Ethnic Avenue – The Street That Crosses All the Others

My "extended summer vacation" has been cut short by a recent, albeit short-lived, spike in interest in Ethnic Avenue and a smattering of complaints from somewhat loyal readers (mostly lurkers). It doesn’t take much encouragement to get me to start talking shit again.

Frankly, it took a fair amount of restraint to not comment on some of the past two months’ happenings–and, as you know, there were some good ones. Among them:

Mel Gibson Goes Ballistic and Racist (Again)

I’ve never liked Mel Gibson, but I think most people did, until he pulled a couple of public stunts a few years ago that made him seem kinda, sorta racist—at least anti-Semitic. A couple of weeks ago, when things finally started to blow over, his Octomom-looking ex-wife released some tapes where he sounds like a total asshole. Don’t get me wrong: anybody can sound like a hysterical psychopath in the middle of screaming at this wife. The problem, for Mel Gibson, is that he punctuated nearly every insult with some seemingly unrelated racist footnote.

The Tea Party and Godwin’s Law

The brain-dead conservative mob known as the Tea Party is the gift that keeps on giving. I can’t even count the number of potential blog-post topics these geniuses have unwittingly provided over the past two months—mostly grounded in Godwin’s Law.

Reductio ad Hitlerum (Godwin’s Law): the sarcastic observation that, given enough time, all discussions —regardless of topic or scope —inevitably wind up being about Hitler and the Nazis.

Source: wikipedia.org

The World Cup

There’s nothing like a meeting of 30-something nations to provide an ample supply of international hilarity and foreigner antics. For as long they were in the contest, I—like many Americans—was praying for the U.S. team to win, against all odds. Imagine the delicious slap in the face, to the world, it would have been for America to win at a sport we couldn’t be more casual about collectively. Call it hate, if you must, but America’s in desperate need of a hubristic ego boost these days.

Lebron James and his “Decision”

Nothing was more tempting than Lebron James’s “decision.” Even if you know nothing about basketball, you vaguely know who “King” James is. And, his free agency—and the question of whether Cleveland was too much of a shithole to stay in, even for boatloads of money—became the subject of every news story for a hot minute, as he dragged out the decision of which team he would grace with his basketball skills next season. To make things even worse, once-great, respectable cities like New York condescended themselves to look ridiculous by publicly imploring him to join their team, with expensive PR campaigns and public statements from prominent residents (even the mayor). It was disgusting and embarrassing for everyone involved.

Barf. This is one time I was especially glad that my city and team not only won the championship, but mostly kept its dignity intact (ethnic championship rioters notwithstanding).

That’s just the beginning of the list. “LiLo” (what they’re calling Lindsay Lohan these days) is going to jail. Sarah Palin compared herself to William Shakespeare. Joe Biden put the blue-collar smackdown on some frozen-custard salesman.

So, for now, I’ve decided to reactive the Avenue by periodically chiming in on this and other stuff. In exchange, I ask you to periodically chime in (i.e., stop lurking). If you want to know when new stuff is posted, subscribe using the “Get E-mail Updates” form in the left column. It’s easy (be sure to verify your account via e-mail) and spam-free. Be sure to check the twitter feed in the right column for mini-updates, comments, and links. Or, better yet, if you’re on twitter, follow Ethnic Avenue.

I’ll probably be making some changes to the site (mostly content-related, not-so-much visually), so feel free to speak up about that too.

Anyone who watches the NBA on TNT knows that roaming reporter Craig Sager has long been the butt of everyone’s jokes–mostly because of his flamboyant style of dress (and his overall goofy demeanor). You know that some of it is part of the “show,” but some of it isn’t.

So you have to hand it to the guy: he takes all of the shit in stride and goes out every night and does his job—dressed to the nines.

Earlier in the week, the Phoenix Suns’ Amar’e Stoudemire made some controversial remarks about the Lakers’ Lamar Odom. After Odom scorched Phoenix for a game-changing 19 points and 19 rebounds in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, a reporter asked Stoudemire what he thought of Odom’s performance. He replied:

I’m not giving him no hype…he had a lucky game.

