Man Who Hated Blacks And Mexicans Joins Army, And His Conversation With Fellow Mexican Soldier Goes Viral
In these times of intolerance, fear, and racial tension, it’s easy to forget that there are still places in the world where friendship knows no colour. According to Mexican-American soldier Israel Parra, the army is one of them, and his story of a bond he made in Iraq that transcended all boundaries of hate is exactly what we all needed to hear right now.
The heartwarming tale, which Parra posted on Facebook on August 15th, has almost hit 60 thousand shares and more than 89 thousand likes. More importantly, it’s sparking a discussion on whether discrimination is a learned or inherited practice. Say what you will, but one can’t deny that nothing brings a group of people – no matter how diverse – together quite like fighting on the front lines for a common cause.
Read the touching story for yourself below, and tell us what you think in the comments.
853Kviews
Share on FacebookIn wartime a bullet, or bomb, doesn't care what race or ethnicity you are. Everyone depends on each other, and those entering the military brotherhood quickly learn this fact of military life. You're all indeed a 'band of brothers'. I was born and raised an Army Brat. In the 50s I lived in Alaska, and even then my buddies/playmates were of different race/ethnicity. And I never heard anyone make racist comments. Too bad I can't say that for the civilian population. :(
Yup. I even learned my best racist jokes from people of the race being mocked during my time in the army. You give each other s**t about EVERYTHING, race included but in the end you will do anything for your brothers in arms.
to me this just indicates all the more the importance of having the most diverse military in the world. under times of stress and danger you learn to trust those you don't normally, and you will be rewarded for that trust.
From a young age, I was always taught not to care about race, sexuality, or gender. As long as you're not a d**k we're good.
Yes, race means nothing as long as you are killing others under the flag of USA, right?
race means nothing when you are fighting to protect something you love.
Load More Replies...It's a start anyway. Hopefully one day this level of acceptance and tolerance will extend to women and trans people too.
I think that people thoughts change and their persecutive change when they learn to see through others eyes. I have faith still in this world, I pray for spain and hope everyone'e families are ok.
Sounds like a story about a racist piece of s**t who happened to like one Mexican. Additionally, uniting together with people you hate to harm and hate on others is not a solution to the problem. And to Deborah in the Facebook comments, there are plenty of people in the military who stand for nothing. You don't have to literally fight to be passionate.
At some level we ALL depend on each other, whether we are in a war or not. We are ALL human beings. We all depend on the Earth. Hatred is incredibly destructive for both the haters and the hated.
My first two roomates in NBC School(USMC) were a WASP and a former Neo Nazi. I didn't understand why neither of them would talk to me at first until I really began to open up to them. They did a lot of sneaky and underhanded things to try to make my life miserable(I think they were trying to get me put in another room, or in trouble, i dont know). When I met all of their hate and nastyness with compassion it became impossible for them to hate me. I'm black, and I was raised in a mostely white neighborhood. I was harrassed and bullied all my life and I still have some anxiety issues because of it. However, i learned how to deal with it when I was a teenager, kill them with kindness. I could endoure the physical and mental abuse enough to tolerate the pain without letting it show(at the same time I had been lifting weights and had become the strongest kid in school at 15). It's hard to hate someone that's being nice to you. So I killed them with kindness. We quickly became best friends.
I have a lot of respect for you. I'm really trying to live the "fight hate with love" mentality in my life, but I'm certainly not perfect. I'm amazed that you became best friends, hats off to you!
Load More Replies...I work with cancer and transplant patients. I get to see similar things happen and it's always amazing. I cherish the bonds I see forged.
