A Puerto Rican Hispanophile gay man (loves Spain and claims direct Spanish ancestry: a mark of status in the island of enchantment) who is campaigning heavily against Trump, responded rather interestingly, when informed of a physical beating inflicted upon a Dominican woman in a Madrid bus, by a Spanish man, who also called her “negra...”, using abusive language, and told her to go back to her country. (The police arrested the man) The Puerto Rican Hispanophile said, “There is racism everywhere”, dismissing the violent and horrible act. His response led me to wonder, had the racism in the USA not been against Latinos in general, would he be so infuriated with Trump or would he agree with Stephen Miller, the architect of anti-Latino ideology in the White House, whose ancestors died in concentration camps in Germany. Listening to former colleagues and students who are taking public stands against the persecution of Latinos by the current government in Washington D.C, who I know have been quite homophobic, helped me understand that, often, one does not transfer empathy to a different type of discrimination, group or setting. It is not necessarily about reason, but emotion. How the hispanophile feels about Spain is not the same as to how he feels about the USA or Buñuel's movie Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie, the very "petite bourgeoisie."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment