From my Taki Magazine column:
With the Census Bureau announcing this spring that the number of Hispanics in America has surpassed 50 million—a large majority of them of Mexican background—it’s worth remembering the “Fernandomania” that swept the country 30 years ago.
America held only 15 million Hispanics when Fernando Valenzuela, a 20-year-old rookie Los Angeles Dodgers baseball pitcher from Mexico, started the 1981 season with eight straight wins, five of them shutouts. (In contrast, the 2010 Dodgers chalked up only four shutouts over 162 games.) Whenever Fernando pitched, attendance would soar as Latinos and others rushed to the ballpark to cheer on the uniquely charismatic phenom. ...
I recount this ancient history because it illuminates the curious question of why there are so few Mexican superstars today in any branch of American popular culture other than boxing. Sure, there are stars—actress Eva Longoria of Desperate Housewives, third baseman Evan Longoria of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and others of similar wattage—but why so few superstars, especially in contrast to African-Americans?
Read the whole thing there.
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125 comments:
Interesting question Steve. Arent some hispanic heros not noted for there hispanicism, or not noted outside of there thing? I mean, Nomar was a big hit for a while in Boston.
That said, Carlos Mencia and George Lopez and hacks like that set the raza back a looooong way. They need a Mexican Seinfeld. Note how Seinfeld could be Jewish without making it the whole schtick.
People watched Lopez with guilt, the watched Seinfeld with pleasure.
That said, great comics are kind of rare. I'll speculate, if I may, and say the big Mex crossover, the Mex Eddie Murphy, is gonna come from the internet. The networks and the MSM aren't going to deal with the truth.
Whites are not really interested in anything other than other Whites. Black guys are not that popular as movie leads, peaking in the 1990s to early 2000's, and their over-presence in TV commercials are more about diversity (anti-White) goals among advertisers than selling product. [Which comes last for advertisers.]
This is the predictable outcome of "White Zionism" which is already taking place. A withdrawal and desire to only care about "White things" and culture. Some of it shallow: Gossip Girl, pouty vampires, etc. but all of it White.
There ARE HUGE Mexican superstars, but you'd have to follow Spanish language media to know them.
Might it have something to do with the fact that Mexicans don't tell themselves that the only way to get out of the ghetto is to make a rap album or be able to handle some type of sports ball?
Cheech Marin was a pretty big deal in comedy in the 1970s and he's still a pretty good comic sidekick (he was by far the best in "Machete," for example).
"A withdrawal and desire to only care about "White things" and culture. Some of it shallow: Gossip Girl, pouty vampires, etc. but all of it White."
The Twilight series is set at the far northwest corner of the Olympic Peninsula and then Edward is supposed to go to the U. of Alaska in Fairbanks, which is taking Moynihan's Law of the Canadian Border to a whole 'nother level.
It sounds pretty mean Steve, but hispanics are generally mediocre in the HBD aspects that give certain ethnicities an edge in sports (don't let anyone ever tel you that excellence in sports is not dependent on genetics), as we know hispanics tend to be small, squat, stocky people with short legs.
Not wishing to plie meaness upon meaness, they are no great shakes in the IQ stakes either - something that keeps them out of the academic halls of fame.
And being a complete bastard, the men aren't particularly good looking - thwarting theatrical careers, and although some of the womwen are heartbreakingly cute when young, they have this unfortunate tendency to 'pork out' on reaching matronhood.
Black guys are not that popular as movie leads, peaking in the 1990s to early 2000's, and their over-presence in TV commercials are more about diversity (anti-White) goals among advertisers than selling product.
You've been telling us in every other thread that Black and Hispanic men are "alpha males" and that White women desire them.
Note how Seinfeld could be Jewish without making it the whole schtick.
Do tell.
No, on second thought, don't.
"Spanish language media"
Seems likely as a partial explanation at least.
Great minds think alike. I just finished proving Hispanics are a race. Now they just need racial heroes.
Whatever their other disadvantages, I can't really bring myself to feel bad about the Mexicans not bringing in superstars. Our culture's too obsessed with these celebrities anyway.
They're tiny. Not much of a mystery.
I recount this ancient history...
It wasn't that long ago. Anyway, I was living in the SFBA at the time, and remember it well.
Whites are not really interested in anything other than other Whites.
Ridiculous. But thanks for capitalizing Whites.
Good call on Trevino winning the PGA at Shoal Creek- I was young but was excited for the guy who looked like he was having so much fun. Interestingly, Victor Regalado, the only other Mexican golfer maybe ever finished in the top 10 that year.
Dan in DC
To anonymous: Tennis is currently dominated by Hispanics, so they do have athletic ability.
Theory: Cultures that are obnoxious to and try to repel new demographic groups tend to produce the strongest individuals from these groups. The English despised the Scots as barbarians in the 18th Century and produced the Scottish Enlightenment, Boswell, Burns, Scott and Macaulay. The tribally exclusive English aristocracy has somehow produced, or provoked, a prime minister of Jewish ancestry, a woman prime minister, a bachelor prime minister, etc.
The old America, amiably condescending to Hispanics, produced Gonzalez and Trevino.
The new, sensitive, always-welcoming America has yielded a slew of decidedly mediocre Hispanic and female politicians who have not amounted to much and a hybrid president who is on course for not amounting to much.
General rule: contempt for and condescension towards new groups provoke individual effort, and effort yields results. It's not nice, but if it is stars you are after, it works.
When I saw the title of the thread, I thought you were talking about the ABBA song.
Never mind.
"It sounds pretty mean Steve, but hispanics are generally mediocre in the HBD aspects that give certain ethnicities an edge in sports (don't let anyone ever tel you that excellence in sports is not dependent on genetics), as we know hispanics tend to be small, squat, stocky people with short legs.
Not wishing to plie meaness upon meaness, they are no great shakes in the IQ stakes either - something that keeps them out of the academic halls of fame."
But what do we mean by 'Hispanic'? Aren't black Cuban-American and Dominican Republic ball players technically 'Hispanic'? There are lots of them.
And wasn't Ron Rivera one of the big-name ball players of the 1985 Superbowl winning Chicago bears?
(For a long time, I thought Joe Montana was of Hispanic lineage but it turns out to be Italian-American too. Dan Marino too. Maybe all the discus/spear throwing in ancient times made them good at this.)
I've seen many Hispanic news anchors whenever I turned on the TV in big cities.
Hispanics have produced a fair number of movie talents, even if they aren't given top roles often.
Whether some of these can count as Hispanic-Americans, I don't know, but in our global age, many have made a big name for themselves IN Hollywood, and that does mean a kind of American success.
Benicio Del Toro has some of Paul Muni's intensity.
John Leguizamo, though I don't like him, is one helluva an actor. He played a great punk in CARLITO'S WAY and though he didn't have much screen time, he almost stole the show from even Al Pacino.
It's too bad Edward James Olmos wasn't given more roles in good movies. He has great style in BLADE RUNNER and gave an intense performance in STAND AND DELIVER.
Ricardo Montalban had a great voice. I never liked FANTASY ISLAND and STAR TREK, but I liked him in ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES and CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES(even though his reasons for saving the talking chimp baby bordered on the ludicrous).
I think Anthony Quinn, Charles Bronson, and Martin Sheen have some Hispanic blood. Joan Baez too I never liked her. I was watching the Dylan Newport concert dvd, and she was annoying as ever. She sat next to Bobby like he was young Jesus and she was Mary Magdalene. But if the special thing about Mary was an awareness of both her sinfulness and salvation, Joan always acted like she was born pure from day one. That holy schmoly voice of hers. Yech.
Salma Hayek is a talented and good-looking woman.
Lynda Carter is half-Mexican. Not much of an actress but she was a big thing as Wonder Woman when I was a kid.
Erik Estrada was in the TV series CHIPS. (A big joke among us kiddies in the early 80s was...'what do you call two black guys on a motorcycle?' 'chocolate chips')
Cameron Diaz is half-Hispanic or something.
I think Raquel Welch is part Mexican.
For the longest time I thought Robert Blake was Mexican but his origin is actually Italian.
I think many Hispanics have the personality to become colorful TV and movie stars, but Hollywood today prefers the generic, the flashy, and the same old over the colorful and eccentric. Bardem was 'discovered' by Hollywood via the more arty Coen brothers.
When i was a kid I followed golf and I was a big fan of Lee Trevino (I saw him once at a tournament with Chi Chi Rodriguez).. I don't know why they never made a movie about him he was a fascinating guy. He had the best golf line ever about putting: "A pressure putt is one you have to sink to win a $25 dollar bet when you have only $5 in your pocket".
I think everyone knows the answer to this question. Mexicans, as others have noted, are a relatively short race and the pitcher is usually the tallest man on the ball team. Latins do well in boxing because there are weight classes. Baseball, football and basketball do not have height or weight classes.
