At my kid’s int’l school in asia, the kids cast as leads in the school musicals (well known ones, like ‘Anything Goes’) where mostly racially asian & mixed-race. No one thought twice about the leads being non-white.
Ta- Nehisi Coates addresses exactly that issue, among many others, in “Between the World and Me”. I think you would enjoy that book, if you haven’t already read it.
Thank you. I’ll look for it at the library.
Did she cover the issue of fur hats during the Cold War parties as well? If yes, then I will go to the library too.
Of course that is not what I am saying, and I have no idea how you got that from my post. The point is that the failure to assimilate a minority culture, and to define that culture as “the other” led to the civil war and then one hundred plus years of de jure segregation. The other great failure to assimilate a culture is the post manifest destiny Native American population. Now you can say that in both the example of African and Native Americans the assimilation issue is reversed, meaning that it was the majority culture that forced the cultures into contact rather than the more voluntary association of recent immigrants from Central or South America or the Middle East, but in my opinion the important point is the fact that the cultures did not assimilate, not whose choice that was.
As to your point about who are we to stick our nose into the business of the students at Bowdoin, I have a couple issues. One, I am far more troubled by the administration disciplining the students than I am by any vote of a student government group. Two, I don’t necessarily believe that the majority is always right in any community. To use the obvious example, Donald Trump is going to garner way more votes in Ohio next week than either Bernie or Hillary. But I am betting that this fact will not make you more receptive to his point of view.
Additionally, I think it is only fair to acknowledge the one massive difference between Irish immigration and Trump’s position on illegal immigration. Namely that most of the recent immigration through Mexico has been illegal. It is a unique position of a portion of the (predominately white, well off and liberal) American electorate that opposing such is racist.
I would also add that while first generation Irish, Italian, Polish, Chinese (and early Puerto Rican and Central American) immigrants faced significant discrimination, it would have been unthinkable for their children or grand children born here to self identify as non American. That’s really my point.
Are you sure this isn’t an onion style mock article? 15 pages about drinking and sombreros sure makes it sound like one.
I asked my Latino husband if he had watched Speedy Gonzalez as a child in South America, and he had. I asked if he thought it was racist. He said he has been most bothered in general by the presentation of Latinos as “poor” relative to Americans, and had not really focused on other derogatory aspects of such cartoons. As for the mini sombreros, well he isn’t Mexican, but he thinks they’re really funny and considers the controversy absurd. He too sees the issue as representative of a self-absorbed generation of college students who should find more important social issues on which to spend their energy. To someone who’s grown up in an underdeveloped country where the indigenous people can be seen carrying heavy loads on their backs like pack animals, the idea of micro-aggressions seems even more ridiculous than it does to some of us. And as someone who does business in Mexico, DH thinks that Mexicans would be far more hurt if Americans stopped buying the sombreros. I don’t know where those particular plastic hats were manufactured, but Mexicans want Americans to buy Mexican products and an awful lot of Mexicans sell sombreros to tourists. They’d have to be pretty crass to sell an item if they think it says “Mexicans are lazy drunks.” I mean, the standard touristy things generally say “I love Mexico” in some way, right?
“They’d have to be pretty crass to sell an item if they think it says “Mexicans are lazy drunks.””
People do what they need to do to make a living. When I visited Iowa in January, there were multiple black vendors selling Trump and Cruz merch outside their rallies. It’s possible they were the only poor black Republicans, but the odds say that they’re getting paid and that’s as far as it goes.
^ great stereotyping.
IMO yes, I can’t see how that would be offensive. Is there a link you can share to whoever did think it was and why?
Probably a squeaky wheel thing. In the case of Bowdoin, everyone was invited to come discuss it, and I guess the ones who were bothered were the ones who spoke. If a Mexican student didn’t think it was a big deal s/he probably didn’t bother to go.
Well they didn’t look the other way either, they continued to do their desegregating. They just didn’t let those things stop them from pursuing their goal.
Well, I don’t think either group was given an opportunity to assimilate. NAs were forcibly placed on reservations and AAs were prevented form owning property, voting, etc etc. Neither group had the option to assimilate.
Me too.
Barely most. Just over half. http://www.pewhispanic.org/2009/04/15/mexican-immigrants-in-the-united-states-2008/
Or just half, recently:
“Another migratory change has also occurred: of the Mexicans that still come to the United States, many more do so legally. At the start of the twenty-first century, less than 10 percent came with papers. A decade later, it is 50 percent.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/the-rise-of-legal-immigration-from-mexico/257119/
…and as Irish people are white, there won’t be racism there. Ethnic or religious issues with them, perhaps.
