Hmm. On racism and media.

[kickaha]

So I ran across this... http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/01/21/chavez.ap/index.html

In it, Pres. Chavez of Venezuela apparently said "Go to hell, gringos!" in reference to the US in a radio address.

Okay. So he's unhappy, and he even probably has good reason to be.

So where's the outcry that would happen if a US politician said "Go to hell, wetbacks!" in reference to Mexico or any other Latin American state?

In case you couldn't notice, I'm not one that ascribes to the (to me, idiotic) idea that only whites can be racist, and only men can be sexist. Racism and sexism are endemic across races and genders, IMO, and equally stupid and moronic in whatever form they pop up.

Now, one could argue that gringo hasn't the punch that other racist names might have... but I'm not so sure, having grown up in a Hispanic-Anglo racially tense area. Gringo was spat with the same venom as wetback, in my personal experience, which makes this just...

*shakes head*

Idiots, idiots, everywhere, and not a brain to think.

Comments

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it would be like the time Bush the Elder showed those Australians the V-for-Victory sign. Backwards. Took 'til January '89 to get past that one.

I submit it would take a particularly clueless racist to refer to a native of a foreign country, who /resides/ in that foreign country, as a wetback. :)

(I stand by the redundancy of "clueless racist". I did not give you a hard time over "racist pinhead".)

[franktheavenger.livejournal.com]

Re: backwards V: did you hear about the 'bloody hell' commercial furor a little while ago? I guess we get to pick and choose the non-American vulgarities we get to understand. ;)

Also, Jason, I of course totally agree. Should we start working to find something we disagree on, just for the hell of it? :p

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

Missed the story the first time around, but it's still googleable. (I tend to be fairly news-averse; news is entertainment, and I prefer entertainment that's, well, entertaining. I look up stuff I want to know about, and figure I will hear through the grapevine about stuff that's actually relevant or interesting to me.)

I've always thought it was interesting that some Americans have semi-adopted "bloody" as a milder alternative to "fucking", but in Britain, it's apparently "bloody" that is more offensive.

(I could segue into a comparison of the relative views in the two countries on the appropriateness for children of depictions of violence vs. depictions of sex, and how those views might lead to the relative shock values of related terms, because one of the great joys in my life is hearing myself talk. But I won't, because another of the great joys in my life is spending my paycheck.)