Hispanic Fanatic

You have to admire someone who takes a moral stand.

We’re talking about people who battle against injustice and refuse to back down. We’re talking about Gandhi, King, and the Dali Lama.

We’re talking about privileged white guys upset about diversity, and…

Hold on. What are talking about again?

Well, it seems that a political group, headed by that slimy xenophobe who slithered around the White House during the Trump years, is trolling corporations in an effort to destroy all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.

The group is “morally opposed to diversity” and accuses many firms of “being unlawfully woke.” So they are harassing companies and trying to persuade them to return to the good old days when ethnic minorities wouldn’t even get job interviews.

This sounds like a horrible joke, but as conservatives have reminded us time after time, they have no sense of humor and view every evolution in American culture since 1950 as a deathly serious threat to the nation.

So they are out there, protesting any attempt to acknowledge that racism still exists.

And it’s not just this one ineffectual group.

In our favorite state, Florida, the Disney “governing district — whose current board was hand-picked by DeSantis and took control of the district in February — abolished all of its diversity, equity and inclusion programs,” stating that these initiatives “were illegal and simply un-American.”

Yes, these guys are standing up for American values. See what I said about taking a moral stand?

But maybe these principled warriors are unaware of studies that show “if racial economic gaps for Black Americans alone had been closed 20 years ago, gross domestic product (GDP) in the United States would have grown by an estimated $16 trillion.”

Wow—if America weren’t so invested in maintaining the racist status quo, we would all be a lot better off, economically.

These studies also show that if we had more DEI programs, and if they had succeeded in closing the racial gap for Blacks just five years ago, GDP would have grown by $5 trillion, “which includes an additional $13 trillion in business revenue and 6.1 million jobs created per year.”

Again, those studies didn’t even include Latinos, Middle Easterners, and other ethnic minorities, so the total loss to our economy is likely even higher.

Crunching the numbers, DEI actually seems like a good thing for companies to invest in, assuming that they want to make a buck and not flounder just to appease a bunch of belligerent bigots.

In fact, other studies show that “diversity in a workplace plays an important role when it comes to testing an AI product,” which as we all know, is the wave of the future.

Or it could be a planet killer and destroy civilization — opinions vary.

In any case, research implies that current AI models are prone to outputting racist images and text. However, there are many “clear examples of how diversity within the workforce can improve the efficiency of testing to prevent racial bias in AI,” making a better product and improving the efficiency of cutting-edge technology.

But apparently, all of that is immoral.

So this past weekend, some blowhard megalomaniac hosted Saturday Night Live. Depending on your perspective, this event was a harmless pop culture happenstance, a dangerous promotion of xenophobia, or a tired comedy show jumping the shark into irrelevance once and for all.

In any case, everyone seemed to agree that it was 90 painfully unfunny minutes.

As you may have heard, many Latinos were aghast at SNL for asking this lunatic to host, and demonstrations broke out against the show’s tone-deaf decision. And of course, many Hispanic groups urged viewers to boycott SNL, the NBC network, and its advertisers.

While I find the sentiment understandable, even commendable, I also find it to be futile.

You see, the protests only gave more publicity to this fiasco. In fact, this installment of SNL was the show’s highest-rated episode in years. So much for the power of demonstrations.

And I’m no economist, but it seems to me that boycotts in the modern world rarely if ever work. Weren’t right-wing Christians boycotting Disney for years over the company’s gay-friendly policies? And how did that turn out for the homophobes?

No, I prefer to refrain from giving the bigots and the nutjobs more attention. It only encourages them.

And to be honest, I haven’t watched SNL in years, so they wouldn’t even notice me boycotting them.

So it’s on to the next freakshow or outbreak of smug prejudice. And this time, maybe we should all just look away and not even talk about it.

I hesitate to mention this, but I know way too much about Sofia the First.

You see, we have a two-year-old boy, and while we limit his TV time, he still catches the occasional Doc McStuffins or Jake and the Neverland Pirates. And Sofia is on right after Jake, so we’ve caught bits and pieces of the show (just enough to drive me mildly insane).

Now, it turns out that Sofia is going to be the launching pad for Disney’s first Latina princess, Elena of Avalor, who is inspired by “diverse Latin cultures and folklore,” according to the good people at Disney. She will receive her own TV show next year.

Of course, the issue of diversity is a touchy one in Hollywood. Just ask Sean Penn about Hispanic representation in the film world… well, on second thought, don’t ask him anything.

In any case, Elena’s arrival shows that Hollywood is sensitive to its reputation as indifferent to ethnic minorities, and that the entertainment industry is trying to improve the representation of Hispanics in pop culture.

But everybody’s a critic. And those critics are saying it’s too little, too late.

First, there is the issue that Elena is going to originate as a sidekick, and worse, there are no plans for her to have her own movie, despite the fact that many Disney princesses of various ethnicities and races have received their own feature films. Hey, Mulan got a pair of movies over a decade ago, and Asians are even less represented in film than Hispanics. So, yeah — what gives?

The second irritation is that Elena’s exact nationality is being kept vague. By not being specific about her homeland, critics argue, Disney is failing to explore the diversity within Hispanic culture, and instead using one brown-eyed princess as an interchangeable stand-in for all Latinas.

This is where I can be of assistance. I can tell you that saying Elena is from Cuba or Bolivia or Puerto Rico would be more bizarre than anything. That’s because the setting for Sofia is a magical dreamland where unicorns run wild, and little kids take classes on how to cast spells, and cutesy-pie dragons burst into song for no reason. Yeah, it’s that annoying.

But while most of the characters speak in a whiny faux British accent, it’s not specifically European. It’s otherworldly. So if this princess from, say, Mexico, just shows up, the effect will be a little jarring.

I told you I knew too much about this damn show.

Regardless, Elena is a step in the right direction. And even if I hated the idea of a Latina princess, it wouldn’t matter, because I’m going to see her, one way or another.

Yes, at this point, I’m just looking forward to the day when my son is finally old enough for Phineas and Ferb.

So it’s not exactly a contest. It’s more of an opportunity.

The good people at Disney have asked me to ask you to take a chance on their movie Prom, which opens next weekend.

It’s my understanding that there are several Hispanic actors and/or characters in the flick. If the publicity stills are any indication, at some point in the movie, a hunky Latino guy makes a move on a blonde cutie. And I think we can all agree that such a matchup is a win-win for everyone involved.

I can’t honestly say how good the movie is. I haven’t seen it, and I’m about two decades removed from its key demographic. However, if you have a kid, it’s probably a safe bet. And yes, I’m working on getting free tickets for you to take your tween.

Of course, if you’re a parent like my mom, you’re more likely to take your kid to Scream 4, but that’s another story.

The point is that if you watch the movie’s trailer, then retweet it, you’re entered in a contest to win an Ipad 2.

See, doesn’t the chance to snag one of those babies make it all worthwhile? Let me know how you do.