Thanks to everybody who entered the contest for Season of the Witch passes. I’m happy to announce that the winner, chosen more or less at random, is Corinna. She will attend a special screening of the film here in LA and, hopefully, report back to us if it sucks or not.
I will resume my regularly scheduled rants with the New Year. And I hope you will continue to read and comment and rage and laugh with me into 2011.
See you soon.
Usually, at this time of the year, I take a short break from my ranting and raving to celebrate the holidays. That’s when I just post something to the blog such as, I don’t know, a video of a dog on a trampoline or the like.
Well, this year my holiday hiatus is different. Taking a cue from my fellow bloggers (most of whom are better marketers than I am), I’m running my first contest on this site.
Here’s how it works:
Readers who comment on this post (not any of the previous posts) will be entered for the chance to get passes for the Nicolas Cage movie Season of the Witch, which comes out next month.
You may ask, “What does Nicolas Cage have to do with Latino issues?” It’s a fair question, but I would point out that a dog on a trampoline has little to do with immigration reform, so let’s not overthink this one. It’s just a fun contest.
In any case, I will choose a winner at random from the commentators on this post. If we get a lot of responses, I may choose more than one, so increase your odds by commenting early and often.
The winner(s) will receive two passes to see the movie on January 6, 2011, in one of the following cities:
Los Angeles
San Jose
Chicago
Houston
Miami
Phoenix
If you win and attend the movie in Phoenix, I’m going to go ahead and assume that you oppose SB 1070.
So what should your comment be about? Well, that’s the beauty of the contest. Say anything you want.
Tell me that I’m brilliant. Tell me that I’m a moron. Inform me that all Latinos are extraterrestrials bent on world domination.
Or better yet, get into the spirit of the thing. Tell us if you believe in witchcraft. Pass along that creepy ghost story, or share if you’ve had a supernatural experience. Or you can just discuss your favorite Nicolas Cage film (mine is Adaptation).
The only thing you have to include in your comment is the city in which you intend to see the movie, so I can plan accordingly.
Now let’s get those comments flying, people. I want to give away these passes, and I can only do that if I get responses.
If you win, I’ll email the passes to you. By the way, I’m the only one who will see your email addresses (unless you specifically want to share it in the body of your comment), so don’t worry about that.
I’ll check back over Christmas to see how we’re doing, and I will pick a winner by New Year’s Day.
Until then, have a happy Festivus.
In 1989, Charles Stuart murdered his pregnant wife. To cover up his crime, he told police that a black man had done it. The cops, and pretty much everybody else, believed him.
Then the lie unraveled, and Stuart killed himself by jumping off a bridge.
Stuart is perhaps the most infamous example of someone who commits a crime or indulges in bad behavior, and then pins the blame on a black man. In fact, there is a history of people who have embraced this very effective ploy.
However, the gambit seems to be played out. In 2010, making up some story that an African American jumped you is so cliché. Contemporary Americans have paid attention to the political zeitgeist, and thus informed, decided that the most logical scapegoat is a Latino male.
For example, Heidi Jones, a weather anchor for ABC’s New York City affiliate and an occasional forecaster on Good Morning America, has recently been suspended from her job and has been arrested for lying to the police.
Jones claimed that a man tried to rape her while she was jogging in Central Park a couple of months ago. After investigating her claims, however, “investigators found inconsistencies in her story and could find no witnesses or suspects” and eventually got Jones to admit that she had “spun the tale as a ‘plea for sympathy’ because of trouble in her personal life.”
Jones has been charged with two counts of filing a false police report, and she faces a year in jail or a thousand-dollar fine.
One’s first reaction to this is disgust. Jones’ actions are incredibly harmful to real rape victims, many of whom often face hostile accusations of making the whole thing up. Here we have a public figure who has fabricated a sexual assault, providing ammunition to misogynists everywhere.
Pity is also a common reaction. How messed up must this woman’s existence be to create such a grotesque tale “in a plea for sympathy to counter some unknown setback that she was experiencing in her personal life”?
Once we get past those responses, however, we see the modern twist on the Stuart trope. Jones knew that to have any credibility, her fictional rapist had to be Hispanic.
Saying the guy was black seems suspicious, because that’s what Stuart and other liars claimed. However, a white perpetrator strains credibility, because… well… you know.
So Hispanic it is. After all, we make handy targets in political ads, and we have been blamed for everything from skyrocketing crime rates to the housing collapse. As such, creating a Latino thug who jumps women in the dark is a logical choice for the imaginary crime victim.
