Let’s be clear. Nothing is funnier than Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The combination of the surreal, the obtuse, and the plain vulgar is still hilarious decades later.
The Python comedy troupe was well-known for skewering religion, social class, and other touchy subjects. But even these brilliant Brits had an Achilles’ heel. Python’s few forays into racial humor were uninspired, coming across more as juvenile than biting.
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Because I so often write about the dark side of human nature, I thought I’d pass along some good news in America’s fight against racism. It seems that at the University of Alabama, “multiple African American women have accepted bids to join traditionally white sororities. The move ends the last bastion of segregation at the tradition-bound southern university.”
Now, I’ve never understood why anybody would want to be a sorority girl or a frat boy, but that’s not the point. Surely, we can be happy that another pillar of institutionalized racism has been toppled. And I presume that Latina girls are now eligible to wear Greek-lettered sweatshirts in Alabama.
Well, I should have stopped reading the news article there, because in the internet comments section of the story (always a disturbing barometer of what Americans are really thinking), I did not encounter the cheers and upbeat replies that I expected to see.
Instead, I saw a lot of apologists for bigotry. There were the people who said it wasn’t a racial issue, and that the sororities just have high standards, such as the woman who wrote, “I’m as lily-white as they come and had the same chance of getting into a UofA sorority as a black girl.” Well, actually, she had a much better chance, as evidenced by the fact that, according to the article, current “members of the traditionally white sororities said they were pressured by alumnae to keep black women from joining.” Well, if that is not overt discrimination, I don’t know what is.
But many people (and not just that lily-white girl) must have skipped over that line, because I also learned from readers’ comments that the University of Alabama Greek system was not prejudiced. Rather, it was just “the media and everybody else wanting to play the race card,” and those pesky minorities themselves, who keep “cramming [diversity] down our throats [and] keep the pot boiling and that is raging all over the country now.”
There were also the readers who insisted that letting blacks into a formally all-white sorority was a “politically correct situation,” and that minorities should “stop acting like the world owes it to you to be fair.”
And then there were the philosophical bigots, such as the gentleman who insisted that “if we want to reserve the right to not serve or admit a black person, or anyone else for that matter, we should be allowed that freedom.”
But my favorite was the straightforward racist, such as the guy who cracked that the white girls had better “keep an eye on their valuables!”
And at least one commentator saw grim overtones in the concept of black sorority girls, labeling the news as “more White genocide, cheered on by the mainstream media.”
Yes, this was the reaction that this unequivocally positive news story generated. I feel much better about America right now.
Don’t you?
In this great melting pot we call America, people of every race commingle and socialize routinely. Why, you can’t walk down the street without elbowing groups of hotties representing both genders and every ethnicity, all hanging out and being so very cosmopolitan and twenty-first century.
Wait, that’s not real life. That’s a Gap ad.
In actuality, a recent study has found that about “40 percent of whites and 25 percent of non-whites do not have any close friends of other races.”
This means that large segments of American society still view other races as an exotic other. Specifically, the survey found that older, white, conservative women were the least likely to hang with someone who didn’t resemble them, while “younger Americans were more likely to say they have friends — or romances — outside their own racial group.” Also people on the West Coast “had the most diverse relationships while people in the South had the least.”
Yes, even in this mythical post-racial environment, a lot of us prefer to kick back with our own kind, if you get my racially coded drift.
But wait, the poll also found that “Hispanics were the most likely to have a diverse friendship network.” So once again, it’s Latinos who are on the cutting edge of culture.
Apparently, we will drink with anybody.
Blame it on the amygdala.
This region of the brain, which plays a central role in processing fear and aggression, may be the source of one of the most insidious concepts to bedevil humankind: racism.
A recent study revealed that people’s amygdalas react differently when they see individuals who do not share their race. Furthermore, the “same circuits in the brain that allow us to see which ethnic group a person belongs to overlap with others that drive emotional decisions.”
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By now you’ve heard GOP Rep. Steve King (a longtime friend of the Hispanic community) insist that “among young undocumented immigrants in the United States, ‘for everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there who’” are essentially drug mules.
King, “an Iowa conservative who has come under fire for comments about immigrants before,” has stood by his remarks, insisting that he has “seen it with my eyes and watched the data and video that support what I say.”
I think we would all like to see the video that shows 100 Latino drug mules ganging up on one Hispanic valedictorian. That would indeed be persuasive to the immigration debate.
But all these references to mules have me thinking about another anti-immigration zealot who was obsessed with animals. I’m taking about Cordelia Scaife May, an heiress who, “before her death in 2005, devoted much of her wealth to … curbing immigration, both legal and illegal.”
Scaife May “never knew poverty,” unlike so many of the immigrants she despised. Ultimately, she became a crazy recluse and alcoholic. She also was obsessed with birds.