In basketball, that level of disrespect can cost you big-time in subsequent meetings, when the other guy (or team)—who probably grew up eating shit-talkers for breakfast—is going to come at you full-force. It’s no surprise that even Stoudemire’s own coach, Alvin Gentry, said the remarks were “stupid.” Like Game 1, the Lakers won Game 2 comfortably, with impressive performances from several players.

But, it wasn’t Odom that delivered the stinging payback to Stoudemire’s foolhardy comments. It was Craig Sager:

Oh snap. The moral of the story: be 100 percent sure (or at least 90) you can back up your shit-talking.

In his latest installment, Sexist Latino Contributor Don Felix registers his beliefs on the practice of asking beauty pageant contestants heady political questions.

Felix Mengano’s views aren’t necessarily those of Ethnic Avenue, its affiliates, sponsors, or detractors.

Asking Dumb Beauty-Pageant Girls Important Questions

By: Felix Omar Mengano Jimenez, Sr. – Sexist Latino Contributor

I’ve always thought beauty pageants were pointless. Sure I watch them, but they just don’t make a whole lot of sense to a guy like me. If you want to showcase beautiful women, why not have them parade onto the stage in the nude? Or, if you must have some competitive element to the whole thing, why not have them wrestle in mud, guacamole, or another similarly viscous substance? If you want to show some intelligent women, put a few (fully dressed) female college professors out there and ask them nuanced questions about their areas of specialization. That’ll easily fill up a few hours (and few seats).

But don’t try to combine the two. It never works. One side always sufferers—and I bet you can guess which side. They’re not fooling anyone by trying to integrate other areas besides looks into pageants. These things aren’t about anything but looks. Miss America is never brilliant, but just okay-looking. But they do it anyway, so what you get is a bunch of girls that are dumb as rocks straining their brains (which they never really use except in other pageants) to come up with answers like this:

Of course, that’s just the most famous in a series of idiotic pageant answers in recent years, answers to important political and social questions that should never be posed to these type of girls—pageant or not. The interesting part is that these dumb girls seem to consistently espouse hard-right, conservative leanings. I wonder if that’s any coincidence. No where is the folly of asking important questions to pageant contestants more clear than with Sarah Palin—a factory of pageant-style verbal diarrhea.

The latest installment in this tired story is Miss Oklahoma, who over the weekend released this gem:

The best part is that she uses the classic passive-aggressive, I-don’t-actually-know-what-I’m-talking-about line “but I can see both sides” after having made a decisive, committed statement– about states’ rights, no less. Anyone that’s ever taken a sixth-grade history class or read a non-fiction book in his life knows that “states’ rights” is code for all sorts of shit—most of it segregationist or confederate. The slave states seceded from the Union over “states’ rights.” People that wanted to keep black kids out of white schools claimed states’ rights. It’s a loaded term. And everyone, especially in the South, knows what it means.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for asking questions of beauty-pageant contestants. But they ought to be the types of questions that are appropriate for them. You wouldn’t ask Stevie Wonder for directions. You wouldn’t ask Bill Gates how to rebuild a transmission. So instead of asking beauty pageant contestants what they think the role of hydrocarbons is in climate change, we need to be asking things like: “those were some impressive moves, Jeannie, have you wrestled in guacamole before?”

Everybody knows that American jails are disproportionately packed with Latinos and blacks. But unlike my asshole Republican ex-boss, I think there are more sophisticated reasons, beyond “they commit most of the crimes,” behind this statistical phenomenon. One of those reasons is pretty obvious.

Our legal system is set up to detect and penalize certain types of crime over other types. There are no white-collar crime regulators driving around 24/7 in patrol cars with sirens–or setting up check points on the highway–to catch people in the act of insider trading or tax evasion or selling junk securities. Sure, agencies exist that are supposed to catch that stuff, but they aren’t on every street corner, and the mayor doesn’t go on TV every few months to talk about how he’s putting 2,000 more regulators on the force by next year. There’s no trained dog they can bring to your office to sniff out your illegal white-collar shenanigans.