Mexicans do well I believe as jockeys.
Of course Asians are also small. But unlike Mexicans and other Latinos they are smart. They have long dominated gymnastics - a sport in which being large is a positive disadvantage. Being smart they create sports that favor their body type and their agility. Think Ninja Warrior.
Asians also created most of the popular martial arts - karate, judo, jui-jitsu, etc. But oddly they are not particularly successful in modern cage fighting. Blacks dominate hand speed and foot speed sports like running or boxing but whites seem to dominate wrestling. So in mixed martial arts, which is largely a mixture of boxing and wrestling, whites do quite well. That I find surprising. I have kept waiting for a new generation of Black cage fighters to emerge who would take over the way Blacks took over boxing in the fifties - but not so far.
I'm promoting a new truly mixed sport suitable for the television age. It has alternating rounds of cage fighting with Texas Hold-Em Poker. It should have a very broad appeal. Call it 007 fighting.
Albertosaurus
Note how Seinfeld could be Jewish without making it the whole schtick.
Wrong. Not only situational Jewish humor, but specifically the Manhattan variety with a clear contrast drawn for humours effect between sterotypically Jewish friends/parents and non-Jewish New Yorkers like WASPy J Peterman and George's girlfriend Susan.
One more thing, Seinfeld doesn't seem to have been the comic genius behind the show as his subsequently unfunny career illustrates.
Curb Your Enthusiam, a faithful LA version of Seinfeld, illustrates Larry David was the real talent behind the show "Seinfeld".
In the '90s, I worked for a corporation that had a special after-school work program for Latino high school students. We employed about 100 of them in our downtown office building, where they worked as clerical aides.
One day, all of the students were crying and rushing about the building to gather together. The high school girl in our department ran out sobbing, and then returned a half hour later, eyes still swollen.
We asked her what had happened ... why were the students all upset?
"Selena has been shot," she said.
"Does Selena go to your school?" we asked.
"No ... Selena the singer. She's dead."
Of course, none of us old white folks had any clue who Selena was. We'd never heard of her.
One explaination for the relative lack of Latin American cultural stars despite their population explosion may be that the composition of immigrants has changed.
Compared to today, Mexican and other Hispanic immigration probably contained more elites and Norteños. Cheech's father was an LAPD cop, Nancy Lopez was born and raised in Torrance and her father owned his own garage while Trevino was born in Dallas.
With decreased cost, less fear of travel and illegal immigration, there are probably more poorer and more indigina immigrants who are less likely to achieve fame and fortune in our hypercompetitive polyglot capitalistic society.
Another fact is that our world is much more efficient in identifying individuals for excellence in sports or other talents that lead to fame. This dramatically reduces the chances of a poor Chi Chi Rodriguez making it out of Puerto Rico to fame and fortune. Not only are genetics increasingly a limiting factor from birth, but also parental wealth to optimally nurture and develop it increasingly essential.
With the large population and inevitable intermarriages, especially in less racially diverse areas like Texas, we might see more Hispanic-lite stars like Mark Sanchez of the NY Jets.
Because there is such a huge population of Mexicans in the US, they can be quite comfortable speaking mostly or only Spanish.
The proliferation of Spanish language TV and radio stations means that Mexican-Americans can be huge stars that whites have never heard of.
google "fluffy" this guy is way better than mencia
People used to ask why I never watched Seinfeld, and I'd tell them I already have a bunch of Jewish friends who max out the neurotic meter, so I see Seinfeld day!
My wife watched a lot of reality TV last year during her pregnancy (Real Housewives of..., etc.) which meant I watched a lot of reality TV last year. As these shows are fashion and style-oriented, they feature a lot of gay men, which- depending on the show's location or theme- could mean a lot of gay BLACK men (e.g. Housewives of Atlanta/D.C., Kimora, Life in the Fab Lane)- more, in fact, than I ever imagined even existed in the U.S.
Which made me think of your observation, Steve, only with stakes raised. Not only are there far more interesting black personalities as compared to Hispanic ones despite the latter's demographic preponderance, there are more gay, sexually ambiguous, or otherwise sexually deviant famous black personalities than Hispanic ones of any stripe. Michael Jackson, Prince, Queen Latifah, Ru Paul, Omar from The Wire, and Kimora Lee. Ok, so Omar is fictional, but it's obvious to everyone Kimora is a male tranny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnS8XGkwZvo&iv_load_policy=3
Who says Mexicans have no entertainment value?
Whiskey sez:This is the predictable outcome of "White Zionism" which is already taking place.
Funny how Whiskey inadvertently admitted that Zionism is a race thing. You couldn't construe his comment to mean anything else.
Steve,
I hadn't known anything about Lee Trevino until I read your column. Amazing story. I'm surprised it's never been picked up for a movie.
I remember the moment when I knew the country had gone crazy. It was spring training '91. The L.A. Times had a straightfaced front-page story about how MALDEF claimed it was "racism" for the Dodgers to release Fernando, after a spring E.R.A. of 23.
Superstars.
Hispanic culture just seems to be inherently mediocre; Charles Murray, in HUMAN ACCOMPLISHMENT, notes that the artistic and scientific output of Spain during its Golden Age was not remarkable in comparison to the other nations of Western Europe (HUMAN ACCOMPLISHMENT 338).
An even more telling comparison can be made between Spain and Italy during the period 1650-1850. Both nations were in decline, but Italy still managed to produce "several dozen" significant figures (HA 338).Spain, in contrast, only managed to produce one major figure (Goya) and 11 significant figures (HA 338).
It would be interesting as well to compare the 'superstar' component of Mexicans to that of the other Ibero-American ethnic groups in the United States: Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Cubans, Salvadorans, etc. A hunch tells me that Mexicans don't compare as well especially when adjusted for population size. On the other hand, Mexican cuisine is now ubiqitous throughout the United States so there has been some cultural contribution.
"General rule: contempt for and condescension towards new groups provoke individual effort, and effort yields results."
So that's why Gypsies are such accomplished dynamos. Or the Muslim world, or black South Africans, or....
Mexicans, hmmm... Hope Sandoval, the singer from Mazzy Star, is from an East LA Mexican family.
"Blue Flower"
But as others have hinted, it's the Hispanics who are mostly Euro and African that make anything exciting, like Caribbeans. Nobody knew who Selena was, but everyone knew who Ricky Martin was (even Menudo was more popular than Selena), or Jennifer Lopez, or Gloria Estefan.
Great video showing the African appeal to white fans of the Miami Sound Machine:
"Rhythm Is Gonna Get You"
Re: The mediocrity of Spain vis-a-vis the other nations of Western Europe,
It should be noted that Spain is the best case scenario for Hispanic culture, as the Hispanophone nations of the New World are even more mediocre (cf the charts in Murray's HUMAN ACCOMPLISHMENT on pages 248, 249,252, where the bulk of the New World contributions to Western Culture emanate from the USA).
Possible reasons for this gap:
1. Cultural lag: Spain, as the source of Hispanic culture, possesses a vitality that is lacking in its New World daughters.
2. Racial differences: Spain is a White European nation, while the Hispanic countries of the New World all have substantial infusions of Amerind and Black genes.
"Edward is supposd to go to the U. of Alaska in Fairbanks..." Remember the MAD series,TV ads we'd LIKE to see? How about movies we'd like to see:Edward goes to Yale and at night walks the streets of New Haven...
If there was never a Hispanic tennis "dynasty" it wasn't the fault of Paccho Gonzales, who would have been all for it and who constantly praised Pancho Segura almost as if he was some kind of compatriot, even though Segura was an Equadoran. There just weren't enough Hispanic players willing and able to build on the success of these role models.
Maybe it has something to do with the rise of politically correct narcisso-crass-commercial-fascism. When a culture becomes, at once, PC, fascist, consumer-commercialist, and ADD--attention-deficit-orderesque--, it offers less space for what might be called 'ordinary eccentrics'.
Both crass-narcisso-fascism and consumer-commercialism favor the strongest, the toughest, the most glamorous, the loudest, the most-widely-appealing, the sexiest, the most eye-popping and eye-catching, etc. In business, it's Walmart; on TV it's Oprah and all those EXTREME shows; in pop music, it's loud and thuggish rap or skanky-ass-ho porn music of Lady Gaga and her ilk; it's food, it's either ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT BURGER or high-priced-fancy-show-off sushi bars for SWPL yuppies; in politics, it's Obama and Sarah Palin; in movies, it's superhero blockbusters, monstrosities like AVATAR, and other big-budget loud/fast/rip-roaring movies with bombs and babes; in comedy, it's foul-mouthed, extreme, insane humor of David Chappelle or South Park.
