Actually I quite love breakfast tacos and migas when I go to TX
So I've read some reports and comments about Jill Biden's so-called gaffe regarding breakfast tacos, and I just need to unload here.
First let me get my cultural orientation out of the way. I am a Southwestern US person who self-identifies as Hispanic thanks to my mother. My father's family were Southern Baptists of Anglo descent (Anglo is a catch-all term for White Americans, just as Hispanic/Latino are catch-all terms for Spanish ancestry cultures). My dad himself was alienated by the racist and fundamentalist elements in his family since early on. For him, marrying an Hispanic Catholic from Santa Fe had to be the ultimate act of rebellion.
Anyhow, what did Biden say that was supposedly offensive? The quote was actually praising Raul Yzaguirre, an organizer of civil rights org UnidosUS:
"Raul helped build this organization with the understanding that the diversity of this community, as distinct as the bodegas of the Bronx, as beautiful as the blossoms of Miami, and as unique as the breakfast tacos here in San Antonio, is your strength,"
And here is the only negative response from any Hispanic group that I know of, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Many seem to take it seriously:
NAHJ encourages @FLOTUS & her communications team to take time to better understand the complexities of our people & communities. We are not tacos.
"We are not tacos?" Who the hell ever said you were? The First Lady was referring to elements of the culture, of which food is an important part. She wasn't calling people tacos. Her comments were poorly worded but were a sincere recognition of the diversity of the Hispanic population. Most national politicians only focus on Hispanics in the regions they want to pander to, which is usually Cuban-Americans in South Florida, and often the Southwestern raza people are treated like they don’t exist. Yes the comment was clumsy and partly mispronounced, but certainly not offensive to anyone who isn't a political operative.
And get a load of the kind of shitheads trying to take advantage of this fake gaffe, as reported by the Wapo:
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) tweeted out a video of Biden’s comments, writing, “Jill Biden says Hispanics are as ‘unique’ as tacos and calls bodegas ‘bogidas.’ No wonder Hispanics are fleeing the Democratic Party!”
Yeah, that insurrectionist surely has the backs of the Hispanic community, don’t he.
And it only gets worse when I see comments, including some on this site, that the she made an unforced error, showing she's an out of touch elite white woman, blah blah.
You know who's really out of touch? Anyone who considers her remark even remotely offensive. I certainly don't need any of this white-splained to me. I've lived in New Mexico, California, New York City and two Spanish speaking countries, and not exactly in the most genteel areas. I've learned enough cuss words and ethnic/racial slur terms from all sides of those cultures, in English and Spanish, that I could probably publish a dictionary of trash talk.
In the meantime, I have to wonder about the NAHJ. One of my local friends is a former president and is on their web page list of lifetime members. I'll run this rant by her in due time. But I am curious about what is going on there now. How did this drivel tweet end up getting published by NAHJ? Is this a de facto Republican plant in the org that put it up? Aside from them, the only people making hay of this are Republican hacks as noted above. My own district’s reactionary Republican candidate for Congress, Michelle Garcia Holmes, is trying to make an issue out of it.
Perhaps their tweet was part of some both-siderism campaign? Don’t know. I'm not good at looking at Twitter history and don’t have any other knowledge of NAHJ's reputation there. But I'd be curious if they ever made mountain out of such a trivial molehill, when Republicans make intentionally racist statements. Which they do every day like it’s a sport.
Anyhow, thanks for letting me get this out.
