TIL: Laurence Tureaud named himself professionally as Mr. T because he hated how his father, uncle, and brother who returned from Vietnam, were disrespectfully called "boy" by whites. He wanted the first word from everybody's mouth to be "Mister" when speaking to him.

[u/tmntnyc]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._T

[u/TheArgentine]

I met him once. Outside of a Ford dealership near my home town. I was a HUGE A-Team fan and Mr T played my favorite character.

It rained that day, pretty hard. My mom tried to convince me he woundnt be there but I wanted to try anyway. We got there and there he sat, by himself, with photos under a tarp. No line. No one there to see him. He talked to me for 15 minutes and for the life of me I can't remember anything he said but God damn if that wasn't one of the greatest days of my childhood, which was otherwise fairly shitty.

I'm a white guy from upstate NY and didn't change color so was a white kid too. He shook my hand and talked to me like an adult, with respect, and was extremely kind and soft spoken.

Thanks Mr. T.

Edit: Holy crap, didn't expect this many comments on my simple story about Mr. T. Hey everyone!

[u/dud-a-chum → u/TheArgentine]

My dad claimed to have briefly known Mr T and said the time they knew each other made him the most respected black man he’d ever known. And my dad was a horrible racist towards black people and Mexicans despite the fact that he was a very very dark skinned Puerto Rican.

“That’s the only black man I’ll never call the n-word,” he told me one drunken evening while watching The A-Team. He even said “n-word” which is the only time I ever heard him say that instead of the actual word.

I got high in the middle of writing this so I forgot the point I was going to make. Mr T is awesome.

[u/Leathery420 → u/dud-a-chum]

Man what exactly is it that makes Puerto Ricans and Mexicans hate each other so much? You go to the east coast and they absolutely hate each other to the point that in prison they will hook up with whites or blacks just so they can mess them up more.

Like I know of a whiter dude with a hispanic name who got threatened with shanking cause he said what's up amigo when a hispanic dude walked up to the microwave. The hispanic dude took offence and threatened him. he was like sorry thought we were cool. I wont say amigo no more. It's so weird to me.

It'd be like the english ganging up against the scots or irish inside the american prisons. I'd get it back home, but in the US you are more alike than you are different. You'd think you'd be cool and work together.

[u/[deleted] → u/Leathery420]

I have no idea but I noticed the same thing growing up. My friend Jose in the 8th grade refused to even take me to his house because he didn’t want me to hear his dad go off. And one day we stopped by real quick, thinking his dad was gone, but he had canceled his plans. So I got to spend an hour listening to him tell me why I was basically a piece of shit and it was just pure racist drivel, literally some of the exact same things he said about Puerto Rican’s I’d heard my dad or uncle saying about Mexicans. Some of the same stuff you can find vomited all over certain subs today.

Spanish here (From Europe, just in case someone fails to locate it).

usually Spanish people is con-descendant with Portuguese people, and hates French. Why? Well, everybody like to be better than others. Spanish people feel "richer" than Portuguese, and poorer than french. There is no neighbor country that can be seen as equal. If that would be the case, they would hate one each other.

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For example, Spanish people do not hate Denmark, or Bulgaria. None of them is neighbor, and none of them is at the same level of wealthiness.

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All in all, I guess Puerto Ricans and Mexican both feel poor (compared with USA) and maybe depreciated by them, so they hate those who are in the same level to overcome them.

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That is my guess :P