So, the 'little guys' lose out. Who needs a genuinely interesting movie about realistic mooks like MEAN STREETS when you have the trashy SOPRANOS(vastly overrated) and JERSEY SHORE?
Even as we 'celebrate diversity', it's really come down to diverse peoples watching, listening, and/or dancing to the same thing. Most of our culture is narcisso-fascist and crass-generic. What passes for 'different' or 'subversive' in our culture has become obvious and hyped status/social symbols: tattoos, piercing, dreadlocks among whites; you can find it all over the place.
'Different' as fashion than truly different.
When it comes to genuinely different or unique individuals or cultures, there's little interest. Rolling Stone magazine doesn't cover ethinc or folk music around the world. It's all hip hop, rock, and etc. Most movie theaters show Iron Man I, II, III, IV, etc. French kids listen to hip hop music while we know or care little about French music, folk or classical.
And in TV shows and movies, most actors now act like narcisso-fascists: larger-than-life, standing tall, doing badass stuff, looking cool and good, always speaking self-consciously or manneristically, showboating, grandstanding, etc. Even crime or law shows on TV are like yuppie and buppie fashion shows with status-conscious personalities than real people doing police work(like in the movie PRINCE OF THE CITY). When was the last time we saw anything like COLOMBO, KOJACK, or BARETTA whose heroes were not dashing, handsome, or glamorous but had real personality and eccentricities? Today, we have we have narcisso-fascist cops, lawyers, judges, politicians, and criminals on TV. Everyone is slick, as in some overheated and Michael Mann movie. (In HEAT, cops vs robbers turns into clash of the well-dressed titans.)
Of course, there is EXTREME ethnic and racial humor, BUT its purveyors have to be careful with PC taboos. Also, caricatures are also generic formulas than real-life eccentricities. Caricatures give us THE black guy, THE Mexican, THE Asian, THE redneck, THE Hindu(always running 7-11) etc. It makes people perceive and judge an entire group of people based on simple stereotypes and assumptions. Every Italian-American becomes a mafia gumba, every Southern white American becomes a Nascar-loving hillbilly.
Given the state of our culture, there's less interest or patience for unique and eccentric real-life stories that can be found in any community, Mexican or otherwise. Something doesn't have to be the best, strongest, most charismatic, most cool, etc, etc to be interesting. Cassavetes' HUSBANDS is a story about a bunch of guys going through a middle aged crisis, and it's one of the most interesting and heartfelt movies ever made. And I'm sure there are many stories of Mexican-Americans that can be made into interesting TV stories, movies, books, etc.
But our culture turns everyone--Mexican, white, black, etc--into an addict of extreme narcisso-fascist crass commercial culture. Blacks used to come up with stuff like jazz, blues, and soul; now it's all generic stud/thug/ho hiphop.
Wasps used to produce all sorts of interesting characters in movies, literature, etc. Today, they generally sell themselves as glamorous pretty boys. A glimpse into Italian-American community/culture was fascinating in the early 70s with movies like GODFATHER and MEAN STREETs. Now, we get stuff like JERSEY SHORE.
Maybe we shouldn't just blame the cultural elites. Maybe we all deserve the blame since most of us, as consumers, have favored the EXTREME and the GENERIC over the unique, eccentric, individualistic, and different.
EXTREME and GENERIC may sound like opposites, but they are two sides of the same coin. EXTREME is merely the tail end of the generic than something unique in its own right. So, a guy who can eat 100 hotdogs in one sitting is just an extreme version of the generic hotdog munching American fatass.
And this seems to be a worldwide problem. Zhang Yimou's earlier films showed us something unique and interesting about various individuals in China trying to survive and find meaning in life. But HERO and FLYING DAGGERS were just extreme versions of genericism. It was history as kung-fu comic opera pushed to extreme blockbuster excesses.
Though movies like WINTER'S BONE(not very good but welcome)and HURT LOCKER do get made, they made a pittance compared to the umpteenth superhero movie, dumb teen comedy, etc.
And though there are still genuinely personal musical artists, they are almost entirely eclipsed by the Gagas and Kanyes of the world.
There was a time when journals like Rolling Stone magazine and film magazines favored the unfairly neglected underdogs over the mass-marketed big dogs but no longer. Even much of cultural and alternative media is into the EXTREME and the GENERIC.
So, if a genuine Mexican-American director wants to make something like MEAN STREETS with Mexicans, not only will he receive scant support but also scant coverage and attention.
And compare today's action movies with ones in the past. Just about every action guy today has to be really strong, really super, realy fast, really top-notch like Bourne. There's nothing human about them. Generic extremism rules everything. If you show young kids old action movies, they say it's boring cuz the heroes cannot beat up a 100 guys in a few second and because the visual style isn't rock-n-roll wham-bam.
Since our culture has no use for the human element but only favors the strong, super, gorgeous, ultra-cool, ultra-narcissistic, ultra-stylistic, etc, etc, there's less room for anything genuinely human, unique, or different. I knew something bad was up when PULP FICTION and CROUCHING TIGER became the new templates for 'art films'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HyLZWlJ1e8
I don't need or want Mexican superstars. I just want them to learn to be interesting as human beings. All sorts of human stories are interesting; they just need intelligent and sensitive people to tell them.
Mexican-Americans should follow in the footsteps of Italian-Americans who went into cinema in the 60s and 70s.
To Dan in DC: You forget Lorena Ochoa, who was the #1 women's golfer or close to it for several years before she retired last year to start a family with her husband. Then again, she would tend to prove Steve's point, since she looks to be close to, if not totally of, European descent.
As for the anonymous commenter who said Hispanics are dominating tennis, those individuals are almost to a person either pure Spanish (with Rafael Nadal the most prominent example) or Latin Americans of overwhelmingly European descent.
greenrivervalleyman and Steve,
I think blacks tend much more to extraversion than do Mexicans and this is one reason you see fewer Mexicans in high profile entertainment niches.
Even Trevino, who acted as a commercial spokesman for a few companies for a long time and whose face became known to even non-golfers through those tv ads, is not an outgoing guy at all, as I am sure Steve knows. He is suspicious and insular, as even Trevino has admitted. The outgoing Lee is an act, albeit a very likeable, entertaining one, but, *that* Trevino is the actor, not the person.
So, how do the Netherlands Antilles compare with Mexico, proportionately, in producing MLB players? Yes, soccer is the main sport SOTB, but they're not tearing that world apart either. Knighted Dutchmen from Aruba and Curaçao may soon outnumber Mexicans on the diamond.
And don't forget the 10,000-hour rule (a necessity, not a sufficiency.) How many Mex-Ams are going to invest that into lily-white (Tiger and Venus aside) activities like golf and tennis?
When I was flipping through the channels a week or so ago I caught the sports report on a Spanish language channel. Featured in the report: 1) the new Mexican and Venezuelan F1 drivers Sergio Perez (Mexico) and Pastor Maldonado (Venezuelan); 2) soccer, with emphasis on Hispanic players from MLS, as well as goals from Latin American and European leagues; 3) some baseball featuring some Hispanic player I think was retiring; and 4) brief NBA highlights.
Most USA Hispanics are not that interested in American sports (other than fading baseball) or pop culture so it is unsurprising they are not well represented. In sport Mexicans in particular like boxing and soccer and are well represented in both but since Americans don't follow either they are not aware of them. Hispanics in general are well represented in motorsport. Other than baseball players and Mark Sanchez the only Hispanic the ordinary American sports fans would see on a regular basis is Juan Montoya of Columbia. The Indy 500 winner and ex-F1 star is one of the most prominent drivers in NASCAR.
Unlike blacks most Hispanics have memories of or familial connections to other countries. They also speak a different language that has its own mass media and they are growing in numbers. So there is no reason to believe their sub-culture within the US will disappear forcing ambitious Hispanics into mainstream American culture.
"I don't need or want Mexican superstars. I just want them to learn to be interesting as human beings."
They'd be a lot more interesting to me if they were back in sunny Méjico.
Well, no, not really. But they'd be a lot less irritating.
...their over-presence in TV commercials are more about diversity (anti-White) goals among advertisers than selling product. [Which comes last for advertisers.]
Explain.
@Albertosaurus
Black fighters are starting to dominate MMA: Jose Aldo, A. Silva, Jon Jones are among the best in the sport.
Wrestling has never been popular among American blacks, but you'll find many top wrestlers (Kevin Jackson, Chris Campbell, Mo Lawal, Phil Davis) among the small number who enter the sport. If you normalize to population size in the sport you can see that they are heavily overrepresented at the top.
The last refuge for WNs is fringy stuff like strongman competitions ... Where there is $$$ you will (eventually) find top black athletes.
There's a young Mexican centre-forward doing very well at Manchester United this season.