I haven’t heard these students identify as not-American. I’ve heard them identify as Mexican-American, as many previous immigrants thought of themselves as Italian-American or Chinese-American, though in the case of Puerto Rico, sort of American-American (though there is a very large PR day parade in NYC every year in which most everyone who is Puerto Rican celebrates that heritage. Whether they were born here or not.
OHMom, I think I already posted the link about the MLK menu upthread, but if not, here it is again plus several more:
http://www.eater.com/2015/1/20/7862837/is-it-racist-bogarta-atlantic-city-soul-food-menu-mlk-jr-day
https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/01/21/celebrate-martin-luther-king-day-with-racial-stereotypes/
http://gothamist.com/2012/01/12/are_you_offended_by_this_mlk_day_me.php
It seems to me that the establishments were trying to honor MLK, and their good deed did not go unpunished.
@OHMomof2 "http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/the-rise-of-legal-immigration-from-mexico/257119/
…and as Irish people are white, there won’t be racism there. Ethnic or religious issues with them, perhaps."
Neither Mexican nor Irish is a race. Both are nationalities.
I think the Borgata menu is a respectful tribute, the chef/manager took time to find out what his favorite foods were and feature them. She probably should have said that’s what she did on the menu. These food items were about HIM specifically, not black people in general.
The second and third links aren’t about the same chef/menu. Is it offensive that a holiday for a black man means it’s time to serve soul food/southern “black” food? I’d say it perpetuates a stereotype, yes.
This video explains really well why it’s offensive: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/03/mtv-decoded-fried-chicken_n_7498150.html and this article: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/02/heres-why-your-fried-chicken-and-watermelon-lunch-racist/357814/
Lots of people enjoy fried chicken and watermelon. White people, Chinese people, Latin Americans, etc. So it’s not even an accurate stereotype…just one with some ugly history in the specific case of black American people.
So who is more racist in their thinking? The person who sees sombreros and thinks they are fun, colorful, and celebratory items that represent Mexico? Or the one who sees sombreros and their first thought is of a derogatory stereotype about the Mexican people? Illogically, the former is the one that is being accused. However, the latter individual is essentially either incorrect about how the Mexicans feel regarding the symbolism of the sombrero to Americans, or the individual is being racist because he considers Mexicans such as the one pictured below to be poor and desperate enough (see post #227) to sell out their pride and culture for a buck. http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-mexican-hat-selling-to-tourists-from-boat-xochmilco-mexico-city-mexico-68799457.html
How do we know the students weren’t aware that the party theme could be offensive and did it anyway because they don’t care?
It seems in the atmosphere on campus over the past year or two, it would be hard not to have thought about it. The invitation kind of suggests they knew they were doing something that might be viewed as violating the SGS statement.
“the theme is tequila, so do with that what you may. We’re not saying it’s a fiesta, but we’re also not not saying that :).”
Well maybe, but is racism the motive or just the desire to have fun? Seriously, how probable is it that a Latina (the Colombian girl planning the party) is going to be prejudiced against other Latinos, ie. Mexicans? Now Colombians and Ecuadorians have some bad blood, but to my knowledge not Colombians and Mexicans.
PS Colombians also wear sombreros. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sombrero_vueltiao
@TheGFG , you hit the nail on the head. The entire problem with these type of faux offenses is that there is no objective standard and intent is determined by the aggrieved party. Its the same type of fuzzy thinking that makes watermelon a racist symbol and not a fruit. Who doesn’t like watermelon, fried chicken, black eyed peas, okra, etc. etc? If you live in the north you’d die for some good southern/soul food.
If any of these students had spent time in Mexico’s (or Columbia’s) high heat and humidity, they would think the big hats were rather sensible and prevented a lot of skin cancer. They seem to have forgotten that air conditioning is not ubiquitous.
I’d like to see the students protesting against some real problems and not first world ones.
Once before I told that story that D was the only white/Hispanic girl on a club track team. The other children were all African-American. We attended a number of BBQ parties with club members, and I also worked at the snack shack with the other parents and noticed what type of food they chose to offer for sale. The selection was different than what was typical at the high school snack shack, and the BBQ fare was also different from what I was used to. So if I were to have hosted a BBQ at my house for the club members, it would have made sense to prepare the types of foods I knew the members liked and it would have seemed sensible to offer a menu that complied with the norm for their social events. This would be for the same reason that I’d make things like pickled cabbage, deviled eggs, and funny cake for people from my PA community. However, my good intentions and attempt to assimilate to the pre-existing culture of the group would earn me the label of racist today. There’s something wrong with that.
Indian parents forcefeed okra to their kids claiming it to be brain food. I am glad to hear that counts as denigrating a group of people and kids can start claiming that.