Venturing into Racist Land.

I left the house to take a few photographs. I walked towards the old national police building, built in Franco's times it is imposing. The arquitecture is a colonial Spanish style, put into a lesser known colony of Spain, Catalonia, as a reminder of who we are and should be. Then I went to the medieval walls and St Martin's church belonging to the 12th century. It limited the jewish quarter, which was destroyed centuries ago when the jews were kicked out. Then I walked towards the Seu Vella [the old cathedral]. The streets underneath it are too small for more than one car at a time and they are shaded. Times have changed, now they are difficult to drive through and the shade is no longer a good thing. While before it would have served as a protection from the sun, now people are scared of walking through them. There are drugs and 'yonkees' in them.
Sure enough, the city centre changed 300 years ago, when the Castillians tore down the old one and converted the cathedral into military quarters. From then on we would live under their eyes, with the shadow of the best of the city, what made it important, turned into a watchdog's. Now the city centre's streets are wide and full of trees, modern. The old part became cheap, because nobody wanted to live there and the only people who could afford to were immigrants. People don't walk around here anymore. People are scared. I have always known that Spain was a racist country, this is one of the reasons why I moved. If you aren't Spainsh here, you are a second-class citizen. "Jobs should be given to Spanish first, then we can give what's left to the rest"- these aren't the words of a white power group, I heard these words from someone who I always thought was pretty tolerant. This is what happens when there are no jobs, for anyone. Even though immigrants are needed in Europe, because society is ageing, in small cities jobs are given to those you know, who tend to be friends from school, etc.
The thing is, Spain is such a mixed land that defining who is and isn't Spanish can't be done by merely looking. There are very dark people in the south, very white people in the north and a bit of everything in between.

The old section of Lleida is said to be that of immigrants because they are either predominantly black, jobless or both. At first I felt followed when walking around, but then I realized that it was stupid. Everyone goes to the same places, and I only felt threatened because people say its a bad area. They say this not because it is, I bet they've never been robbed and they haven't been insulted or anything. It's just that they are racist. This zone, with its 12th century buildings and potentially romantic small streets is bad because they live here. "They don't do anything", meaning they don't work. Likewise then, Spanish people who are from here don't do anything, because there are no jobs for them either. There simply aren't any jobs. Like everywhere, while the CEO's and directors pocket more than ever, the rest, all of us, have to make do with the remains. People die or starve because they can't afford what's going to be thrown out. Spanish people who are white hitherto lived in a priveleged situation, but they are starting to realize that there are no jobs and they blame the Roma, Africans, Arabs, etc. for no reason. How have they stopped you from getting a job? They are in fact in an even worse situation, because they are not 'Spanish'. It is even more unlikely for them to get jobs. You say they don't do anything? What should they do, protest? If they do they'll end up in the prison, or deported. Immigrants have less rights then the rest of people here in Spain and they are only allowed to obey. Moreover, immigrants aren't allowed to succeed. While poor immigrants are considered thieves, richer immigrants are called drugdealers, "because they aren't doctors".Spanish people cannot understand why immigrants recur to crime. The answer: we take away their dignity, give them no chances or opportunities and don't allow them to express themselves. We make them criminals.

I've heard people say that they don't want to fit in, but they can't. In Spain to fit in you have to be white. The underlying problem is reflected here: "before you could walk down the streets and you'd know everyone or at least recognize them"... There is this small town mentality in Lleida, Barcelona and all over Spain. Spanish want society to be like it was but it isn't. I'm sorry, the world has changed. It doesn't stop spinning. Immigrants cannot fit in to this small town mentality because they weren't here before. Spanish on the other hand, can't fit into this big world mentality because they aren't here either. They have to move on and recognize that immigration isn't a problem but an opportunity. We can all learn from each other but to do so we have to be able to accept reality: that we are all the same.
There are no jobs because the system is corrupt. The only people that matter in capitalism aren't important because they are Spanish but because they own Spanish people. In the 12th century society was feudal, in the 21st it has changed little. Serfs revolted then as we should now, but now there are more of us, each one of us different, but the same.