OT, but have you seen this?:
David Cameron: migration threatens our way of life
I think the reason that famous Mexicans fade is because there is not a sufficiently sophisticated and powerful group of Mexican-Americans to keep their names alive. As a counter-example, Jews with their influence and media savvy and can keep their heroes in public view for ... literally thousands of years.
On the other hand, Blacks seem to do somewhat better and they certainly don't have more influence than Mexicans in terms of money and IQ, but they do have a certain media savvy that Mexicans lack. And Jews and Great White Liberals seem to love rallying around Black stars more than any others.
I am absolutely shocked and disgusted that Apple permits a representative to spread vile hate propaganda.
I will never buy an Apple product again.
If Mexico sent its elite here, as India does, instead of its lowest classes, it might be a different story. Imagine if the situations traded places.
Yes, Seinfeld was Jewish throughout, but it was somewhat subtle about it for the most part. In the past, comics like Jack Benny and George Burns came across a lot less Jewish in their shtiks.
Erik Estrada was under-rated as an actor in CHiPs because it seemed like he wasn't acting, remember he is a New Yorican who was playing a East LA Chicano. Ever since he's always played Mexican rôles so people just assume he is actually Mexican. He should receive a lifetime special Emmy for that.
The state of our culture is deeply demoralizing to anyone with talent, sense, vision, or something to say.
There has to be more interesting Mexicans than Cheech Marin or George Lopez, but suppose one of them went to Hollywood with an interesting movie idea or tv show about the REAL Mexican-American experience. The studio-execs--mostly Jewish and white--will say NO. Not necessarily out of bigotry but because they are in the business of making money. So, if you're Mexican-American, the safe bet is to play to stereotypes, like Lopez, Paul Rodriguez, etc.
And if you're an Arab-American, forget about playing any role other than terrorist or the rare decent Arab guy helps Americans fight terrorists--like those 'good' Indians who help white man fight 'bad Injuns' in Westerns. The last time I saw any Arab character of any interest in was in BABEL.
And even though blacks are prominent in Hollywood, how many have roles that are meaningful or say something about reality instead of being generic-superstarish or playing to SWPL platitudes(like THE WIRE)?
If anything, black actors get worse when they become superstars. Morgan Freeman, who used to play interesting roles in stuff like STREET SMART, has taken out a patent in the velvet voiced magic negro. Will Smith, who was at least interesting in stuff like SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION, has starred in one dumb movie after another. Stallone was better in the 70s than in his superstardom in the 80s with Rambo and ridiculous Rocky sequels. Jamie Foxx the big star is a big pain in the ass. Did Matt Damon do anything resembling acting in the Bourne movies?
And there is only kind of role for Asian-Indians in Hollywood and TV. They have funny accents, tend to work at 7-11, or be computer geeks. And one is interchangeable with another.
In the 70s, though shows like GOOD TIMES was no great work of art, it still had something to say about black America. Though a sitcom, it did have some grit and elements of real life. But look at black sitcoms in the 80s and 90s. Glitzy or generic crap.
For Chinese-Americans, it's gotta be kung-fu or geek stereotypes.
I think the most famous Korean-Americans are Margaret Cho, Bobby Lee, and Sandra Oh, a pitiful bunch. (How someone as ugly and untalented as Oh got major roles in Hollywood is another one of those mysteries).
And after the long war in Vietnam, you'd think Hollywood would show some interest in the Vietnamese people over there or over here living as immigrants. But only one film HEAVEN & EARTH really touched on that topic--and was a total flop--while most movies about Vietnam have been about white and black guys blowing that country to smithreens--as a confession of guilt or profession of gungho pride.
Granted, Hollywood and America are not alone to blame. Entertainment worldwide is pretty crappy. I mean Bollywood was something India perpetrated on itself. Though it has on occasion made some good movies, its stupidity is India's own doing. And even many advanced nations with lots of educated people in Asia and Europe seem incapable of making interesting movies about their own people.
As for TV in Latin America, less said the better.
But maybe part of our problem is to always think in terms of superstardom, like which movie director had the biggest blockbusters, which singer had the biggest hits, which actor made the most money last yr, who had the biggest wedding, etc.
If we go by such standards, Malcolm Gladwell is many times the thinker Sailer is cuz Gladwell made more money, enjoys greater readership, gets invited to more cocktail parties, schmoozes with many more famous people, and has won more accolades and prizes. But by whose rules is Gladwell the superstar intellectual of our age? And shouldn't we ask, Why do so many people prefer 'superstar' hype over something of genuine worth?
In sports, the best is indeed those who can hit the hardest or run fastest. But the world of art, culture, truth, and ideas shouldn't be judged the same way. We should look for and encourage real quality even if most people prefer 'superstar' junk. Let millions watch Oprah and worship her as the greatest TV personality of all time. I still say Dick Cavett had the better show despite his lack of superstardom.
>All sorts of human stories are interesting; they just need intelligent and sensitive people to tell them.<
Ay, there's the rub. Finding intelligent and sensitive people. But you must understand that in your desire for such, you represent a distinct minority. No one is more universally disliked and opposed than an intelligent and sensitive person (whose very sensitivity tends further to compound unnecessarily every slight).
Intelligent and sensitive people, until they have reached power, are perceived as a threat, or at least as something vaguely annoying and unpleasant. And so are all their works - until, again, these become totems of power.
It was the German philosopher Schopenhauer who said that, as unpleasant as it is for an intelligent person to encounter a stupid person, it is ten times more unpleasant for a stupid person to encounter an intelligent person.
I would say this applies to virtues as well. For example, anyone more honorable is hated by everyone less honorable; anyone more honest is hated by everyone less honest, etc.
The old joke is that people who hate something bad are not necessarily good; the source of their hatred of the bad thing may be that they are even worse.
Intelligence and virtue are like flickering flames fated to struggle against darkness forever.
@Trahearne
Local elections here in Britain are a few weeks away. He's saying what Daily Mail readers want to hear.
Is he proposing any new legislation? No.
Wow, great rant about "extreme narcisso-fascist crass commercial culture" from Anonymous.
Steve, I'm surprised you and el commentatore haven't mentioned the obvious. Amerindians haven't had time yet to fully exploit affirmative action. You need a population tipping point. It takes a generation or two. Sooner or later the feeling of entitlement will bring forth many "charismatic" Latinos. Not to worry. They will be "cool" sooner or later, cool meaning unburdened by any debilitating convictions, and will easily segue into Diversity Establishment. Azteca chic. Dog and cock fights. The Plumed Serpent. The two-headed god.
Dominicans, Cubans, and Puerto Ricans are very well represented in baseball. Mexicans, not so much.
There are a lot of Mexicans in Texas. They've been there for at least a few generations and seem to get along alright with the general population. The Texans I know seem to have no problem with their Mexican neighbors or sending their kids to mostly Mexican schoosl.
As people, Mexicans are pleasant and not particularly objectionable. The problem is their low level of academic, social, cultural, and economic attainment. They're very lethargic, unmotivated, and sleepy as a group. So you end up with south Texas wherever you find lots of Mexicans.
"Steve, I'm surprised you and el commentatore haven't mentioned the obvious. Amerindians haven't had time yet to fully exploit affirmative action."
DANCES WITH WOLVES was a hit, but American Indians, with their stoic inscrutable countenance, haya-haya(as opposed to fun bumpity-humpity)music, slow methodical oral style--"white man give me gun, I give white man squaw; we now blood brothers"--, and lack of superb athletic skills, tend to be a bit dull and a boring for our current popular tastes.
Of course, there has been a kind of New Age spiritual fascination with the mystical East and American Indians, but our culture is sensual/sexual more than spiritual. Indeed, Americans want even their spirituality to be sensual/sexual--Madonna, black preachers with the style of pimps, and McChurches singing and clapping to rock music.
In less hectic, rushed, and ADD-addled times, there once was greater interest in Eastern spiritualism--Japanese Zen, Hindu music and sects(I remember seeing Hare Krishna fests in the park in the late 70s when I was a kid). And young people in the 60s were into art/foreign films too. Though the Rock generation, the boomers still grew up in a world where childhood wasn't only about wham-bam-zoom tv shows, videogames, etc. They still read books, spent a lot of time outdoors, and had long serious discussions. Besides, even most movies and TV shows told stories than sensory-overloaded kids with effects. I still remember growing up watching the Waltons. Who'd watch something like that today?
But with the triumph of rock, extreme TV, blockbuster filmmaking, and instant media/computers/videogames/hook-in-and-hook-up culture, everything is a matter of speed, loudness, intensity, immediacy. If something fails to grab one's attention or give one an eye-gasm, ear-gasm, laugh-gasm, or orgasm in half second flat, it doesn't have a chance--and it will likely be ignored even by the elites.
This is one reason why classical music is dead. It's not instant-music.
