Friday, August 1, 2008
Immigration / Kotz / Politics Is Scene's 'Ask a Mexican' Logo Racist?
Posted by Pete Kotz on Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 5:08 AM
Comments (6)
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If you use blockquotes this will be much easier to read. Just another unsolicited tip from my abnormally huge brain at no extra charge. God, I'm so smart.
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No less a PC police authority than the National Hispanic Media Coalition has deemed the logo to !Ask a Mexican¡ abuelita-worthy--otherwise, they wouldn’t have given me an award for positive contributions to Latinos in the media. (here’s the link: http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/chronicle-a-mexican/another-award-for-oc-weeklys-m”). The logo, like the column, is a satirical reflection of our Know Nothing nation, and is a high-school picture of my Tio Jesús.”
Tim is right: I was included in the original email that went out about the Villegas arrest. The moment I got it, I picked up the phone and called the person who sent it. That person asked that I not write anything for the next week’s paper, because they wanted to keep things quiet until Juana Villegas DeLaPaz had gone before a judge, out of concern for her and her newborn. I reluctantly agreed. The next thing we knew, the story was running in every news source in Tennessee plus the New York Times.
At that point, I decided not to chase a nationally reported story when there are so many other incidents and issues in Nashville’s immigrant communities that don’t get even local attention. (One of them is in this week’s paper.) The facts of the case were already reported elsewhere.
As for our coverage of immigration issues and 287(g), have you seen our stories on Robert Chavez, Michael Sneed, Carmen Ceja and Anthony Lucas—figures the Scene exposed in ongoing reports as frauds who prey on Nashville’s Hispanic immigrants? Or our reporting on Claudia Nunez, a young El Salvadorian refugee who was arrested for driving without a license and put in deportation proceedings? We hope to expose injustices long before anyone gets tortured.
There are other examples, not least of all a November 2006 cover story about the backlash against immigrants in Tennessee. I went ahead and posted links to these stories below, so you can catch up on some stories from our immigrant communities that you may have missed.
http://www.nashvillescene.com/2007-02-15/news/the-bad-man-of-nolensville-road/2
http://www.nashvillescene.com/2006-07-06/news/legal-weasel/full
http://www.nashvillescene.com/2006-05-04/news/lost-in-translation/
http://www.nashvillescene.com/2008-05-01/news/not-who-he-says-he-is/
Please don't explain your art. Let the cake rise, then let them eat it. kthnxbye.
Thank you, Mr. Kotz, for proving that I would have wasted my cell phone minutes talking to you. You also have proved that your "A" game on rationalization is always in place. You should have applied to be editor of The Tennessean. But your response now leaves me with more respect for him and less for you.
As for your reporter, P.J. Tobia, I did not know that the public could enact prior restraint on publication of a story. Didn't the Supreme Court rule against prior restraint? The only people who should have the power to prevent publication are editors and publishers.
I was always taught in journalism that you're only as good as your next story. Tobia believes a story two years ago satisfies his commitment. And you obviously believe the same.
Yes, torture is a pretty good threshold of newsworthiness, as your publication has cited concerning Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo in coverage. That torture, however, was not hundreds and thousands of miles away. With Mrs. Villegas, her torture was only a few miles from your office by Nashville authorities. "Nashville"? Isn't that part of your publication's name?
For the record, The New York Times did not cover the story until 10 days after I broke it. AP took four days. WKRN was next after me. The Tennessean ran the story in the Local section below the fold as written by AP. Like you, it has not done any original reporting on the matter.
I would think that women in your readership would at least be interested in knowing that Nashville authorities restrained a woman with handcuffs during most of her labor and separated her from her child after birth. Sexism is as rampant as racism in our society and in Nashville. Open your eyes and don't let all the testosterone get in the way.
It's nice that people can laugh in other parts of the country about the image and the satire. It is quite good and the writer is very talented. I'm sure that's why he has written a book and has many fans.
Here in Nashville, however, we have 287g deportation. And with it, Old South stirrings are encouraged with the image you run. Hispanics shown as a cartoon character resembling a bandito only encourages many people to see all Hispanics that way. Thus, 287g is seen as deporting people who really aren't human beings and good for a better Nashville. I wish Nashville and Middle Tennessee were more enlightened to take the image as it should be considered, but the city and area are not. So that puts the responsibility on you, to rationalize away or reconsider.
Just like with The New Yorker's Obama cover, your image does not work. Sometimes, that's what happens with satire. That a coalition has praised the image is no consolation here. I've just formed a coalition with one my pets. And we've condemned the image. That's how easy it is to form a coalition and issue an opinion.
I would have called Liz Murray Garrigan before I had written anything about the image because that is how much she is respected here. But you're no Liz Murray Garrigan, Mr. Kotz. Your response proves that. And you've got a very long way before ever being considered in her league.
Tim Chavez
The lesson of the story is: Yes, America is actually a very hostile place, so all the Central and South Americans had better stay home, because we're about to get meaner. I used to live in Los Angeles, so I've seen plenty of Mexicans with gold teeth. That's how they fix teeth in Mexico! What that has to do with chaining a pregnant woman to a bed I'm not sure, which is dreadful treatment, even for a scofflaw.