Her millions continue to fund right-wing anti-immigrant groups to this day. So here we have a rich person who never worked a day in her life. She was a virulent xenophobe and racist who held her fellow humans in contempt simply because they were born in another country. But she had a soft spot for the little birdies.
And who can argue with those priorities?
Basically, some conservatives don’t think of Hispanics as animals. They think of Hispanics as less than animals.
Decades after James Brown first exhorted his brethren to say it loud (“I’m black and I’m proud), another group of oppressed Americans — gay people — adopted the idea and found resounding success in proclaiming their pride.
But African Americans, gays, and (presumably) gay African Americans are not the only people who are proud of their culture.
Latinos are well-known for bursting with pride for their heritage. However, while such expressions of ethnic boosterism are practically required on Puerto Rican Day, or during Hispanic Heritage Month, or — Lord help us — Cinco de Mayo, such statements often come across as just empty phrases.
After all, do we have good reason to be proud?
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As you can imagine, I am always looking for ways to insert more sex into this website. But how can I do it while still focusing on racial and ethnic issues?
Fortunately, porn star Alexis Texas has presented me with an opportunity.
Recently, Ms. Texas (and I am sure that is her real name) announced that she would not have sex with any black men in her movies. Considering that her profession calls for her to have, shall we say, rather relaxed standards about what she will and will not do sexually, this comes as a surprise.
After all, she is basically saying that she will do all kinds of crazy shit, and allow people to watch it, but there’s no way she’s touching an African American.
It doesn’t get much more racist. This is especially perplexing because — and here the topic returns to Hispanic culture — the woman is part Puerto Rican. No, you really can’t tell from her blonde hair and fair skin. But as we all know, Hispanics can be of any race.
Now, I’d like to give Alexis Texas the benefit of the doubt. Of course, it is not just because of my well-documented obsession with voluptuous blondes, which she is. It’s just that… sorry, I lost my train of thought after the phrase “voluptuous blondes.”
Anyway, it seems silly to call for a boycott of Texas’ films, as I imagine that would have little impact on her fan base.
So why do I bring this sordid story up? Because, as I said in the lead paragraph, it was an opportunity to mention sex while still talking about race. Throw in the fact that I got to use the phrase “voluptuous blondes” three times, and this may have been my best post ever.
I’ve written before about the poor representation of Latinos at the Oscars, and in the world of cinema in general.
So I was pleased to find out that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the people who hand out the little gold men) have recently decided to get on the Latino bandwagon and throw open the doors to more Hispanics.
The Academy just released its list of new members, and of the 276 additional people who will get to vote on Best Picture, there are 22 Latinos.
Among the new members are Jennifer Lopez, Rosario Dawson, Michael Pena, and, yes, Danny Trejo.
That’s right, Machete himself is now a member of the Academy.
How cool is that?
I admit that I’m not much of a basketball aficionado. I saw Michael Jordan play once, and that’s pretty much my sole anecdote about the NBA.
However, I paid attention when a young boy named Sebastien de la Cruz sang the National Anthem before an NBA final game recently. Apparently, “he was pretty awesome.”
But of course, this is America, and somebody’s gotta be offended about something. So plenty of Twitter feeds exploded with outrage that a “Mexican django” (whatever that is) who was “probably illegal” was belting out the Star-Spangled Banner. And those were some of the nicer, less racist comments.
As we all know, the National Anthem only counts as a patriotic song if a white person sings it. Otherwise, it’s political correctness run rampant, or a sign of moral decline, or just plain icky.
Well, Sebastien de la Cruz found out about the controversy he provoked, but he refrained from slamming his attackers (all of whom are faceless cowards who think its edgy to gang up on a young boy via social media). In any case, the Spurs have apparently asked him to return for an encore.
The kid showed a lot of class, and since he has declared himself a Spurs fan, I’ve decided that I’m rooting for them too.
It’s not like I know who else is playing, anyway.
Apparently, if you’re Hispanic and live in Pennsylvania, a job is yours for the asking.
I say this because the Republican governor of that state, Tom Corbett, recently that he couldn’t find a single Latino to work for him.
He even implored his constituents that “If you can find us one, please let me know.” He then got, well, a little defensive about his lack of ethnic outreach, snapping, “Do any of you [Hispanics] want to come to Harrisburg? See?”
Now there are about 800,000 Latinos in Pennsylvania, which is just under seven percent of the state’s population. Surely, there must be a few who could handle working with a cranky Republican.
Sure enough, after Corbett looked a little harder, he finally “remembered the one Latino in his administration.”
Well, that’s a relief. At least Hispanics aren’t totally shut out in one of our largest states. After all, there’s one Latina helping to run the place.
Still, if affirmative action were all that, one would think people of a brownish hue could just march right up to governor and say, “Here I am. Put me on the state payroll.”
I have my doubts about that. But who knows, maybe you should give it a shot. Talk about an easy interview.