But thanks to 'conservative' consumer-capitalism and 'liberal' hedonism and Afrophilia, the only kind winners are those that can grab you there and then in an instant.
Past American presidents probably couldn't even win the primaries today cuz they don't have SUPERSTAR charisma, which these days, should really be called cataclysma. It goes beyond charm and style; it's a hype! Who, in this day and age, would go for someone as 'boring' as Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, or Cleveland?
And just look at our movies. I'm not sure anything truly epic is possible anymore. In the real world, this is true enough because of speed of modern travel. The Odyssey is epic because it took Odysseus a long time to sail from Troy back to his homeland. Today, anyone can fly from one part of the world to the other part of the world in 12 hrs. And you can communicate with anyone around the world. We can't be epic even if we wanted to in this day and age. But the instant-ization of reality has also affected movies, even what are supposed to be epic movies, which is why epic movies no longer feel epic. The camera flies around like superman, going from underworld to the top of the mountain in a second flat, from one end of the earth to the other in nano-seconds. Everything is restless, relentless, non-stop, etc. The original CLASH OF THE TITANS and JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS were crude but they still conveyed some sense of adventure, of long distance traveled. The new CLASH is like a videogame jet flight through Greek mythology. It's more like a junkie fix than storytelling.
This is why I don't like Pixar movies, as brilliant as some of them are. Non-stop rush in action, gags, comedy, etc.
But that's the stuff kids grow up with. I think kids raised on INCREDIBLES will find BAMBI or MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO boring.
Even our planning for war is ADD-addled. We were gonna go into Iraq and win in a jiffy and that was that. Oops, too bad it didn't happen that way.
Same with gambling. It used to be going to a casino meant playing card games or roulette, etc. Today, it's mostly people pulling on the slot machine. Instant play, instant win.
Same thing with love. Courtship is passe. It's hookup or get lost.
And in many cases, it comes down to 'how many inches is he' or 'how big are her T&A?' Girls even dress like hookers. Alexandra Wallace, Lady Gaga, what's the difference?
So, certain racial, cultural, or ethnic groups that are less showy or aren't immediately captivating or orgasmifying are gonna lose out. But Mexicans aren't really victims. They like the same crap we like. And the most popular films in Asia are Bollywood and Hong Kong non-stop wire-fu flicks. Some of them are amazing in their own way, but the same rule applies: unless you zap the audience right away, you lose them.
I think another reason why non-black minorities lost out is because blacks have become fully mainstream in every way. Even up til the late 80s, there was a kind of division between white culture and black culture. One side was white, one side was black. Though some black stars were hugely successful--eddie murphy, cosby, michael jackson, etc--, they were seen as cross-over acts or a kind of neo-coon show(something many blacks have ragged Murphy about).
So, in this climate, whites sometimes preferred non-black minorities as sidekicks. Having a Latin or Asian sidekick was less threatening than having a black guy who might out-charismatize the white guy(or even steal his girl).
So, while 1950s TV shows would never think to show a black-white couple, it was okay to show a latino-white couple in the Lucy Show. And when black rock n rollers made white folks feel a bit uneasy in the late 50s and early 60s, it was useful to have Italian-American pop idols imitating the blacks. In some ways, Italian-Americans were useful to American culture as a kind of intermediary between whiteness and blackness. They were white enough not to be black but also colorful and wild enough to be something-other-than-white(kinda black). Similarly, when D.W. Griffith was accused of 'racism' for BIRTH OF A NATION, he made BROKEN BLOSSOMS which told an interracial love story but with a 'chink' in love with a white woman. Indeed, though old Hollywood almost always avoided black-white romances, there were some movies about bamboo fever stuff, as in BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN, which some consider Capra's best film. In a way, Latin lovers, Suzie Wongs, General Yens, 'Greaseball' thugs, and American Indians were stand-ins for exploring the big taboo in American culture--black/white interracial tensions. It was less disturbing for whites to explore the interracial dynamic with any race other than blacks.
But now that the black taboo has been lifted since Spike Lee's JUNGLE FEVER, hip hop culture, total black domination of sports, and cyberporn(which every kid has access to--evident enough at public libraries!), there is less need to rely on non-blacks to touch on the racial issue. Now, it is almost entirely a white-black affair.
"Dominicans, Cubans, and Puerto Ricans are very well represented in baseball. Mexicans, not so much."
But they run lots of great taco joints. I think I see them more than pizzarias.
And there is only kind of role for Asian-Indians in Hollywood and TV. They have funny accents, tend to work at 7-11, or be computer geeks. And one is interchangeable with another.
One of the people who was significantly involved in the real-life events portrayed in the recent movie The Social Network was the Indian-American Diyva Narenda. When it came time to select an actor to play Narenda, the producers chose Max Minghella, who is of mixed Italian and Chinese ancestry. He has no Indian ancestry at all.
Peter
Black fighters are starting to dominate MMA: Jose Aldo, A. Silva, Jon Jones are among the best in the sport.
Aldo is a Brazilian mulatto. Unless he's really absorbed American culture, he probably considers himself separate from blacks.
Peter
"So, while 1950s TV shows would never think to show a black-white couple, it was okay to show a latino-white couple in the Lucy Show. "
Er, you do realize that Desi may be latino, but he is also white and therefore of course there were no qualms about showing such a couple considering it was not an interracial relationship but rather an international one? There was no historical taboo with the English marrying the Spanish. Please don't tell me that descendants of the conquistadors now get to claim they are a different race.
"So you end up with south Texas wherever you find lots of Mexicans."
In my area, you wind up with lots of hard-working landscapers, their children (who are not at all academically motivated, and lots of gang members with the attendant crime you'd expect from gang members.
Black guys (not Hispanic) are certainly pushed if they are Athletes. Most of the White women in my professional circle ages 25-40 certainly desire them. And that is catered to with the Kardashians endless reality shows (they certainly don't appeal to men). BUT ... there is always a but! The Black athlete guys pushed as romantic objects are there just to drool over. They're not the complete package of fantasy like Edward Cullen. Even Taye Diggs (Kevin Hill) failed to catch on with the CW crowd. The Kardashians/Kendra are proof that women (I suspect the age demo is substantially older than the tweens the CW targets) don't object to this, they're on every Supermarket tabloid cover (I see them there every week). If you shop and have your eyes open, you can't miss what's selling to women.
I'd say the process of withdrawal by Whites from other cultures is more advanced among men than women, generally, though younger men emulate rap more, while younger women tend to want Edward Cullen more than Taye Diggs, the birth dearth and aging of White America puts the withdrawal's center of gravity more on the plus 30 side.
It will be interesting to see if the NFL recovers from the lockout. The UFL offers some competition, it will depend on how dominantly Black they make their team.
One of the people who was significantly involved in the real-life events portrayed in the recent movie The Social Network was the Indian-American Diyva Narenda. When it came time to select an actor to play Narenda, the producers chose Max Minghella, who is of mixed Italian and Chinese ancestry. He has no Indian ancestry at all.
In his DVD commentary, David Fincher said that he auditioned numerous Indian actors but he felt none were right for the role. He ultimately went with Minghella because a) he could act and b) Narenda doesn't look particularly Indian anyways.
There has never been a movie made about Lee Trevino, but he WAS in Happy Gilmore. And don't forget the Dr. Pepper commercials!
The most popular tween TV shows are Glee, Vampire Diaries, and Gossip Girl. While only the first show has a sizeable audience (birth dearth, fragmentation), what is striking is how absent not just Latino actors are in tween-oriented stuff (High School the Musical has a Latina ancestry actress as lead, the Disney pop princess machine has two Latinas currently as its star) but Latino CULTURE. Just completely not there: music, accents, activities, values, all just gone. Not even a little bit soaks into the Tween-bait stuff.
In part this is because Latinos exist in a parallel, separate cultural universe, and secondly because the White elites that make entertainment live in a culture solidified in 1965 or so. I've seen a lot of Telemundo/Univision in ER waiting rooms, Spanish language media does not seem to lack for stars. We just don't know them. Fox is launching Nat Geo Mundo, Univision has two new channels in the works (one for sports, the other telenovelas) and NBCU/Telemundo is offering ads targeted to Hispanics all across its properties. Latino stars probably just don't cross over, the population unlike that of Blacks is big enough to permit that. [Note that ABC's version of Ugly Betty, was heavily anglicized, not much Latin Culture in there, it was Whiter and Gayer than you could imagine. Because TV is almost universally for women/girls and gays.]
SouthernAnonyia, your reading comprehension is poor. The commenter's thesis is that white ethnics like Arnaz were stand-ins for blacks, not that Arnaz himself was a different race.
The greatest baseball player of Mexican descent was Ted Williams. From there it's Fernando and I don't know who. Vinny Castilla? Jesse Orosco? Andre Ethier?