So it’s automatically more likely that you’re going to get caught committing some sort of street crime. Then, when they do catch someone for that, the punishments for those types of crimes tend to be longer jail sentences than for the other things. You get a lot more time for stealing $20 from a liquor store than for counterfeiting $20 million Picasso paintings. That’s just a fact. And, minorities tend to commit the easier crimes because it takes a few generations of enfranchisement to get access to high-class, low-risk, lucrative, white-collar crimes we would all love to be committing.

That’s the first reason.

But, now the NY Times is saying something that I’ve been saying for years. Statistically speaking, Latinos and blacks also just act more suspiciously–at least in New York.

Blacks and Latinos were nine times as likely as whites to be stopped by the police in New York City in 2009, but no more likely to actually be arrested. Of the reasons listed by the police for conducting the stops…the most common reason listed by the police was a category known as “furtive movements.”

Furtive movements. In case you don’t know idiotic police-speak, that’s a five-dollar euphemism for acting sneaky and suspicious. And, that’s kind of annoying, because that’s a natural condition of living in the city in general, but especially of living in the ghetto. There’s a certain amount of constant, mutual suspicion in the hood–nobody really trusts anyone (and shouldn’t). So, naturally, people there (namely, blacks and Latinos) are going to act sneaky and suspicious most of the time, even when they’re not “up to something.” You can’t help it.

A black or Latino dude strutting across the street in a hoodie and shades (at night)–while looking over his shoulder–is probably just as likely to be scared of something than to be doing something scary. But, of course, to a blue-collar street-crime police force, set up to look for only that type of sneakiness, behavior like that is worthy of a pat-down.

Maybe it should be that way. But, what if we also had a white-collar police walking the streets, like I’m asking for: who would look suspicious to them?

Officer, I didn't do anything wrong. What do you mean I was "acting suspicious"?! Get your hands off me. I know my rights!

Today’s entry comes courtesy of Ethnic Avenue’s newest contributor, Guy White. His column “A Step in the White Direction,” will address the topics of the day from what he calls, “the white-dude perspective.” In a world where we minorities are quickly narrowing the gap, Guy is the powerful voice of a people. According to Guy, his goal is to show that “being white isn’t as easy as it looks.”

We Aren’t Stupid. Fuck You, Carl’s Jr. (also known as Hardee’s)

By: Guy B. White, Ethnic Avenue White-Dude Contributor

One of the things I’ve noticed over the past few years is how we white dudes are being represented on TV, especially in commercials. For some reason, they seem to just love to make us look clueless, lazy, distracted, or under the thumb of some over-bearing girlfriend without whom we wouldn’t be able to function.

Examples abound, but there’s no bigger culprit in this annoying trend than Carl’s Jr., which seems to think we’ll actually go to restaurant that enjoys telling us we’re the dumbest idiots to ever roam the Earth.

And Carl’s Jr. is just one example. I swear there are tons of them. And, although the joke was funny the first 1,000 times, it’s getting kind of old—and, frankly, offensive.

I know, as a white dude, I have to be selective about when I stand up for myself on the basis of race (given some general trends in world history), but I think this is one of those times. White people invented the television, the refrigerator, cheese, fries, and even hamburgers.

Without us, Carl’s Jr., you (and your stupid-ass commercials) wouldn’t even exist.

One of my favorite horror-movie characters of all-time is Freddy Krueger. Now, I’m not a huge fan of horror movies in general–since shit’s scary enough already–but as horror characters go, Freddy’s the one, hands down. And I don’t think I’m alone. Actually, I think he’s quite popular among ethnic people. Even the Fresh Prince made a song about him once upon a time.

I think there’s a couple of reasons for this.

First of all, we like that Freddy Krueger is ambiguously ethnic—or at least blue collar. How do we know that? Because he was always chasing white girls–and look at his name. I know what you’re going to say: “c’mon dude, Krueger is obviously a European surname.” But doesn’t that first name make you feel like he might be half-something? I’ve never known anyone named “Freddy” who wasn’t actually an Alfredo or Francisco on his birth certificate. And, you know Freddy didn’t come from means. Before he got burned by the neighborhood parents, he was the poor kid on the block. Krueger is the underdog-getting-his-sweet-revenge in all of us.