Lisa Navarrete, a spokeswoman for La Raza, commented on Jones’ hoax. Navarrete said it “reflects the mindset of many more people who think that if you want to make up a story and you want people to believe it, you should blame an African American man or a Latino.”
Navarrete is mostly correct. However, she’s clearly stuck in the past when she claims African Americans are as likely to be the object of a false claim. I mean, it’s not 1989 anymore.
Remember on Seinfeld, when one of the characters (usually Elaine) would get all freaked out over some minor slight? Much of that show’s comedy flowed from conniptions over mild social transgressions, such as neglecting to send a thank-you card or issuing improper credit for the big salad or speaking too close to one’s face.
Well, you’ll be delighted to know that such petty behaviors have their own sociological term, but only if they are directed at ethnic minorities.
In such cases, they are called acts of racial microaggression, and they are “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color.”
Microaggression is what occurs when security guards follow black people around stores, or an Asian American is told he speaks English well, or a Latino is mistaken for a day laborer. It’s the little things, subtle behaviors that a person may not even notice — unless they are directed at you.
In its nuances, microaggression is different from some racist nut screaming epithets and yelling at us to get out of the country (I believe that would be considered bugfuck macroaggression, technically speaking).
There are also microinsults and microinvalidation, and the truly alarming concept of microassault. I assume that last one involves bigots with tiny fists.
Just about any ethic minority can give examples of microaggression from his or her own life. These are moments when we are told (not overtly, of course) that we don’t belong.
The existence of this concept is undeniable. But does that mean racial microaggression has any real power? In other words, is this a real problem, the infamous death by a thousand cuts, or is it just fancied-up whining?
An argument can be made that, yes, a person repeatedly subjected to innuendo and between-the-lines insults will soon believe that he or she is inferior. But one could also say that such jabs are too weak, even when accumulated, to do any lasting damage.
I would be interested to know if anyone has done any research on the real-world effects of this phenomenon. I would also like to know if people who indulge in racial microaggression are accidental racists.
In any case, the punishment for such behavior could not be clearer, nor more severe.
That’s right: No soup for you.
She was found in a box in Mexico.
It was an inauspicious start to life, but from that humble beginning, she has grown into a kindhearted and affectionate individual. And she has finally learned that a true lady does not defecate in the living room.
Our new dog is a mutt of multiple breeds. We know, however, that the two primary breeds in her bloodline are, of all things, Boxer and Dachshund. It’s a truly unique, and logistically weird, combination (how did her parents get together?). But it makes her a Boxhund.
I’ve written before about my fondness for the canine species. They possess all of the positive traits of humanity (love, loyalty, joy, etc) with none of our negative characteristics (bigotry, greed, jealousy, etc).
When my wife and I decided to get a rescue dog, we assumed that he or she would be a local stray, found on the streets of Los Angeles. We were surprised, therefore, when the rescue group’s coordinator revealed that our puppy was discovered shivering in a parking lot just over the border.
Evidently, when it comes to taking care of animals, nationalities and borders don’t matter — and nor should they. Volunteers and vets with the rescue organization are not concerned where a dog originated, or on which patch of land she took her first breath. They simply strive to ensure that every animal finds a good home, and my wife and I are indebted to them.
This humanitarian process doesn’t work the same way with people. In fact, it’s noticeably easier for a dog to immigrate to America than it is for a person. Of course, as a Mexican national, our dog had to endure the usual bureaucracy and red tape, but I assure all the nativists out there that she is in the country legally.
Now, one could argue that our dog is performing tricks that an American puppy would gladly do. Maybe she’s driving down the minimum wage for dogs who are able to hold their “stay” command (it’s currently half a Milkbone).
But I have no intention of returning her to Mexico. It’s good to have a fellow Hispanic in the house.
It’s funny, however. You barely notice her Latina accent.
It’s good karma to thank one’s internet friends, so let me give a quick shout out to Pete and Raul for their recent comments on my posts.
Speaking of amigos, a friend and I met up for dinner recently. For some reason, we started talking about shitty jobs that we’ve had in the past. Between us, we’ve had some pretty horrific gigs, but one of hers in particular caught my attention.
My friend used to be a personal assistant for a minor celebrity here in Los Angeles. One of her duties was to take the celebrity’s mother out to lunch. Yes, Hollywood types really do pay people to perform such tasks (I’m glad I could confirm your justifiably low opinion of them).