Just look at disgraceful Team Mexico in the World Baseball Classic, its roster padded with dubious cases like Scott and Jerry Hairston.
Hmm, I wonder... what if Mexico(and most of Latin-America)had been settled by Germans, with German-whites being the elites, mestizos(German/indigenous mix)being the majority, and natives being at the bottom. Would GERMANIC be synonymous with 'mestizo' or indigenous natives south of the border in American socio-political terminology? And would even white German-American immigrants from south of the border be eligible for affirmative action as part of the 'Germanic' minority?
In a way, 'Hispanic' got both a bum wrap and gained an advantage by being associated with mestizos and native indigenes. Because we regard blacks from the Dominican Republic and mestizos/indegenes from Mexico(and Central America) as 'Hispanics', we tend to regard the Spanish--a European language, culture, and people--as somehow less white and less European. (To be sure, even if Spanish hadn't conquered what came to be known as 'Latin America', they were somewhat racialy more mixed than other Europeans due to the Muslim/Moorish invasions. Even so, most Spanish people have been pretty white like rest of Europeans.)
But there was a kind of advantage too in being 'Hispanic'. Since 'Hispanic' got associated with mestizos and indigenes, even white Hispanics could pass as 'people of color' and play 'victim' of blanco, gringo, 'racist', Yanqui imperialists. Che and Castro, both purely of white blood, ran with this for all it was worth.
Also, even the whitest of white Hispanics in America gain from affirmative action and get special treatment.
If even white Hispanics--the conquerors/enslavers/oppressors of South American natives--can qualify for affirmative action in America as 'Hispanics', should white Afrikaner immigrants qualify for affirmative action too as 'Africans'?
There's a movie critic named David Ehrenstein who's Jewish, black, gay, and part Irish. You can beat that for political victim nobility. Holocaust, slavery, 'homophobia', and Irish potato famine and 'No Irish Allowed'.
It's almost too much.
"The English despised the Scots as barbarians in the 18th Century and produced the Scottish Enlightenment, Boswell, Burns, Scott and Macaulay."
Scotland always had brains but was famously dirt poor before union with England. The Scottish economy grew massively after union - for example, exports to America - and that lead to the Scottish Enlightenment.
Most of the White women in my professional circle ....
Whiskey's a professional?
"The English despised the Scots as barbarians in the 18th Century and produced the Scottish Enlightenment, Boswell, Burns, Scott and Macaulay."
and some still do, from what I've heard. However, it was a dated opinion by, perhaps, the 1400s, at which time the Scots became the first country in the world, at least in modern times, to mandate literacy. One reason for the high literacy rates and more "progressive" ideas in North Carolina, as compared with other southern states, was the fact that NC was heavily settled by the Scots Presbyterians. Scotland produced a phenomenal number of geniuses and inventors in the hard sciences and engineering fields during the 1700s and 1800s.
"George Burns came across a lot less Jewish in their shtiks."
Well George Burns had his beloved Gracie Allen to balance the act, a gal whose first stage act as a child, was Irish dancing. btw, theirs was one of the happiest marriages in show business history. George claimed to be unfaithful exactly once, after a marital tiff, with someone young and beautiful but otherwise forgettable. He made it up to Gracie with a fancy silver something for the table. Later on Gracie was heard to say she wished George would be unfaithful again, so she could get the matching silver something.
As far as Seinfeld, "Kramer" was not Jewish, neither the actor nor the character he played. Elaine Dreyfuss had a Jewish dad in real life but her character was not Jewish. Jason Alexander's character George, had an Italian last name, but it has been suggested his parents were in a witness protection program and were really Jewish. If so, they didn't hide out too well, as most of us know.
So, the 'little guys' lose out. Who needs a genuinely interesting movie about realistic mooks like MEAN STREETS when you have the trashy SOPRANOS(vastly overrated)
Thank god somebody else sees that. The high falutin' praise for that bloody soap opera even made me wonder what I was missing. A few of the episodes really did rise to something rare in the sense of story telling, but most were dreck. Just cram as many disgusting words and images as they could and call it art. I'd say that's just desperate, but no--it was worse. It was complacent.
"(To be sure, even if Spanish hadn't conquered what came to be known as 'Latin America', they were somewhat racialy more mixed than other Europeans due to the Muslim/Moorish invasions. Even so, most Spanish people have been pretty white like rest of Europeans.)"
"Pretty white" perhaps because they are white? Only in Andalucia were the "moors" present in significant numbers. A lot of them were Persian, some were Arabs and Berbers, the latter being often extremely "white" in appearance. In any case, most of Spain was heavily settled by Germanic Goths and Celts. There is a similarity in traditonal Asturian (northern Spain) music, dancing, instruments, to Irish traditional music, instruments and dancing. There is a also some relationship in the DNA, though this is something I read from the perspective of a non-scientist. The Spanish and Irish have always recognized this affinity (Eamon de Valera, first Irish president, was a Spanish-Irish mix, born in the U.S.). That being said, Ireland was never much of an intellectual beacon after their few centuries of glory in the "dark ages" when they were known as the Isle of Saints and Scholars. Sometimes nations just "have their day" and are done.
"If even white Hispanics--the conquerors/enslavers/oppressors of South American natives--can qualify for affirmative action in America as 'Hispanics', should white Afrikaner immigrants qualify for affirmative action too as 'Africans'?"
Who, whom.
USG refuses to recognize white Afrikaners and white Rhodesians as legitimate refugees (in spite of the racial targeting for rape and murder of white farmers in the current Zimbabwe and South Africa). If they won't even let whites into the USA as legitimate refugees, they certainly won't let them take advantage of the racial extortion racket.
Hispanic whites get a pass on this because it's convenient for TPTB to do so for their own purposes. African whites don't.
"Whiskey's a professional?"
Professional hasbara.
OT (But it does have something to do with sports)
Kobe Bryant fined $100,000 for gay slur
Apparently, the "slur" was so terrible they cannot, or will not, bring themselves to tell you what it was. And incredibly, if you watch the video, when he utters the "slur" they blur the movement of his mouth so you cannot even read his lips.
Lee Trevino was definitely one of the great sports personalities of the '70s and early '80s. It seems to me following golf was so much more fun back then. But then I could say the same about just about every sport, especially baseball, which has really degenerated into an ugly PED charade.
"There's a movie critic named David Ehrenstein who's Jewish, black, gay, and part Irish. You can beat that for political victim nobility."
My God, why haven't the Dems nominated him for President by now?
Kobe being fined $100,000 has nothing to do with the slur itself. It is a concerted effort by POWER ELITE JEWS in sports, media, government, and academia to stamp out all 'homophobic' thoughts. Even the term 'homophobic' is a means of mind-control, as it suggests that any view, thought, or feeling that is anti-gay or critical of homosexuality as biology, life-style, and political agenda is a form of extreme, demented, irrational, unnatural fear of something normal, harmless, and decent. In other words, a form of mental illness. When the media, day in and day out, label any anti-gay thought or view critical of gays as 'homophobic', the message gets out that mentally deranged or sick people are getting all worked up about totally sane and perfectly normal gays. It doesn't matter that most people who are critical of gays and gay lifestyle are not calling for gays to be fined, imprisoned, or killed but only saying homosexuality should not be given equal biological and moral status with real sexuality.
The GAY AGENA is no longer about 'leave us gays alone to be gay'. It is 'we will force you to be pro-gay, and if you don't comply, you're mentally sick'.
For example, Paladino of NY remarked that students should not be taught that homosexuality is of equal biological and moral value as real sexuality. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Real sexuality entails sexual organs being used properly, as nature meant it. Nature meant the anus for a certain purpose, but gays use it in another way. Homosexuality is bio-physically ridiculous and unsavory. And it is natural for most people to find two men acting girlish and having sex with one another ludicrous and weird.
Of course, gays were born gays, and we should leave them alone. But should we be forced to recognize them and their lifestyle to equally legit as genuine sexuality?
The gay agenda works in cahoots with Jewish agenda to stamp out even any thought of anti-homosexuality. We are told that any anti-feeling or position critical of gayness is a mental disease, a phobia.
Jews in media, law, and academia have pushed this at every level of society--military, schools, culture, and now sports too. Even though masculine athletes now have to grovel and apologize for saying 'fag'.
AIPAC and GAYPAC control America. Why are Jews so pro-gay? For them, anti-gay is just another form of closet-nazism. Also, any set of moral values that stigmatize or marginalize a minority is seen as hostile to Jews. It's like majority Christians vs minority Jews; majority straights vs minority gays. So, just as Jews made Hannukah and Jewishness the equal or even more important than Christmas and Christianity(even the Christian Right is more impassioned about Israel than saving white Christian America), Jews and the gay agenda(many of whose leaders are Jewish)are working together to make homosexuality the equal or even the moral/biological superior over real sexuality and straight people. From FATHER KNOWS BEST to GAYS KNOW BEST.
