayers, will have to make up the difference in the long run. That is one good reason that ALL trash cans in the city should be locked up. Its simple economics. The trash is the property of the homeowner/renter until its picked up the the waste hauler. Until that transfer of property rights occurs, anyone else who injects him/herself into the stream is a thief. Its simple economics. For a so-called “libertarian” Art has lots to learn.
#25,
You forgot to mention that Pulido and Ream negotiated the deal wherein we paid for the fancy robot trucks that Waste Management uses!
And we imposed that recycling mandate on ourselves, due to state ordinances.
Now folks are discouraged from recycling on their own.
These scavengers are trying to help themselves – that is actually quite Libertarian of them.
We forget that the poor (in Southern CA that translates as primarily Latino immigrants) were the original recyclers.
My grandparents could not bear to see anything go to waste. Junk mail envelopes became pads for messages and grocery lists. Plastic utensils were washed in hot soapy water and stored for another picnic. Grocery bags became free wastebasket liners. Shredded newsprint and food scraps went into the corner of the yard where, mixed with dry leaves and grass cuttings, they made rich soil in a few months. This was back in the 70s before people sorted their trash!
Gramps asked his neighbors to set aside their bottles and cans. He would take them squash and tomatoes from his garden in exchange. How very neighborly. He knew everyone on his street as a result. Got lots of exercise, and a few bucks in extra retirement income.
When my great-aunt was visiting from Mexico, she picked up a plastic spoon in the park, appalled that someone would discard a perfectly good spoon! It was beyond her comprehension. The spoon was washed, then used for the dog food until it broke. She taught me to punch small holes in the bottom of a take out cup and fill it with soil to start seedlings.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Sad that we’ve become a throw-away culture. It will come back to hurt our grandchildren.
And when I see the old man searching the trash can at the gas station for cans and bottles, I check my car for empty containers to hand him. And I think about how happy he will be when buying his grandchild a special treat. And maybe the ice cream man who sells him that treat will over time be able to afford his house payment as a result. One less foreclosure in the neighborhood.
That’s how it works.
#25 – the trash haulers are making money off the customer. Why can’t I decide who gets to haul off the recyclables? Why do residents pay exhorbent refuse costs only to have Waste Mgmt. monetarily benefit from our recyclables? If rates were more in line to compensate for the money they make off the residents’ recyclables, perhaps it’s worthy of a discussion.
Years ago there was a couple in the news who sent their two children through college scavenging recyclables. These parents did they best they could. They dug through trash to better the lives of their children. Think about that – dumpster divers. WOW, I wish more parents were so resourceful when it comes to placing their children a priority.
Times are difficult and a good dose of compassion is in order.
is this the same neighborhood that encourages its residents to walk the neighborhood and turn in code violations?
#29,
Yep – no surprise there. Unfriendly tightly wound bunch.
Maybe if Tim Rush had gotten off his lazy ass and scavenged peoples trash for recyclables instead of ripping them off he wouldn’t be a convicted felon today.
Just a thought.
If it is true that these scavengers are rumaging thru these peoples trash in order to steal the identities of these residents I think the just punishment would be to saddle the offender with Tim Rush’s identity.
The sentence would probably be thrown out by the appeals court as being cruel and unusual punishment.
Why didn’t they say anything when the When the County Clerks office was selling the identities for a 1.00 a pop? Which came with driver’s license Numbers, alien identification numbers and addresses? If you didn’t have the money you could just write it down from the kiosk. Is it because these were business people that didn’t look like identity thieves?
okay…I must chime in here briefly. I am a Floral Park resident and these “scavengers” have been very noticeable over the past few months. Honestly, at first it did make me somewhat uncomfortable. But here’s what I have witnessed. They usually pass by my house around 11pm or so. The purposely try to make as little noise as possible as to not draw attention. Then, on Monday morning when the sun comes out…guess what…there has never EVER been any mess whatsoever.
I understand that this makes people uncomfortable…it did the same thing to me. But these, let’s call them people rather than scavengers, are obviously in desparate need.
Let’s just all give thanks and pray that we never find ourselves in the same position!!
The trash you put into the cart is your property until the truck comes by and picks it up.
Anyone getting into it for the purpose of taking stuff out is a petty thief.
There is no legal difference between someone taking stuff out of your trash, as compared to out of your car or out of your house. No one goes into my trash cause I recycle all myself and my can is full of dog poop.
But, also giving the city more power, or the only power, is going over board. Pick up the trash in and around your property, wash off, or paint over the graffiti and put pet waste on top, the punks and petty thieves will get the message and move on.
#35…
you are a piece of work…so a poor lady trying to take a few aluminum cans out of my trash is no different than a home invasion robber?!?!?!
If we all follow your logic, we should also fill our cars and houses with dog s*** to keep the thieves away. Nice.
Well maybe if you people would put the recyclables in the gray can, they would have no reason to search the brown can. They could just empty the gray can into their carts. 🙂
So what is next? Maybe get rid of all the recycling centers, or getting a permit from the city to recycle? I pay the deposits for my recyclables, and the city already charges me too much. I much rather have some one that needs it take it. It doesn’t matter what race.
curious,
If you want to give some little old lady your cans and bottles, put them I a box or bag and hand then over in person, why force her to go though your trash like a rat.
The complaint in the post was about people tossing trash all over yards and intimidating residences in the process. (no race card attached)
What the homeless need?
They pay no rent, their shelter is free, food and clothes are delivered daily so that is covered too. Medical costs, covered again. Drugs, booze or other personal vices, the county covers that with general assistance cash and food stamps (that are sold for cash).
What these people could really use is, a place to shower and go to the bathroom. So they can change their clothes and feel human again.
How sad that you only see the “RACE card” when dealing with QUALITY
OF LIFE issues. What about the noice, trash thrown on the street,
waking of sleeping residents who take care of their property.
Wilshire Square makes donations to many charities and the people who live here make many individual contributions as well.
There are rules and regulations that citizens have to live by to make a safe and effective community. Unfortunately, it is against the law to “pick through trash” SO please try to find another way to complain about following the rules and trying to make for a better neighborhood! Using Race is just too easy!!
#39 (Cook). I like your idea. Set the recyclables aside. It’s the humane thing to do.
However, you do not understand what being homeless is like.
Not scavengers! These are our neediest residents who meticulously look through our trash cans – because there is NO mess left behind.
On a cold rainy night, approximately two months ago, I gave a man a coat…- he looked green in the face, the white part of his eyes quite yellowish. He said, “Thank you, God bless you- I just had a kidney transplant 2 wks ago.”–and this man was out digging through trash cans-looking for cans. I was filled with emotion, and tears broke my short encounter with this man. Why and how could our city council and neighbors be so insensitive??? This should not be in America. I leave bags of cans and plastic water bottles on top of my trash cans, or hanging from my fence for these ppl.
To #42……
I understand what your’re saying. And I certainly feel for the poor guy having to scavenge after a kidney transplant. This whole world is in a sorry state right now and I’m pretty sure that it won’t be fixed in our lifetimes. And regarding our state, I sort of imagine it to having people move into my house one by one for help……the money is only going to go so far. Once I’m out, I’m out. There are just too many people and not enough money. It’s a major predicament that as I said, probably won’t be much better in our lifetime.
I live in Los Angeles 90020 and would love the City of Los Angeles to use these locked cans. I hate being woken up during the night because some scumbag is rummaging through my trash and clanking bottles. Sometimes they leave a mess, but generally the noise at late hours is my primary complaint. I can’t see who they are during the night, but I wish they would go to hell.
Mestizos are vermin and locking them out is not enough. Killing them should be allowed as IMHO they are not human.