Then there’s the way that Freddy Krueger does his thing. As Tommy Davidson hilariously pointed out back in the day, Freddy knew how to make grisly over-kills funny, at least for himself. He got into it. He had a good time.

But like all good things, there’s always someone there ready to fuck it up. And, like with many things these days, the way to do that is to try to squeeze a few more shekels out of it by remaking it. Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) opens tonight and already the reviews are in. The first one I read gave it a half-star out of four. Half.

Freddy Krueger used to be such a fun guy.

Sure, he wore a ratty sweater, had a complexion like a blister-covered relief map, repeatedly invaded people’s dreams, then shoved his deadly finger knives into their torsos. But he had such a sense of humor about the whole thing.

Unfortunately, in the remake…good ol’ Fred loses any sense of playful shock he once possessed and turns into a generic figure meticulously manufactured to simultaneously gross and freak us out. It doesn’t work.

That sucks. The one thing that made Freddy different was his gusto, his style. Next thing you know, they’re going to make him not ethnic anymore—and wealthy.

The big thing in the news these days is an Arizona state bill, signed into law by appointed hag-governor Jan Brewer (see below), that basically requires regular-ass police officers to go around asking people for proof of citizenship if “it looks like they could be illegal.” I’m not making this up. What’s more, if police don’t do their (new) job, they can be sued by regular people for not enforcing the law.

Frankly, I don’t like chiming in on things this mainstream because pretty much anything that can be said about a topic like this gets said in the first few minutes, and I tend to be slow. So that means, invariably, I’m left unintentionally repeating the same shit some other guy said. This is the reason I didn’t say much about the whole Tiger Woods harem thing (except about his disappointingly cheap taste in sandwiches), the “balloon boy” story, and the healthcare reform “debate.”

Forget, for a minute, the coincidence that the illegal-immigrant debate seems to always come up in election years, especially ones in which Republicans are in the minority (i.e., out of power) and are hoping to make some gains by lathering up the masses about issues they don’t ever intend to solve—simply recycle the next time they need something to work people up with. Also forget the fact that you could solve the problem pronto by simply enforcing the laws that already exist, and throwing the CEO of any company that hires an illegal immigrant in jail for a few years.  (Like when you also throw the John in jail, not just the prostitute.)

I assure you, a lot of people would be leaving if no one would hire them. But of course that would hurt millionaires and billionaires and corporations, who benefit from cheap illegal labor that undercuts unions and their ridiculous demands for fair pay and benefits and the occasional vacation day. Remember: it was the conservative messiah, Ronald Reagan, that passed the largest amnesty for illegal immigrants in American history (1986), making millions of “illegals” legal overnight. He hated unions.

I could go on. But this isn’t about that.

This is about the question of what an illegal immigrant looks like, since that’s now become an important part of the dialogue on this issue. You can’t profile people by their race, because that would illegal. So these guys are handling that sticky question in a couple of interesting ways.

On the one hand are the right-wingers that claim to not know what an illegal looks like at all, deferring to the “professionals” in this arena.

Exhibit A

Then there are the ones that say they can tell, but with all sorts of other indicators apart from race. Definitely not race.

Exhibit B

Look guys, I know spotting an illegal immigrant (or at least a potentially illegal immigrant) without resorting to racial profiling isn’t easy for the untrained eye. But years of living in the great City of Los Angeles–the mecca for Guatemalan, Vietnamese, El-Salvadorian, Mexican, Ethiopian, and every other variety of immigrant you could dream up–has giving me a keen sense of what else to look for.

I know I may be hurting my ethnic brothers and sisters, but here’s a simple guide for you guys. Pay me back with what you do best–some tax breaks and exotic pyramid-scheme-like investment vehicles.

Right-Wingers’ Quick Guide to Spotting Illegal Immigrants

General FOB-ness

This is what the idiot in the second video above (Rep. Brian Bilbray) was dancing around, but couldn’t—or wouldn’t–articulate. Everyone knows when they’re dealing with someone that just “ain’t right.” It’s like when you spot an unseasonably pale (but straight) white guy, wearing a mesh tank-top and John Stockton coochie shorts, exposing his wickedly hairy legs (and, in some unfortunate cases, some of his junk) in the middle of Los Angeles. European, right? You bet.