And though blacks don't like gays, Jews have spun a kind of political logic that goes like this: there was a time when blacks were denied full rights based on their race; today, the same kind of people who oppressed blacks are dehumanizing gays the same way. The analogy is misleading and false, but many blacks have fallen for it.
And even blacks and leftist who don't accept the moral logic of the gay agenda support the agenda because they see it as weakening the moral authority and unity of White America. Anything that undermines, weakens, or subverts 'traditional' white America is seen as victory for 'progressives' and minorities.
"In his DVD commentary, David Fincher said that he auditioned numerous Indian actors but he felt none were right for the role. He ultimately went with Minghella because a) he could act and b) Narenda doesn't look particularly Indian anyways."
Sounds like BS to me. I'll bet he had Minghella in mind from the getgo and went through the pretense of looking for 'real Indian actors' only for show.
Besides, there are tons of Indians who 'don't look Indian'.
" Black guys are not that popular as movie leads, peaking in the 1990s to early 2000's,"
The most bankable actor in the world is Will Smith. The most bankable over 50 is Denzel Washington, period.
and their over-presence in TV commercials are more about diversity (anti-White) goals among advertisers than selling product. [Which comes last for advertisers.]
Oh, so now profit "comes last" for advertisers. Why yes of course.
"There ARE HUGE Mexican superstars, but you'd have to follow Spanish language media to know them."
Yeah, huge MEXICAN superstars, but we don't live in Mexico, now do we?
You want an answer to that question Sailer, we'll do it visualy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwrfLMEwglI&playnext=1&list=PL4749379F1D719FFD&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYWYgPuLP84&feature=related&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1
"Aldo is a Brazilian mulatto. Unless he's really absorbed American culture, he probably considers himself separate from blacks."
Peter
If he was romancing your daughter, what would you consider him?
"Scotland always had brains but was famously dirt poor before union with England."
If it had brains, why was it dirt poor?
That goes against everything Sailer preaches.
I would like to read about whatever happened to Angel Macias. He was the best 12 year old pitcher in the world in 1957, winning the little league world series with a perfect game. Evidently pitched 11 years in the Mexican League, but never made the majors. There isn't much on Google about his later life. Maybe he just stayed too small to have major league stuff.
**slow methodical oral style--"white man give me gun, I give white man squaw; we now blood brothers"--,**
Historically Amerindians were known for oratory, at least in their native languages. What's interesting is that Amerindians also, then and now, have a reputation for not being taciturn.
Was their taste for oratory a case of still waters running deep? Or was it something else? If you read a lot of old Indian oratory, it comes across as beautiful and eloquent, but ponderous, as if it was thought out and not instinctual. Granted, its all in translation.
Anyway, oratory is not a skill that anyone in the West appreciates these days. Look at Barack Obama's popularity as a speaker. He's terrible. He's better than anyone else, but he's terrible. Compare him to Reagan, Obamae sounds like a youtube ranter or an advertising slogan. Compare Reagan to TR or FDR or Bryant, Reagan looks mediocre.
No one appreciates oratory, no one studies the great speeches, no one reads the technique. So maybe Amerindians/Hispanics have one skill set that our modern times just don't allow them to develop or use anymore.
Another Amerindian strength appears to be for physical endurance and pain tolerance. At least that's what I gather from historical accounts and from what I know about cross-country racing. Is there any research verifiying that? If so, that might explain why Hispanics do well in boxing, its the ultimate 'play through the pain' sport. I wonder if Mexicans would have a good body type for rugby if it were popular anywhere where Mexicans lived. Short and sturdy with high pain tolerance and high endurance would fit well. Lacrosse, originally an Amerindian sport, benefits from high pain tolerance and endurance, so maybe there's something to it.
Meanwhile American football doesn't actually reward endurance that much. It helps, but the game has frequent breaks and substitutions. It emphasizes power and explosiveness and speed over gutting it out. Soccer, meanwhile, requires physical endurance but doesn't have any contact that would force you to play through the pain. It also puts a *huge* emphasis on footwork and explosiveness.
I wonder too if pain tolerance or something like that is why hispanics like more violent sports. If you don't feel much pain yourself, maybe it takes something more on the field than just tackling to draw you out emotionally. Boxing, bullfighting, Amerindian lacrosse, all that stuff is pretty violent. On the other hand, soccer is about as violent as afternoon tea, so who knows?
Anyway, I'm speculating that the ideal Hispanic sport would be something like full contact soccer, or rugby boxing.
-Osvaldo M.
"SouthernAnonyia, your reading comprehension is poor. The commenter's thesis is that white ethnics like Arnaz were stand-ins for blacks, not that Arnaz himself was a different race."
I understood his "thesis",and it extremely poor. And yes, he did imply that there was an interracial component of the Lucy-Arnaz relationship, just that it was more acceptable than a black-white relatnionship. My point was that it was an international and not an interracial relationship, so I don't see how my disagreement demonstrates that I have poor reading comprehension. There are no old people alive today who considered the relationship in I Love Lucy "racy" (for lack of a better term), so the idea that ethnic white stars were part of some gradual subversive plot to replace white guys with black guys is bogus. That falls into the "loonier than Whiskey" category.
"Historically Amerindians were known for oratory, at least in their native languages. What's interesting is that Amerindians also, then and now, have a reputation for not being taciturn."
This is prolly true. I was talking about Indians in Hollywood movies and stuff.
To anonymous: Tennis is currently dominated by Hispanics, so they do have athletic ability.
This post is about Mexicans, not Hispanics. You have a lot to learn.
"Kobe Bryant fined . . ."
http://www.eskimo.com/~pbender/fines.html#10-11
Here is a list of all NBA fines in recent years. Inappropriate comments to the ref or about the ref usually elicit $25,000 to $50,000, so you might infer that he was fined at least $50,000 for a gay slur, probably fa***t. But hey, it's LA and he is the NBA's biggest symbol. Kobe, next time it's a bad call, learn to say stupid cracker or something similar. unless the game is in Utah.
I think the appeal of baseball to Hispanics is twofold: 1) it doesn't require freakish athletic ability to excel at (and there are disproportionately less freakish athletes among Hispanics as opposed to Blacks and Whites), 2) It appeals to the Latino Macho culture. Standing dead still while a 90 mph projectile whizzes inches from your face is very much a display of machismo.
"It sounds pretty mean Steve, but hispanics are generally mediocre in the HBD aspects that give certain ethnicities an edge in sports (don't let anyone ever tel you that excellence in sports is not dependent on genetics), as we know hispanics tend to be small, squat, stocky people with short legs."
I see that no one here has mentioned that the most popular athlete of the 1980s worldwide was a mestizo. He was short, dumpy-looking, and not particularly intelligent, but he knew what to do with a ball. Billions of kids try to play soccer every decade. Only one of them becomes the most successful player of his generation. In the 1980s that was Diego Maradona.
T: If it had brains, why was it dirt poor?
That goes against everything Sailer preaches.
Two big problems:
1) To their credit, the English were the first to make their way to a modern sense of property rights and the rule of law.
In Scotland, until relatively recently, there was a strong tendency to see people as belonging to the land [in a form of serfdom, or servitude], rather than the land belonging to the people.
2) When you get right down to the heart of the matter, I don't know that the average Scot [or, a few centuries thereafter, the average Scots-Irishman] was ever really all that interested in making money in the first place.
I get the impression that they were always much more interested in fishing, hunting, drinking whiskey, or just fighting each other.
T: Yeah, huge MEXICAN superstars, but we don't live in Mexico, now do we?
This gets back to a question that I tried to ask you a few threads back: Just who is "Truth", anyway?
When you say "we", may the iSteveosphere infer which side you're choosing as regards the whole question of "Us -vs- Them"?
"Che and Castro, both purely of white blood, ran with this for all it was worth."
I think I read that Castro's mother was a racially mixed maid.
As for the anonymous commenter who said Hispanics are dominating tennis, those individuals are almost to a person either pure Spanish (with Rafael Nadal the most prominent example) or Latin Americans of overwhelmingly European descent.
Odds are that someone named Rafael Nadal has plenty of Sephardic Jewish blood in him.
"eh said...
Kobe Bryant fined $100,000 for gay slur
Apparently, the "slur" was so terrible they cannot, or will not, bring themselves to tell you what it was. And incredibly, if you watch the video, when he utters the "slur" they blur the movement of his mouth so you cannot even read his lips."
The F-word? The Q-word? The H-word? Pretty soon a lot of the zestier parts of the english language will just be off limits.
