« Soda update | Main | Save the Red Hook Ball Fields! »

June 10, 2007

Comments

Kiko Jones

Your Spanish colleague’s assumption regarding the supposed racism and classist tendencies of the respondents to Nuria Net’s post leads me to ask, does he/she meant to say that the Puerto Rican Day Parade is an unblemished, civil, gracious, highly well-mannered event that these people look down upon simply because of the race, class and economic status of its participants? I hope not. Are we now to be oblivious to what goes on at the Puerto Rican—and Dominican—Day/Parade? I truly believe these events should be renamed "Perpetuate a [fill in nationality here] Stereotype Day/Parade" because that's exactly what they do. Your colleague’s one-sided, head-in-the-sand remark is a classic example of what gave the term ‘politically correct’ a bad rap. Oh, and here’s a t-shirt slogan I'd like to see: “Be proud. Not ignorant.”

caro

Kiko, read the comments on Remezcla. A lot of them are super-classist. You don't like the parades and the fact that they are loud and that people who don't have any power the rest of the year bust out there, that's fine. But I totally agreed with my colleague's comments. Should people only show community solidarity by attending a parade once a year? No. Should we get rid of the parade and become less visible? No. It's complicated, I grant you, but can you pull that punch just a little bit?

Kiko Jones

"You don't like...the fact...that people who don't have any power the rest of the year bust out there..."

Wow. Speaking of pulling punches, consider yourself lucky to be female and that I am a gentleman, since I would NEVER let a dude get away with the above without a rumble, for the above is both insulting and a textbook definition of the phrase 'fighting words' if I ever saw one. I believe an apology for your class-baiting assumption is in order. (Actually, I believe it's more of a lashing out to a dissimilar point of view since you know very well I'm not a class warrior.)

Anyway, while I have my issues with these parades, I'm all for them--I'm not the censoring type. I simply choose not to go.

I'm not naive to think that class does not play a large role in the way certain people perceive these events. I just hope that those like your colleague who come to the defense of the parades' status quo while questioning the solidarity and sense of community of those who have a different p.o.v. formulate their positions from the 5th Ave sidelines and not some lofty perch.

caro

*sigh* We can take this discussion off line if you like. I think you read my colleague's comment wrong and I think you're reading me wrong. I'm not class-baiting, so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be apologizing about.

My point is that you're jumping on this person for saying that many of the Remezcla commenters are classist (which I also said). Saying that the sort of people who go to the parade aren't "real" Puerto Ricans IS classist. Punto.

That there are aspects of our cultures that are corrosive, self-destructive, etc. is true. But seeing someone who comes to the U.S. in a privileged position crap on people shaped by poverty, discrimination and destructive U.S. policies, and I have to object. Which is what I was doing.

Peace!

The comments to this entry are closed.

¡A la lucha!

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Heavy rotation

Subway reading

  • Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go

    Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go
    So many friends raved about this. But I realized I get impatient with gothics. Must be the obligatory genteel reticence of it all.

  • Ed Park: Personal Days: A Novel

    Ed Park: Personal Days: A Novel
    A comedy of social manners for the cubicle age. Nicely plotted even when it dips into the absurd. But I could'a done without the tour-de-force punctuation-less email that ties all loose ends.

  • Hanif Kureishi: Something to Tell You: A Novel

    Hanif Kureishi: Something to Tell You: A Novel
    A bittersweet sequel of sorts to Buddha of Suburbia and Beautiful Launderette: What happened to all of us old brown punks now that we're middle aged.

Blog powered by Typepad