That´s cool but they are other think we must solved. i´m a friendly inmigrant who makes friends and let other know im not bad person i´m even trying be the greatest guy they meet but in other hand they are racism and not only from part of white people who has prejudices i met a lot of latin-americans who are racist and a lot because maybe you don´t know this but racist are in everyplace of the world it´s not just an issue about white guy hating black, mexican arab asian or whatever it´s too about inmigrants who goes to work or school and only try being friends with another inmigrants instead try to makes things easier for all of us. And it´s a fact that mostly places where inmigrants comes are poor and had terrible problems with crimes and instead fight them inmigrants join them because they don´t feel like they live in their country. As inmigrant i must say THIS : WHEN YOU LIVE AND WORK ON A PLACE, THAT PLACE BELONG TO YOU AS YOUR HOME AND YOU MUST FEEL THAT WAY
A story comes to mind that I read a long time ago. It's on a battlefield. The firing is really heavy and intense. One of the soldiers up front is mortally wounded, but the firing is too heavy and nobody can get to him. Suddenly a soldier gets up and starts running towards his wounded buddy. The Captain shouts, "Don't do it, the firing is too heavy, you won't make it." However the soldier keeps running and as he reaches his buddy he is also mortally wounded. When finally the firing subsided a little the Captain was able to reach the wounded soldiers. The first soldier had already died, and his buddy, who went to save him, lay besides him badly wounded and dying. The Captain said, "I told you not to go, now I have lost you both." And the wounded soldier said, "Yes Sir, but just before my buddy died he said "I knew you'd come."
If the media was not so concerned with fanning the fires of intolerance and ignorance this would have all gone away- but they are out to make a buck and the Sheeple just crave a leader..
In the 60s as a white child when racism was so ugly my mom sang in the choir with a Jew and a black woman, I was taught at home and in church not to be racist, key word being TAUGHT! First time I followed other kids saying the N word my mom punished me for being a follower! She made me tell the black choir singer, at church, what I had said and made me apologize while her hand had a death grip on my shoulder! My moms death grip was always epic and she taught me to never do that ever again! Kids need to be taught starting at home!
.Donny boy..... he missed that. DAMN Bone spurs have reached his rotting Brain. Remember, remember
How "lovely" that these two talk about "Bleeding" the same red, all the while shooting people from another nation IN THE LAND of these people. It doesn't matter what nationality you are- if you are doing the bloody bidding of Uncle Sam- then F**K YOU!
When I was in the military the foreign women told me black had tails..no trips to Australia, and was called "n-ger"more times than I could remember. Plus no respect from brass.
Great, now see if you can include the 'enemy' in your group of people you were mistaken about?!? The real enemy is the one who gives the order to kill other people!
Same in Israel, serving together! Israel is much more advanced then the US in accepting the different imo. Holocaust reminds us how wrong it is to hate or be a racist. We even have Muslims in our army, serving side by side just like everyone else.
Can you explain why the army let young a******s doing that kind of stuff on a holy place? I was schoked as a foreigner, there is a lot of security and soldiers and they did nothing. DSCN0694_L...7d-png.jpg
Load More Replies...All sides should read this. I have seen some horrible stuff written about whites by non whites. It's not a white only problem but something everybody should understand.
My father was career Navy, the first 20 years of my life was as a dependent. The one thing the military instills is teamwork. Very few jobs will position a person with the variety of ethnicity, upbringing and points of view as military service does. If you think you are a tolerant person now, how would you feel working shoulder-to-shoulder with people who were not raised the way you were, who do not think the way you do and you will often disagree with philosophically. The job is the job and it will be done by the team regardless of personal feelings. Doesn't matter if that job is standing exposed on guard duty at a border checkpoint in Iraq, hot-bunking with a submariner crew or jumping out of plane as a platoon.
Ahem.... To answer your question about how you would feel working next to someone different... Although we have an office job, we're a "globalization" team, we work on translations and localisation for video games. That means basically this -> in our department, we are mostly international employees gathered from around the world working together on the same project, under same conditions, in the samw country. Each of us speaking different languages, born and raised in a different country, with different experiences growing up, different political ideas as well. Yeah, I might get downvoted for this comment, but as someone who was literally born a year before the war in my country (ex-Yugoslavia) and now experiencing regular annual threats from N. Korea right in the month of my birthday, I simply can't stand the romanticizing of military actions and wars and such. With all the respect and gratitude for those who fought/fight to protect us.
