White People are Killing Day of the Dead
Photo Credit: Lalo Alcaraz
Written By: Luciano Picasso
It used to be a lot easier to call out racists of the Texas Minutemen variety. They were at least upfront. Their predecessors at least had the decency to wear White Hoods. They felt some shame.
That is not the case with today’s racists. Nu School Racists might have gone to the New School.
They probably went to school with you, or bought you a drink once, went out on a date with you or one of your friends. Because of that they think they are too cool to be racist. Worse, when you call them out on it, they break down.
The Klan never broke down. You never expected the Tea Party to come to your party, let alone co-opt your party.
If the Aryan Brotherhood organized the Texas Book Festival and out of 230 authors included only 15 Latinos we could under stand that. And then we could call them out on that. Well that’s what happened with the most recent Texas Book Festival. And the organizer were called out on that.
The Nu School Racists who organized the book festival, responded, said they were sorry, and replied singing the same old song we hear from Nu School Racists. Their answer is equal to them saying: “I didn’t know being racist was racist.” And the same as saying, “I’m from New York, I’m too cool to be racist.”
This is the same garbage the University of Houston Creative Writing Program gives for not having enough Latino students and only one Latino professor in its entire existence. Their nonprofit arm, Inprint, is no better, paying lip service to Hispanics by bringing in one Latino author per year and presenting him/her in their traditional White style.
Of course, Nu School Racists say they aren’t racists ’cause they know you or you went to their party once, and yeah, you were the only Chicano there.
They know 20 words in Spanish.
They are multicultrual because they have loteria card shower curtains. However, they have never been to one of your marches or protests, though they do support you . . . karmicly.
The Nuf School Racists White Nonprofits are the worst.
They get money from other White philanthropic or governmental agencies.
They speak White, so they get the grants. Sometimes those grants are for Latino Outreach-in name only of course.
They look good on White paper. They put on White versions of Latino events, and than think that our people are barbaric because we didn’t show up to their Brown-face events.
We are not on their mailing lists, their email lists, we don’t follow them on Twitter, aren’t their friends on Facebook or in real life.
And if there is a world beyond that pale pale, well .. . their isn’t.
This gets worse with Day of the Dead, which means way more to us than Halloween does to you. So stop calling it the Latino Halloween.
And no, I won’t tell you in one damn sentence what it means. Until your mom lights candles to remember relatives who were lynched in Texas during the “Good Old Days” or “relatives killed falling off trains trying to cross here” you will never understand what Day of the Dead means. So stop fucking with it.
This also goes for Disney that tried to trademark Dia de Los Muertos.
How about I trademark your ma, Walt Disney, and put her to work.
This goes for Lawndale Art Center in Houston, Texas. Their 26th Dia de Los Muertos exhibit is the 26th time they turn Day of the Dead into a cultural garage sale to make money. They lump in Dia de Los Muertos with a Gala and Retablo Silent Auction so they can insult us twice over, and there is not one actual alter on their premises that speaks to that day. They make money off this mess to pay for their White programming all year long. I’m sure they will give us the same lip service the Texas Book Festival gave: we have a Hispanic intern . . . yada yada yada . . . the equivalent of “I’m not racist because I shagged a Hispanic once.”
This goes for the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH). This is another example of a White arts group taking money for Latino outreach and never reaching Latinos. They’ve got several events for “Day of the Dead” including a DJ party with IKEA-the Swedish plundering of our demographic, and a couple of sorry ass lectures by Germans showing slides of their cool adventures in Mexico. Wow, deep. See, this proves that MFAH stands for Mother Fucking Ass Holes.
I wonder what new tools the Nu School Racists created in your towns? If you want to call them out, please send them to me.
I guess part of this disconnect is because cool White kids refuse to recognize that they DO hold something sacred. Oh, but they DO. They worship being hip. They die to be cool. Well, being racist ain’t cool
So, please, Nu School Racists, before you kill Day of the Dead, get a life.