There’s a “Beaner” hate in Patchogue, New York so strong that people are being beaten and murdered — and to comprehend the vileness of the crimes, you need to understand that “Beaner” is a derogatory term for Latinos. The rest of the history of violence flows from that ethnic slur.

The Southern Poverty Law Center just released a report called “Climate of Fear: Latino Immigrants in Suffolk County, New York” and the conclusions are stunning.
The year for us is 2009 — but in Suffolk County — it appears they are stuck in the ongoing race hatred of the 1950’s.
Less than one year ago, on Nov. 8, 2008, Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorian immigrant, was murdered in the town of Patchogue, N.Y. The killing, police say, was carried out by a gang of teenagers who called themselves the Caucasian Crew and targeted Latino residents as part of a sport they termed “beaner-hopping.” It highlighted a growing national problem — violent hatred directed at all suspected undocumented immigrants, Latinos in particular. Officials in Suffolk County, N.Y., where Patchogue is located, minimized the tragedy, with the county executive even suggesting that it would have been a mere “one-day story” if not for earlier publicity about his and other residents’ anti-immigrant activism over the prior decade.
But wait, there’s more:
The Lucero murder, while the worst of the violence so far, was hardly an isolated incident. Latino immigrants in Suffolk County are regularly harassed, taunted, and pelted with objects hurled from cars. They are frequently run off the road while riding bicycles, and many report being beaten with baseball bats and other objects. Others have been shot with BB guns or pepper-sprayed. Most will not walk alone after dark; parents often refuse to let their children play outside. A few have been the targets of arson attacks and worse. Adding to immigrants’ fears is the furious rhetoric of groups like the now-defunct Sachem Quality of Life, whose long-time spokesman regularly referred to immigrants as “terrorists.” The leader of another nativist group, this one based in California, was one of many adding their vitriol, describing a “frightening” visit to an area where Latinos are concentrated in Suffolk: “They urinate, they defecate, [they] make sexual overtures to women.”
The most amazing part of the SPLC’s report
is that the only way this “Beaner Hated” can grow and be sustained in Suffolk County is because the government and its public employees aren’t doing enough to stop the crimes against the immigrants — and that, mixed with a high influx of immigrants — makes for a roiling pot of fury and vengeance that cannot, and shall not, be solved by turning the other cheek and pretending the bloodshed doesn’t matter.
The repressed always arise higher than their original oppression and they take back their respect in the methodical, non-abstract, removal of their tormentors — by any means possible. One county’s racist policy will only be flipped and become a new policy of hatred when, inevitably, the crushed minority finally becomes the majority power.
What compels people to be so hateful in 2009 with all we have learned and grown to know over the years? Hatred seems passed on from generation to generation and it makes me wonder how we will be rid of it.
Excellent questions, Gordon! I think it is economics: Whites don’t want “Beaners” taking over any job — even jobs that the Whites won’t work. The real trouble comes when these vigilante gangs are free to roam without punishment or the enforcement of local laws. They, then, become the law of the land by default.
Will you please stop spreading false news. Yes, Marcelo Lucero was murdered in Patchogue Village. However, the perpetrators were NOT from Patchogue Village or or even Greater Patchogue. One of them was even of Puerto Rican descent. Before you spread vile news about a place and its people, why don’t you visit and see our Latino population walking our streets with their children, riding their bikes, shopping alongside non-Latinos without fear?
The latest incident at a local church was perpetrated by a Latino who had some differences with the congregation. It had nothing to do with racism.
karenferb —
“Nothing to do with racism?” You’re kidding, right?
I’ll let the SPLC answer you and the history of Racial Violence in Patchogue:
http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?pid=424