Load More Replies...Same should go for what heder you are or what gender you love. If someone's fighting with you , you're depending on them , does it matter if they wear a dress or pants ?
I believe racism is taught. Having grown up in a very small white town, we never saw (in person) any people of color so I think my parents and other adults were afraid of them. Afraid of the "unknown" perhaps. I had to learn on ymy own to take each person on their own merits not by color. I still find myself sometimes making decisions based on color of a person, yet to recognise this fault and turn it around. I hope I can teach my kids reality not prejudged moralities.
I went to basic 37 yrs ago, had a guy from the south, he was brought up as racist. Where I'm from, there're people from every country, NYC. I ignored him from the start, but he kept pushing the issue. The DI learned about it, and that stopped quick. We actually graduated as buddies.
Us versus them does build strong bonds. I wish we could stop pretending that that's a good thing.
Touching, but what I don't like about this is the glorification of the military.
People on Facebook have more mental issues then any person, and it when Viral like and shares don't mean anything to me once raciest always raciest you cant change it, oh its Facebook its fine the changed, people on facebook have a disorder the addicted t Facebook
1.- The guy was a racist. 2.- He met a Mexican. 3.- He liked the Mexican. 4.- The became friends. 5.- The guy is not a racist anymore. 6.- They go somewhere else to eradicate some other race. The army is, by definition, based on values of intolerance. So don't give me that c**p...
I'm gonna assume you stumbled in from the fourties and didn't realize you time traveled.
Load More Replies...What about your arabs victims? What about the destruction you have brought on them? They deserve to be murdered by you? Have a remote idea of why you are there, killing people you don't even know? All arabs are terrorists? What you doing so far from home, you are there because the super billionaires need to sell weapons and steal oil, you sre behaving ad mercenaries of the corporations. The main responsible of terrorism have been never touch , their buddies Saudi Arabia
The army taugh me not to be racist. Now lets blow up some rag heads.
Yeah the only color that matters is money color, inviding killing and robing in the name of brotherhood and democracy that is the true color to follow
There is no evidence this didn't happen. (See how easy that was?)
Load More Replies...In wartime a bullet, or bomb, doesn't care what race or ethnicity you are. Everyone depends on each other, and those entering the military brotherhood quickly learn this fact of military life. You're all indeed a 'band of brothers'. I was born and raised an Army Brat. In the 50s I lived in Alaska, and even then my buddies/playmates were of different race/ethnicity. And I never heard anyone make racist comments. Too bad I can't say that for the civilian population. :(
Yup. I even learned my best racist jokes from people of the race being mocked during my time in the army. You give each other s**t about EVERYTHING, race included but in the end you will do anything for your brothers in arms.
to me this just indicates all the more the importance of having the most diverse military in the world. under times of stress and danger you learn to trust those you don't normally, and you will be rewarded for that trust.
From a young age, I was always taught not to care about race, sexuality, or gender. As long as you're not a d**k we're good.
Yes, race means nothing as long as you are killing others under the flag of USA, right?
race means nothing when you are fighting to protect something you love.
Load More Replies...It's a start anyway. Hopefully one day this level of acceptance and tolerance will extend to women and trans people too.
I think that people thoughts change and their persecutive change when they learn to see through others eyes. I have faith still in this world, I pray for spain and hope everyone'e families are ok.
Sounds like a story about a racist piece of s**t who happened to like one Mexican. Additionally, uniting together with people you hate to harm and hate on others is not a solution to the problem. And to Deborah in the Facebook comments, there are plenty of people in the military who stand for nothing. You don't have to literally fight to be passionate.