Or like when you see a white girl in Teva­ sandals, shorts, a fleece vest, and a Nalgene bottle hanging from her outdoorsy backpack in the middle of your city. Unless you’re in a certain region or two of the country, you know she’s an unassimilated transplant.

John Stockton and his now-infamous shorts.

Similarly, people that haven’t properly integrated into the American Way of Life are going to telegraph that shit from a mile away. Mixing up our treasured clichés. Calling dollar bills notes. Singularizing plurals (Starbuck Coffee). Wearing a cowboy hat and mustache.

Every race and ethnicity has its unique set of FOB dead-giveaways. Learn them.

Broke-Asses

Seriously, when was the last time you saw a rich illegal immigrant (that wasn’t a king-pin in a movie)? I’m sure they exist, but they’re not the ones mowing your neighbor’s lawn or standing outside the Home Depot. Being poor is definitely a sign.

Brown

Let’s face it guys: you’re going to have to use some tangential indicator of race to pluck out the illegal immigrants you want to actually get rid of (the south-of-the-border variety). The great thing is that using color isn’t necessarily using race. Brown is generally a good start, but combine that with broke-ass and FOB, and you have yourself a good candidate.

A good candidate.

Apparently, I picked one helluva week to ignore the news. Some funny shit went down last week.

White Guy Changes His Race the Lazy Way

What did Michael Jackson (and, to a lesser extent, Sammy Sosa) teach us about making absolutely sure no one recognizes you? That’s right: change your race.

Well, that’s exactly what this white guy did, in a string of robberies he committed in southern Ohio. But he did it by wearing a mask designed to look like a black guy. I shit you not.

The craziest part about this story isn’t that he pulled the stunt in the first place. Or, even that it worked several times. The crazy part is that they actually sell a black-dude mask. Admittedly, I haven’t participated in a Halloween-anything in a while, but I had no idea costume technology had reached this level of sophistication.

Wearing shorts gave him away.

This story raises more questions than it answers.

The most logical of those questions is whether they sell all the races. If they do, I could probably use a white guy mask to land myself a nice corporate-executive job and/or an Asian girlfriend.

When “You Throw Like a Girl” is a Compliment

If, a week ago, someone had said to me they had “tickets to go see the Gay Softball World Series,” I would have assumed they were speaking to me in some sort of secret locker-room code. But, now I know better. The event actually exists.

And, what’s more:

Three bisexual men have filed a federal lawsuit against [the] national gay-sports organization [that puts on the event], claiming they were unfairly deemed not gay enough to play for a gay softball team.

Apparently, the opposing team “stopped play” several times during the game on the grounds the other team was breaking the “two heterosexual players maximum” rule. After the game, the bisexual players were brought separately into a room with 25 board members and grilled on their “sexual interests and private life.”

And, at some point one of the (presumably gay) board members allegedly huffed, “this is the Gay World Series, not the Bisexual World Series.”

A lot of things came to mind when I read this story. After extracting the handful of obvious, lame jokes—one question remained.

How did they know they weren’t “fully” gay? I mean, seriously.

British Lady Turns Chinese Overnight

There was a bit of a commotion over this British lady who’s developed a rare condition (none of us have ever heard of) called Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS). Prompted by some sort of brain injury (in her case a really bad migraine), FAS permanently changes the way someone talks–usually into some foreign-sounding accented version.

According to the report, Sarah Colwill developed a “Chinese accent,” going from the Queen’s English to the Queen Engrish seemingly overnight.

The natural question now is: will white guys now be more attracted to her?

That aside, everything about this story sounds suspicious to me. Is there also a Foreign Strut Syndrome or a Foreign 10-Dollar-Minimum-to-Use-Your-Credit-Card Syndrome?

Because I definitely know a few people with those.

