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13 de Mayo, 2007
The Face of Our Collective Conscience
Categorized under Corazón , Medios | Tags: historia, hypocrisy, Lou Dobbs, pundits, putos, Race in Media
I SAW AN AD for quaker oats this morning and in my oversensitive way, I noticed that two brown girls were tugging on the sleeve of the tall "Quaker" icon-man who was rolling away on a skateboard. Yes, it was surreal. But it got me thinking. It got me thinking on who has grown the maize round these parts for so long, and with such devotion. It got me thinking on who has helped whom survive when it came time to dress the dinner table. In the early days, "Indians" with the corn. Nowadays, the "Mexicans" in the fields, the meatpacking plants, the food service.
In this Quaker ad immediately adjacent to the Smiling Quaker Man were a couple Latinas, or maybe black girls. They were brown, that is clear. They were happily tugging on the tall pink-faced, white-haired icon-man's sleeve for some food. Oh, I know—you can tell that I am reading things into it that don't exist. That's part of my madness, you see. It comes with having beastly and primitive blood in me, it scrambles my mind up something terrible. Bear with me.
Anyway, with my infected reasoning, I thought it was quite clever how the ad flips things around in such a subtle way. The blacks, who were the engines of industry and production early in this country's growth (as were others, of course). The Indians, the masters of grain. Hell, even Americans are not completely unaware of this. I think there's a holiday that has something to do with this idea.
But children today will look at ads like this, and somewhere in their mind, a message is planted...and with other media messages, this message will be watered...and fed...and eventually, with the help of a hundred other broken symbols, sown into a self-loathing or simply inferior self-image (for brown) and superior self-image (for pinks). (This is why the billboards look so different in Harlem, for example!) Nevermind the truth of any of these images that affect people's minds, young and old alike. Nevermind that the Quakers themselves resent the use of their honest image and name for these business practices. Nevermind that Quaker oatmeal company was sued (and lost) for carrying out secret radioactive food experiments on developmentally disabled children without telling them or their parents. Hey, but kids love that Quaker man, eh?
Images. Symbols. Lies covered up by smiles. And acrobatic logic. And lo, our history and accumulated media messaging and literature, even, are but monsters always hungry for truth—eat it up and shits out what is handed back to me and you. It's a meal that we don't only want for breakfast, though. We'll eat it all day long.
We hear Lou Dobbs rant on and on about the demon Mexican Alien. Lou is knowingly telling lies to the public to incite them against the very people who already make up a huge part of the American labor force. People who are exploited for their labor, squeezed for their income tax payments, vilified by pundits, dehumanized by being called ALIENZ, brown people—American citizens—becoming (even more so) the target of aggression, the rage is growing, the fear is growing. Men like Lou Dobbs live on this fear. They are the modern-day demons.
Lou uses an age-old White Supremacist method of equating the darkies with contagion. Buchanan does it, too, in his book State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America. (I wrote a satirical response to that book which is due to be published in June, I believe.)
But yes, the contagion, the filth, the dirtiness, the disease. Buchanan used the idea to suggest that all the brown people handling your burgers in fast food joints are giving you secret gifts of disease. Dobbs calls Mexicans lepers and stands by his "Facts®," even when it is clear that his information is entirely false.
And with thoughts of the "contagion" meme that these "pundits" love to use against my people, my mind flips back to Tenochtitlán, and the smallpox that the Spaniards brought to the land we call "Mexico," the contagion that destroyed massive amounts of Mixteca (Aztecs). And I think, then, Who has such disease in their history? Disease that has aided their greedy and bloody conquest? Was it the darkie? Was it the Invading Mexican?
I and I build the cabin
I and I plant the corn
didn't my people before me slave for this country?
now you look me with that scorn
and you eat up all my corn ...—bob marley, crazy baldheads
Lou pays hundreds for his hair, and powders his puffy face trying to retain the appearance of beauty. He spreads a mental and spiritual rot, he profits from doing so, and others suffer. A great example of today's media conglomerates. They lead us into war, they lead us into hate, they take us nowhere but down, and they do it with nothing but saturated graphics, twisted chyrons, and happy sounds.
Symbols inverted. Truth perverted. Today's media, the face of our collective conscience.
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Comentarios (13)
~KL~ dijo:
Nez...my man I cannot thank-you enough. Even with my upbringing and social consciousness and having parents that raised me to "open my eyes" Your words inspire that reborn feeling within me. Lately I've gotten so blinded by the hustle and bustle of trying to earn a paycheck that I've neglected alot about myself, mi gente and the world in general. I want to thank you for that spark, for reingiting that fire within me again. I've always cared no doubt, but I lost touch somewhere along the road. Your words educate and inspire.
