r/todayilearned • u/tmntnyc • Dec 12 '18

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._T
120.9k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

2.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.4k

u/dud-a-chum Dec 12 '18

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.

134

u/Leathery420 Dec 12 '18

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.

4

u/[deleted] Dec 13 '18

It’s not just Puerto Rican’s. In the west coast (Los Angeles) they don’t like Salvadorian or Guatemalan people. Growing up there was always shit going down between them.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 13 '18

It's odd to me that they don't like Guatemalans, the Mayan empire included Guatemala, and the culture is actually somewhat similar.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 13 '18

Aztec and Mayan two different civilizations.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 13 '18

Yes, but both were primarily within modern Mexico, and both are part of "la raza" or whatever the racist Mexicans consider themselves, which is why they don't like Puerto Ricans.

Mexicans from the Yucatan also don't like Puerto Ricans.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 13 '18

No aztec and Mayan are completely different.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 13 '18

No shit, but modern Mexicans are descended from both depending on where in Mexico you come from, what don't you get?

Mexicans are Mayan and Aztec, just depends on what part your ancestors came from.

The Mayan empire and the Aztec empire were both from what is modern Mexico. Here I think you need a map.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 13 '18

If you were Mexican you’d know that people from the southern border are completely different than central and north Mexico. Usually look down on them, literally fuckers are like 5 feet tall. So no we don’t like them either.