In any case, my friend was doing her job, listening to the celebrity’s elderly mother drone on over lunch, when the old lady stopped talking. My friend looked up, concerned that her client’s mom had just suffered a stroke on her watch.
But the celebrity’s mom was staring. My friend noticed the unmistakable flitting of anger cross the lady’s face.
“Look at them,” the celebrity’s mom hissed.
My friend turned around to see what the offense was. As you can imagine, the object of scorn was a Latino family.
The celebrity’s mom launched into a diatribe about how Hispanics were taking over and how they were “stealing my benefits.”
The exact nature of these benefits was not made clear. In fact, my friend briefly considered telling the old lady that any privileges she had accrued were because of her majority status in the culture — that and the fact that her daughter had once starred in a hit TV show. It wasn’t because the old lady had actually worked hard for anything.
Nor did my friend learn how a normal-looking family out for a meal was really a front for stealing the old woman’s “benefits,” whatever those were. In fact, as my friend explained, “I’m not even sure everybody in the family was Hispanic. A couple of them looked Middle Eastern.”
In any case, my friend endured the diatribe about “sneaky Mexicans” and escorted the old lady out of the restaurant. The benefit-stealing family of possible Hispanics remained oblivious.
My friend quit the job soon after this incident. Cut off from the entourage, she never heard from the celebrity again. It’s just as well, because her old boss is now an ex-celebrity who hasn’t worked in years. In all likelihood, she doesn’t even have a personal assistant anymore.
Who knows, maybe the celebrity has to suffer the indignity of taking her own damn mom out for lunch.
It’s an inevitable fact of American life that any successful endeavor will be met with a thousand rip-offs. That’s why we have eight hundred upcoming movies about vampires. It’s why there are dozens of television shows about the intricacies of decorating cakes. And it explains why Pearl Jam is at least partly to blame for Creed.
So it should surprise no one that the apparent success of the Tea Party has inspired other political groups to follow its playbook. But I was dismayed to find out that one of the potential copycats is a coalition of Latino leaders who are “floating the idea of breaking traditional ties with the Democratic Party and creating a grass-roots independent movement tentatively called the Tequila Party.”
I half-suspect that this strange idea is an Onion article that I somehow missed reading. But in the chance that it’s not, let me make a few observations.
Now, as I’ve written before, I’m not u-rah-rah supporter of the Democratic Party. How the organization continues to flounder — despite the fact that countless polls show Americans actually agree with its platform — is a mesmerizing monument to its incompetence.
However, I have to ask if the best strategy to deal with this disappointment is to emulate the tactics of a bunch of rage-filled rednecks. On principle, Latinos should say no to this approach. And in practicality, it’s not a good idea to take lessons from people who can’t spell basic words in their native language.
Yes, the Tea Party has been successful in the short term. However, it has alienated as many Americans as it invigorated.
Some of its most hardcore proponents — such as noted nutjob Sharron Angle – went down in flames. It will be interesting to see if the Tea Party has any kind of sustained influence. Personally, I doubt it.
More likely, it will be one of those huge pop-culture moments that people believe will land in history books, but will actually fall somewhere between disco and the OJ trial as lasting cultural markers.
In addition, the Tequila Party’s founders should keep in mind that one reason for the Tea Party’s success was the inherent power of its members. As I’ve written before, these were primarily older, white, financially secure members of the establishment. Any complaint, no matter how absurd or self-serving, was guaranteed media coverage (often of the fawning type).
Yes, Latinos are (and I haven’t made this point in days now) the fastest-growing demographic in America. But it’s unlikely that Hispanics can assemble the throngs that the Tea Party put together, just because we don’t have the numbers (yet). And even if we could, I find it hard to believe that any gathering of that many Hispanics would be met with anything other than tear gas.
Finally, let me point out the folly of this whole crusade, which is to pressure the Democratic Party to address Latino issues. It should be obvious to everybody by now that one cannot pressure Democrats to do anything or to take action — unless that action consists of folding under the slightest pressure. They’re pretty good at that. But forcing them to actually accomplish something on their agenda… well, that’s trickier.
In sum, I’m dubious about this Tequila Party idea. Perhaps our time would better be spent reaching out to moderate citizens (if any are left) to convince them of our good intentions, rather then shouting at an impotent political organization.
On the other hand, it might be nice to attend a rally where the signs are bilingual — and spelled correctly.