I see that no one here has mentioned that the most popular athlete of the 1980s worldwide was a mestizo. He was short, dumpy-looking, and not particularly intelligent, but he knew what to do with a ball. Billions of kids try to play soccer every decade. Only one of them becomes the most successful player of his generation. In the 1980s that was Diego Maradona.
THE Diego Maradona?!!!!!!
"If it[Scotland] had brains, why was it dirt poor?"
Mountains. Cold climate. Violent.
"That goes against everything Sailer preaches"
It does? Higher IQ evolving to adapt to *harsher* conditions? The conditions remain harsh. The higher IQ *initially* only makes those harsh conditions livable. It then takes a while for civilization to spread up from sunnier climes before the higher IQs can pick it up and run with it.
"I get the impression that they were always much more interested in fishing, hunting, drinking whiskey, or just fighting each other."
And this implies intelligence?
This gets back to a question that I tried to ask you a few threads back: Just who is "Truth", anyway?
When you say "we", may the iSteveosphere infer which side you're choosing as regards the whole question of "Us -vs- Them"?"
The side should be clear in this case:
The set is 'isteve' posters, the subsets are 'those who live in Mexico' and 'those who live in the US'; I belong to subset 2.
""If it[Scotland] had brains, why was it dirt poor?"
Mountains. Cold climate. Violent."
Two of those three apply to Japan, the other applies to Africa, so why were the Scots backwards again?
"Higher IQ evolving to adapt to *harsher* conditions?"
Then by the time the Romans came in, the Scots should have been geniuses.
"It then takes a while for civilization to spread up from sunnier climes before the higher IQs can pick it up and run with it."
The ancient Egyptians and Greeks came from warm climates.
"It does? Higher IQ evolving to adapt to *harsher* conditions? The conditions remain harsh. The higher IQ *initially* only makes those harsh conditions livable. It then takes a while for civilization to spread up from sunnier climes before the higher IQs can pick it up and run with it."
Historically good brains and high population density seem to have been among the prerequisites for civilization. Moderately good brains in an environment uniquely conducive to high population density produced the first civilizations in the Tigris/Euphrates and Nile valleys. The explosive combination of very good brains and high population density was first achieved in classical Greece, later at Rome and after a long interlude of depopulation caused by war and plague in medieval Tuscany.
Great brains + low population density = rural backwater.
And yes, of course it used to take lots of forethought, planning and impulse control to survive long winters.
Truth
"Two of those three apply to Japan, the other applies to Africa, so why were the Scots backwards again?"
Look at the latitude.
http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-maps/world-map-with-latitude-and-longitude.html
Agriculture was always going to lag behind in the more northern latitudes. Mountainous terrain just compounds it.
(I take back violent as violent raiding clans are probably more an effect of being dirt-poor than a cause.)
.
"Then by the time the Romans came in, the Scots should have been geniuses."
If winter was the mechanism that increased average IQ then the way i see it working is as the ice retreated people moved further north in latitude bands and there would be a one-off process as the lower IQ 25% or so from the previous latitude band disproportionately die off i.e i'd see the winter theory as a one-off mechanism for raising the minimum average IQ for that latitude band.
I wouldn't have thought it could be a mechanism for continually raising the average IQ unless the winters were continually getting worse.
.
"The ancient Egyptians and Greeks came from warm climates."
Yes. Which is why agriculture and civilization started there. Civilization requires specialization and specialization requires farmers to produce a large enough surplus to feed the specialists. In the colder climates people needed to evolve higher IQ just to reach the subsistence farming level.
So the theory is Northern Europe couldn't develop past the basic subsistence farming level until Southern Europe had improved agriculture sufficiently - with places like Scotland and Scandinavia being last of all.
(The Scottish argument applies to England, France and Germany a century or two earlier.)
Once they had that minimum level of technology to provide a sufficient surplus for sufficient specialization the higher IQ, required previously just for subsistence, provided the engine for explosive scientific growth.
It may be wrong but it's one explanation for the sudden explosion in northern Europe.
It's like you have a group of people averaging 5' high and you put them in a big room where they're fed by placing food on shelves. Initially the shelves are set so they can get the food with only a few starving.
The group is then taken to a second room where the shelves are set higher up and the shortest 1/4 can't reach and starve. Over time the group's average height increases to 5' 6".
Moved to a third room with the shelves a bit higher again and over time the group evolves to an average height of 6'. (There's no need to grow taller once the threshold is reached.)
Hispanics are another component in the Papist and old world affront to our fallen and self-defeated 'anglo' culture and system.
Pagan kinism wont help us.
"On the other hand, soccer is about as violent as afternoon tea, so who knows?"
**
Yeah, all those concussions, broken legs and torn ACLs are just like the injuries you get from pouring tea.
Kid on my daughter's team got kicked in the face the other day. Broken jaw, broken nose, gaping hole under her lip where the jagged teeth were sticking out, major concussion ... want me to go on?
And this was 14-year-old girls.
Why don't you google "soccer broken legs" and see what comes up?
Hispanic women are hot and feminine; they actually like men and know how to flirt. That's all that matters.
The point, Wandrin, is that there is no simple cookbook for what we know as 'intelligence.'
The Scots are from a cold northern climate, which many people here say is what creates intelligence, yet accomplished nothing until the Romans came.
They had a reputation for being fighters, boozers and hell-raisers, just as Africans did.
Civilization started in a warm, temperate area, which lies in opposition to what the WN believe causes intellect...
I could go on.
They had a reputation for being fighters, boozers and hell-raisers, just as Africans did.
Everyone knows that all true Scotsmen act like Africans.
Truth
"The point, Wandrin, is that there is no simple cookbook for what we know as 'intelligence.'"
Sure. This is just interesting (to me) conjecture.
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"Civilization started in a warm, temperate area, which lies in opposition to what the WN believe causes intellect..."
Nope. Seasons. Needing to prepare in advance for winter as a season not just coldness in itself. In other words not tropical (or arctic).
Latitudes again.
http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-maps/world-map-with-latitude-and-longitude.html
First latitude band, for the sake of argument say equator to somewhere between the tropic of cancer and 30 degrees.
I don't know when seasons start but i'll guess North Africa, Iraq, Egypt, Northern India i.e the places where civilization started would all have been in the next band that caused the first IQ jump. For the sake of argument say from 30 degrees to 45 degrees.
Then maybe a third jump from 45 degrees to 60 degrees or something like that anyway.
Evidence of the first jump is probably the most interesting from a purely scientific point of view.
If he was romancing your daughter, what would you consider him?
Rich.
-Osvaldo M.
'If he was romancing your daughter, what would you consider him?
Rich.'
Then you've proven that you are indeed of high IQ.
People naturally pay attention primarily to their own people. For an African, a Hispanic, or even a homosexual to come to my attention requires a great deal of advertising.
The better question is: why aren't Hispanic stars advertised and promoted more?
Surely no one argues that cultural celebrity, these days, is based invariably on merit. For example, Nicolas Cage, God love him, is no one's idea of a leading man, in a sensible world. Barack Obama is no one's idea of a worthwhile presidential candidate in such a world. What put them over was determined pushing, primarily by others. Stars are made, not born.
It's neither talent nor connections. You can have those by the ton but "many are called, few are chosen."
So the question is why aren't our cultural commissars selecting more George Lopezes? I confess to having no answer.
"'If he was romancing your daughter, what would you consider him?'
Boyfriend of a stupid skank"
...And future son-in-law of a worthless daddy.
Even as we 'celebrate diversity', it's really come down to diverse peoples watching, listening, and/or dancing to the same thing. Most of our culture is narcisso-fascist and crass-generic. What passes for 'different' or 'subversive' in our culture has become obvious and hyped status/social symbols: tattoos, piercing, dreadlocks among whites; you can find it all over the place.
'Different' as fashion than truly different.
Or "different in the RIGHT way" rather than truly different.
Twelve years of sociocratic public education (or as would be more accurate, PUBIC education) does tend to produce hive minds that not just think alike, but that think they are so free, so alive, so diverse and tolerant. But don't try telling the truth to those so-called "tolerant" and "diverse" Barbie doll clones!
A real life Plato's Cave.
In less hectic, rushed, and ADD-addled times, there once was greater interest in Eastern spiritualism--Japanese Zen, Hindu music and sects(I remember seeing Hare Krishna fests in the park in the late 70s when I was a kid).
The Religious Right was also to blame for killing off mass interest in Eastern spirituality.
Of course, there has been a kind of New Age spiritual fascination with the mystical East and American Indians, but our culture is sensual/sexual more than spiritual.
Maybe now, but western spirituality all through the Christian era was political more than anything else.
Romans go home. Let's make the word into a nice happy family and exterminate those bloodthirsty Romans. And if the Romans aren't around anymore, find a substitute.
Eva Longoria isn't a "Mexican-American", she's descended from Spanish settlers who arrived in South Texas before "Mexico" ever existed.
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