I don’t know what’s going on, but the Los Angeles Times is quickly becoming the leading source for fish-out-of-water stories about privileged white girls crossing paths with poor, ethnic people. The latest installment in the transformation is this story about how two brave “journalists” (one writer and one photographer) decided to–just to see what happens–move into one of those apartments packed densely with several families of FOB Central American and/or Mexican immigrants, in a torn-up neighborhood.

They’re posting their results in a series of minimalist, urban-blight-stylized “journal entries” on their website, strangely reminiscent of every old-warehouse-turned-fancy-clothing-store in the gentrified areas of the city near you.

Intrepid White Girls, Devin Browne and Kara Mears (Photo Credit: LA Times)

Even though I partially agree with each of the major criticisms leveled against these two, I also feel sort of bad for them because people are dog piling on them unfairly. “Oh, it’s culturally condescending.” “This isn’t journalism” (which they readily admit up front on their website). “The LA Times is perpetuating (immigrant, Latino, illegal immigrant) stereotypes by giving these two chicks a forum.” And so on and so forth.

Even though, to me, this whole project smells of a reconnaissance mission into fresh gentrification territory, I’m still giving these chicks a pass on the whole interloper argument. It’s not a bad idea to drop some white girls into strange, foreign situations to see what happens and, then, report it as news. Of course, it doesn’t work with every type of white girl. It’s only interesting if you mix ultra-white girl types or–as in this case–semi-arty, wannabe creative types that are more privileged and out-of-touch than they realize, and are always looking for opportunities to re-enact that semester abroad they did in college.

So, I say, let’s see more of it.

Off the top of my head, here are a few overlooked, exotic Latino situations I’d like to suggest to other intrepid white girls looking for a “project”:

Gringa Butcheress (Carnicera)

The butcher (carnicero) is an important character in Latino life, on the order of a Catholic priest or the host of Sabado Gigante. But behind-the-counter is generally a man’s domain. Imagine the high-jinks of having a white girl or two running the place.

Guess what: I hear we're being replaced by some gringas.

White Girl Ice-Cream Cart Operator (Paletera), Mexican Corn Vendor (Elotera), or Side-of-the-Road Fruit-Bag Seller (Frutera)

If you’ve been to any major U.S. city in the South or Southwest, you’re familiar with (or even have a taste for) the ambulant foods of the hood. On any given day, you can get a bounty of south-of-the-border favorites, from the condiment-heavy “crazy corn,” to a bag of peanuts, all for around a dollar. Why not have a white girl operate one of those small businesses for a year and get a tan and a good project in the process?

This is generally how I push the cart, ladies.

Balloon and Toy White-Girl

The advantage to this one is that—in addition to the others’ benefits–you also get an upper-body workout. The main problem is that it’s hard to text your friends and take documentary-style pictures while you’re carrying that heavy-ass pole, so this is definitely a two-girl job.

This will look better in black and white.

You know, for a while I thought it was pretty cool how Obama was seasoning the regular, boring-ass presidential handshake with a subtle, and culturally appropriate, sign of humility.

Predictably, the right-wingers got all over this, talking shit about how it was a “sign of weakness” and interpreting it as not-only-literal-bowing, but also a figurative “bowing down” to foreign governments. I, on the other hand, took it as a refreshing change from how our last president handled foreign leaders:

The problem is that Obama keeps doing it. And, now that it’s lost its initial novelty charm, it’s starting to seem—not like a sign of weakness—but like sign of try-hard cultural sensitivity. Everyone has witnessed one of those moments. It’s like that scene in the movies when the idiot brother rehearses for weeks to greet the Greek parents in their native tongue, but instead of saying, “it’s a honor to meet you and your family,” he accidentally says, “your wife looks ripe for the taking.”

All of this bowing is a recipe for disaster. What’s going to happen when Obama goes to shake the Emperor of Japan’s hand again and the Emperor—thinking he’s doing the culturally appropriate thing—slaps Obama’s hand right-quick, forcing a de factor low-five, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air style? Or, what if Hu Jintao busts out with a “whattup brotha’, hollaback at me,” on a White House voicemail message?

But, who knows, maybe that’s Obama’s intention.