At some level we ALL depend on each other, whether we are in a war or not. We are ALL human beings. We all depend on the Earth. Hatred is incredibly destructive for both the haters and the hated.
My first two roomates in NBC School(USMC) were a WASP and a former Neo Nazi. I didn't understand why neither of them would talk to me at first until I really began to open up to them. They did a lot of sneaky and underhanded things to try to make my life miserable(I think they were trying to get me put in another room, or in trouble, i dont know). When I met all of their hate and nastyness with compassion it became impossible for them to hate me. I'm black, and I was raised in a mostely white neighborhood. I was harrassed and bullied all my life and I still have some anxiety issues because of it. However, i learned how to deal with it when I was a teenager, kill them with kindness. I could endoure the physical and mental abuse enough to tolerate the pain without letting it show(at the same time I had been lifting weights and had become the strongest kid in school at 15). It's hard to hate someone that's being nice to you. So I killed them with kindness. We quickly became best friends.
I have a lot of respect for you. I'm really trying to live the "fight hate with love" mentality in my life, but I'm certainly not perfect. I'm amazed that you became best friends, hats off to you!
Load More Replies...I work with cancer and transplant patients. I get to see similar things happen and it's always amazing. I cherish the bonds I see forged.
That´s cool but they are other think we must solved. i´m a friendly inmigrant who makes friends and let other know im not bad person i´m even trying be the greatest guy they meet but in other hand they are racism and not only from part of white people who has prejudices i met a lot of latin-americans who are racist and a lot because maybe you don´t know this but racist are in everyplace of the world it´s not just an issue about white guy hating black, mexican arab asian or whatever it´s too about inmigrants who goes to work or school and only try being friends with another inmigrants instead try to makes things easier for all of us. And it´s a fact that mostly places where inmigrants comes are poor and had terrible problems with crimes and instead fight them inmigrants join them because they don´t feel like they live in their country. As inmigrant i must say THIS : WHEN YOU LIVE AND WORK ON A PLACE, THAT PLACE BELONG TO YOU AS YOUR HOME AND YOU MUST FEEL THAT WAY
A story comes to mind that I read a long time ago. It's on a battlefield. The firing is really heavy and intense. One of the soldiers up front is mortally wounded, but the firing is too heavy and nobody can get to him. Suddenly a soldier gets up and starts running towards his wounded buddy. The Captain shouts, "Don't do it, the firing is too heavy, you won't make it." However the soldier keeps running and as he reaches his buddy he is also mortally wounded. When finally the firing subsided a little the Captain was able to reach the wounded soldiers. The first soldier had already died, and his buddy, who went to save him, lay besides him badly wounded and dying. The Captain said, "I told you not to go, now I have lost you both." And the wounded soldier said, "Yes Sir, but just before my buddy died he said "I knew you'd come."
If the media was not so concerned with fanning the fires of intolerance and ignorance this would have all gone away- but they are out to make a buck and the Sheeple just crave a leader..
In the 60s as a white child when racism was so ugly my mom sang in the choir with a Jew and a black woman, I was taught at home and in church not to be racist, key word being TAUGHT! First time I followed other kids saying the N word my mom punished me for being a follower! She made me tell the black choir singer, at church, what I had said and made me apologize while her hand had a death grip on my shoulder! My moms death grip was always epic and she taught me to never do that ever again! Kids need to be taught starting at home!
.Donny boy..... he missed that. DAMN Bone spurs have reached his rotting Brain. Remember, remember
How "lovely" that these two talk about "Bleeding" the same red, all the while shooting people from another nation IN THE LAND of these people. It doesn't matter what nationality you are- if you are doing the bloody bidding of Uncle Sam- then F**K YOU!
When I was in the military the foreign women told me black had tails..no trips to Australia, and was called "n-ger"more times than I could remember. Plus no respect from brass.
Great, now see if you can include the 'enemy' in your group of people you were mistaken about?!? The real enemy is the one who gives the order to kill other people!
