Unfolding controversy over Texas Republicans ethnic slur (to Van de Putte)

[SilasSoule]

I don't doubt that this happened. So, everything said in the lounge of the State Capitol is priveledged? What's up with that?

http://news.mysanantonio.com/story.cfm?xla=saen&xlb=1055&xlc=1066328

<snip>
Now comes news of a small encounter that took place behind closed doors that is so repellent it's almost impossible to believe — even in this season of sleaze.

San Antonio Sen. Leticia Van de Putte says that on Sept. 18, shortly after the Democrats returned from their 45-day exile in New Mexico, she was in the members lounge and approached a Republican senator with a question: "Why are you being so punitive?"

She asked the question moments after Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, had been warned that if she parked her car at the Capitol, it would be towed and after Republicans had placed the Democrats who fled on "probation." Any Senate Democrat absent more than 72 hours will face $57,000 in fines, levied by the Republicans.

Van de Putte, who refers to herself as a "probationer" these days, refuses to name the senator to whom she posed the question. She says one of the rules of the Senate is that anything said in the lounge is privileged. However, she told the Express-News Editorial Board on Monday what the unnamed senator said.

According to Van de Putte, the senator looked at her and said, "If you are going to act like Mexicans, you will be treated like Mexicans."

It's difficult to imagine exactly what the senator could have meant, but it's hard not to read the term "Mexican" as a racial slur. In this day and age, its use is unconscionable. The meaning, at least to Van de Putte, was: If you're going to act like a second-class citizen, then that's the way you'll be treated.

[booksenkatz]

1. Absolutely

Believe me when I tell you that for most Texans (the ones who love their Dubya), the worst possible thing they can think of to call someone is a "Meskin." For them, this is the lowest of all life forms.

I remember when I first left the state and moved elsewhere at the age of 27, it was actually refreshing to hear the word "Mexican" spoken in normal conversational contexts as the beautiful, meaningful adjective that it is. I had never heard it used that way before, LOL! In fact, during my childhood, seeing the racism all around me, I never used the word "Mexican" because I actually was afraid it was an INSULT. It's terribly sad.

There is ONLY ONE WAY that this senator meant that word: as an insult.

~ Lisa, The Homesick Texan

[SilasSoule]

2. Perspective from a Mexican(-American).

Lisa,

Your words ring very familiar coming from someone who's lived 43 of his 45 years in and around South Texas.

The "meskin" moniker was one so prevalenty used that in High school some rednecks just shortened it to "skin".

I never really liked being called a "Mexican" as a child because I was an American (I am the 6 generation and my children the 7th). Yes, my anscestors were from Mexico and in the need for many people to classify everyone racially or ehnically, I realized that people calling me "Mexican" was a reference to my ancestry. But you are all to correct. In many parts of Texas being called a "Mexican" was not taking a shot at your ancestry, it was simply class-based, racial bigotry.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. I agree with you. It wasn't meant kindly.

It goes to the basis of all racism here in America -- if you're different, they don't have to apply the same rules to you.

[jobycom]

5. Yes, but watch that word "most"

Whites in Texas are a bare majority at the moment, and will make up less than 50% in the next couple of years (if they don't already). They will be outnumbered by citizens of Hispanic descent (the term "mexican" gets applied to just about anyone of Hispanic or Latino heritage, regardless of heritage, even though there are Latino families who have lived here since before there were white families) within a decade.

So not most. Maybe most white Texans, maybe. Depends on where. But not most Texans.

Good movie: Lone Star, with Chris Cooper. Classic final line.

[booksenkatz]

6. Good point!

I last lived in Texas in 1987, so alot has changed since then. I was thinking about my growing-up years, when bigoted white boys ran everything in Texas. It's so nice to see the worm turn!!

[jobycom]

8. Evil Grin

I'm looking forward to being a minority, just to laugh at the stunned look on people's faces.

[bearfan454]

4. I hear people say Mez-i-cun

It is just as derrogatory

[Vogon_Glory]

7. Anyone Catch the Political Irony Here?

Does anyone besides me catch the irony of a Republican saying that "If you are going to act like Mexicans, you will be treated like Mexicans"? This latest Republican power grab is the sort of stunt that Mexico's PRI would pull for decades, and Jebito's modification of Florida's voter rolls is another stunt worthy of the old dinosaurs immediately South of the US's land borders.

What the Republicans are doing here is transforming the US into a third world country, with a third-world type kleptocracy running it, a third world economy, and apparently third-world politics. The US is in danger of becomming something that many Latin immigrants were running AWAY from, not towards.

This is not a slam at Mexicans, or other latins as people or at hispanic culture as a whole. I would prefer, though, that the sorts of political traditions the GOP is not so unwittingly importing stays out of the USA.