Palabras por ~KL~ spat forth on el 13 de Mayo, 2007 at 11:59 AM
RickB dijo:
I didn't know that about Quakers oats- now I feel glad that last batch of flapjacks I made for my nieces didn't use Quaker oats-. The Quaker ad reminds me of this, which I was sent yesterday
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/003802.html
which is about a weird british product called Camp coffee (coffee, chicory, sugar) which had a label of a conquering scots soldier in kilt/full highland regiment dress being served by a Sikh manservant, eventually Asian shopkeepers and groups complained and the image mutated a couple more times (at one point the serving tray went and the Sikh was weirdly pointing a fist at him) until now it shows the soldier and Sikh sitting as 'equals' having a 'Camp'. Then wingnuts complained that it was 'political correctness gone mad' in the usual tabloid bullshit way, but others pointed out it was actually offensive for other reasons, namely it showed colonialism was some kind of friendly, mutually agreed picnic and the Sikh's skin was lightened in tone. Then as the blog link shows there is another twist because the soldier was based on a real guy who fought his way up through the ranks but killed himself when rumours of him being gay came out in 1903. The blog post concludes ---
"A fighting queer scot in a skirt, sitting down to coffee with a Sikh man who had a fist pointed at him for two decades on a coffee called “Camp” … it seems like an apt image for the modern United Kingdom to me."---
No word on who the Sikh guy was modelled on, which itself tells a story of inequality and the imperial conquests.
But Nez, why are you dissing a well known member of the Hispanic journalists association?
Palabras por RickB spat forth on el 13 de Mayo, 2007 at 01:57 PM
nezua limón xolagrafik-jonez dijo:
i'm like a rabid beast, man. i just, like, lash out at my own for no reason.
Palabras por nezua limón xolagrafik-jonez spat forth on el 13 de Mayo, 2007 at 02:00 PM
Blackamazon dijo:
But but nezua were supposed to be happy they mention us at allll!!!!!!!!!
Palabras por Blackamazon spat forth on el 13 de Mayo, 2007 at 02:25 PM
RickB dijo:
SSMCLMAO- Sitting Stroking My Cat Laughing My Arse Off-
That's a good point about contagion, is it also projection because they used biological warfare in the past so they deny their guilt by claiming the other were always diseased?
If I had a pair of those sunglasses from 'They Live' I reckon the whole TV would look like Lou up there (with a tiny few of honourable exceptions).
Palabras por RickB spat forth on el 13 de Mayo, 2007 at 02:34 PM
RickB dijo:
--deny their guilt by claiming the other were always diseased?-- To clarify, I don't mean the disease fear is true but that they identify others with disease as a strategy.
Palabras por RickB spat forth on el 13 de Mayo, 2007 at 02:51 PM
Kyle de Beausset dijo:
What are your favorite bob marley albums nez?
Palabras por Kyle de Beausset spat forth on el 13 de Mayo, 2007 at 09:48 PM
Clinton Fein dijo:
That's why we can praise the goddesses for the likes of Esther Hernandez, of who's indelible "Sun Mad" I was reminded somehow when looking at this post.
Palabras por Clinton Fein spat forth on el 13 de Mayo, 2007 at 10:50 PM
Rafael dijo:
The immigrant helps to protect the WASPs from their historical failures by serving as their escape goats, nice...real nice....
Palabras por Rafael spat forth on el 14 de Mayo, 2007 at 12:05 AM
nezua limón xolagrafik-jonez dijo:
KL, thank you!! good to hear.
Palabras por nezua limón xolagrafik-jonez spat forth on el 14 de Mayo, 2007 at 12:42 PM
Marc with a C dijo:
Nez,
I posted a comment at the very manly blog of the most excellent JC Christian in which I took a dissenting view regarding your interpretation of the commercial. I was trying to get a debate going based on the idea of material culture, cultural baggage, cultural self-identification, and the intersection of art and advertising, but I fell flat on my face and was (humorously enough) accused of being a white supremacist, compared to Hitler, and had my ideas dismissed due to what a commenter termed my "cherished sense of obtuse white male privilege." After a single comment too. Ouch.
So, in other words, in case you happen to check the comments over there, I just wanted to let you know that I am not disagreeing with your post, your sentiments or your interpretation of the commercial. I just wanted to advance some competing lines of inquiry and offer some constructive criticism in the spirit of liberal inquiry (though since I have had my Liberal/Progressive badge yanked, I'm not sure I'm allowed to use that word anymore).
iArriba!
Marc with a C
Palabras por Marc with a C spat forth on el 15 de Mayo, 2007 at 06:49 AM
nezua limón xolagrafik-jonez dijo:
wow, marc. that sounds pretty painful. i hope you're feeling better by now. there's always new badges, anyway.
didn't see your comment yet, but i will surely keep your plea in mind on that day. adios!
Palabras por nezua limón xolagrafik-jonez spat forth on el 15 de Mayo, 2007 at 11:02 AM
Marc with a C dijo:
Thank you, amigo. Vaya con dios (S'quzi, mi espanol est muy terrible!).
Marc with a C
Palabras por Marc with a C spat forth on el 15 de Mayo, 2007 at 07:06 PM