Same in Israel, serving together! Israel is much more advanced then the US in accepting the different imo. Holocaust reminds us how wrong it is to hate or be a racist. We even have Muslims in our army, serving side by side just like everyone else.
Can you explain why the army let young a******s doing that kind of stuff on a holy place? I was schoked as a foreigner, there is a lot of security and soldiers and they did nothing. DSCN0694_L...7d-png.jpg
Load More Replies...All sides should read this. I have seen some horrible stuff written about whites by non whites. It's not a white only problem but something everybody should understand.
My father was career Navy, the first 20 years of my life was as a dependent. The one thing the military instills is teamwork. Very few jobs will position a person with the variety of ethnicity, upbringing and points of view as military service does. If you think you are a tolerant person now, how would you feel working shoulder-to-shoulder with people who were not raised the way you were, who do not think the way you do and you will often disagree with philosophically. The job is the job and it will be done by the team regardless of personal feelings. Doesn't matter if that job is standing exposed on guard duty at a border checkpoint in Iraq, hot-bunking with a submariner crew or jumping out of plane as a platoon.
Ahem.... To answer your question about how you would feel working next to someone different... Although we have an office job, we're a "globalization" team, we work on translations and localisation for video games. That means basically this -> in our department, we are mostly international employees gathered from around the world working together on the same project, under same conditions, in the samw country. Each of us speaking different languages, born and raised in a different country, with different experiences growing up, different political ideas as well. Yeah, I might get downvoted for this comment, but as someone who was literally born a year before the war in my country (ex-Yugoslavia) and now experiencing regular annual threats from N. Korea right in the month of my birthday, I simply can't stand the romanticizing of military actions and wars and such. With all the respect and gratitude for those who fought/fight to protect us.
Load More Replies...Same should go for what heder you are or what gender you love. If someone's fighting with you , you're depending on them , does it matter if they wear a dress or pants ?
I believe racism is taught. Having grown up in a very small white town, we never saw (in person) any people of color so I think my parents and other adults were afraid of them. Afraid of the "unknown" perhaps. I had to learn on ymy own to take each person on their own merits not by color. I still find myself sometimes making decisions based on color of a person, yet to recognise this fault and turn it around. I hope I can teach my kids reality not prejudged moralities.
I went to basic 37 yrs ago, had a guy from the south, he was brought up as racist. Where I'm from, there're people from every country, NYC. I ignored him from the start, but he kept pushing the issue. The DI learned about it, and that stopped quick. We actually graduated as buddies.
Us versus them does build strong bonds. I wish we could stop pretending that that's a good thing.
Touching, but what I don't like about this is the glorification of the military.
People on Facebook have more mental issues then any person, and it when Viral like and shares don't mean anything to me once raciest always raciest you cant change it, oh its Facebook its fine the changed, people on facebook have a disorder the addicted t Facebook
1.- The guy was a racist. 2.- He met a Mexican. 3.- He liked the Mexican. 4.- The became friends. 5.- The guy is not a racist anymore. 6.- They go somewhere else to eradicate some other race. The army is, by definition, based on values of intolerance. So don't give me that c**p...
I'm gonna assume you stumbled in from the fourties and didn't realize you time traveled.
Load More Replies...What about your arabs victims? What about the destruction you have brought on them? They deserve to be murdered by you? Have a remote idea of why you are there, killing people you don't even know? All arabs are terrorists? What you doing so far from home, you are there because the super billionaires need to sell weapons and steal oil, you sre behaving ad mercenaries of the corporations. The main responsible of terrorism have been never touch , their buddies Saudi Arabia
The army taugh me not to be racist. Now lets blow up some rag heads.
Yeah the only color that matters is money color, inviding killing and robing in the name of brotherhood and democracy that is the true color to follow
There is no evidence this didn't happen. (See how easy that was?)
Load More Replies...
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