When I first arrived in this neighborhood I was taken aback by the fact that there were black folks, brown folks, gay and lesbian folks walking this street without killing each other. It was a novel idea. I had never seen this before and it was new and impossibly wondrous....

I am sitting outside La Bonita eating my dinner after a long, hard day at the Capitol when a young white couple, without first greeting me, ask me if I can move from my table so that they can sit there with their dog.

Stunned, I point to an empty table. But they want my table. They want this Mexican to move his brown skin so that their infantilized dog can sit in my place.

I refuse to move for their dog and they become angry. Such is the measure of their white entitlement.