A coalition of Los Angeles African American Civil rights activists will engage in civil disobedience at the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles resulting in their arrests.
This will be the first of acts of civil disobedience and many more will follow across the nation until the government of Mexico removes a series of five racist stamps issued last week depicting an exaggerated black cartoon character known as Memin Pinguin. (more…)
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As I mentioned recently on this issue, I think that protest is in order here. However, where we target our protest is very key.
For starters, it was black voters in Los Angeles that helped secure a recent mayoral win for Antonio Villaraigosa. For years it was widely known that Villaraigosa has maintained close ties with Mexican President Vicente Fox in spite of the blatant racism targeted towards blacks in that country. Instead of bringing up this fact, wanna-be leaders like Jesse Jackson decided to look the other way:
Rev. Jesse Jackson as well as LA’s senior African-American councilman, Mark Ridley-Thomas. Thomas appeared at a mid-May press conference with nearly fifty other black community leaders and clergy who are supporting Villaraigosa…(more)
You can also throw Rep. Maxine Waters in his bunch of supporters as well.
Villaraigosa has made it very clear that he supports illegal immigration and has even supported the idea of issuing driver’s licenses to illegals from Mexico. He also made the following statement:
“Los Angeles mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa the city’s first Latino mayor since 1872 said Wednesday that Mexico will play an important role in shaping his policies.” El Universal, May 26, 2005
Let me also bring up the fact that he also had ties to the racist organization MEChA. When asked if he still supports this organization, this is what he had to say:
“Most of the Latin young people who attended universities belonged to Mecha”, Villaraigosa said. “I am not in agreement with most of its edicts. But in the university, we all belonged to that organization.”
And of course people took that weak response as a full apology.
The few points that I have just mentioned in this piece and more were all available to black voters to examine for themselves and demand explanation from Villaraigosa as to why he would associate himself with people and organizations that accepted this type of racist behavior. Unfortunately black supporters for Villaraigosa decided to break down the whole election process into a format that a number of blacks could understand–make the whole election into a case for the “pro-diversity at any cost” crowd simply because Villaraigosa was Hispanic and (former mayor) James Hahn was white. All during the election season, Hahn was depicted by these individuals as a white guy who was the real force behind the “racist” LAPD.
Now all of a sudden black folks in the LA area want to join in a paper mache solidarity movement with blacks in Mexico who have known the truth about their country for years?
Puhleeze!
Kevin Martin for Project 21:
“Why are we criticizing another country when we have so many problems in our own? Where is the criticism of Bratz dolls, which feature some of the same characterizations of big lips and eyes in an albeit more pleasing package? Where is the criticism of the cartoonish characterizations of Hispanics in the line of Homies dolls? Black leaders also seem willing to give the hip-hop community a free pass, and even embrace it, while hip-hop music calls black women everything but their birth name and videos feature them as butt-shaking props in tight bathing suits. One can also find t-shirts marketed toward our young people that are emblazoned with labels such as ‘Porn Star’ and ‘####.’
“It seems we are willing to allow our community to be exploited as long as the perpetrator looks like us. You don’t see black leaders demanding these media corporations, toymakers and others stop promoting this filth to young people.
“Who really controls the black image: the Mexican government or the black community? The real threat is not Memin Pinguin but the fact that our self-described leaders seem willing to allow self-depreciating messages that come from within while only condemning them if they come from outside. Memin Pinguin is an important reminder of that.” (more…)
WHICH IS MORE DEMEANING???
