Brass Knuckles

There’s been a bit of a frenzy over the Absolut reconquista ads; some are outraged, and for some it’s a tempest in a teapot.  As Michelle Malkin reports, the controversy has even spread to Wikipedia, with both sides taking a stand as to whether the controversy should be mentioned in Absolut’s Wikipedia page.  I say yes; to not include it is to whitewash the controversy, to censor reality.  It happened, it was national news; record it.

Those critics whose opinion are of the “tempest in a teapot” variety have their reasons for thinking that the controversy is overblown.  Unfortunately, those with the loudest voices are basically making ad hominem attacks and writing the criticisms off as the ranting of rabid neocon lunatics.  Leading the ad hominem charge is the normally lucid Ruben Navarette, whom I usually read on Real Clear Politics. 

Leading the charge are the usual suspects — right-wing bloggers, cable news demagogues, restrictionist organizations, et al. Many insist that the ad campaign fed into the mind-set of Mexicans who believe that the Southwest belongs to Mexico and that the region should be returned to its owner through a reconquista, or reconquering. Those howling the loudest about the ad are the same people who concocted this idea that the country is being invaded by massive waves of immigrants.

Many of them are also the ones who tell Latinos, when confronted with a racial or cultural slight, to get over it. And yet they have trouble leading by example.

They also have too much time on their hands and a trigger finger when it comes to fending off imagined threats to their quality of life. Of course, one reason that so many of our countrymen have so much free time and such a nice quality of life is because they’re not shy about relying on illegal immigrant labor. Then they camouflage this fact with a fairy tale about how the United States is being invaded so they come off as victims instead of accomplices.

 Ruben, I am one of the rabid neocon right wing bloggers you reference.  I first wrote about the Absolut ad here, and I laid out why I was offended.  Let’s be clear about this, I was offended when I saw the map, and it was a punch to the gut; but not because I’m an immigration hawk or an out-of-control lick-spittle wing-nut.  I didn’t see it as attack on the sovereignty of the United States, I saw it as a stupid, patently offensive attempt at pandering to the Mexican consumers at my expense.  I don’t have a beef with Absolut; I love their Ruby Red Vodka.  It’s delicious.  I don’t have a problem with their ad campaigns in general; I didn’t flinch or even mildly stroke out when Michelle Malkin reported that  they’re targeting the LGBT community with astoundingly tacky ads.  I have no beef with the LGBT community; I’ve known some very fine LGBT people in my life, as one would expect, having lived in NYC for about 15 years and in Houston for the last four or so.

I was offended for the very same reason that your average patriotic Mexican might be offended had the map been reversed, and the map showed the U.S.A. running down to Mexico City.  I love my country as much as I love being Chicano. I’m a veteran, and my father and I have both availed ourselves of all the wonderful opportunities this country has afforded us.  I intend for my children to grow up speaking Spanish at home and advancing even further than I have, always proud of their Mexican-American heritage.  I’ve imbued them in this pride every chance I get, even as my four year old little girl asked why my skin is darker than her mothers, ”Because I’m Mexican, sweetness.” My family has been in Texas since before it was a state, in New Mexico before it was a territory.  I still have extended family in Mexico, and an English surname precisely because we live in “occupied territory”.

If you are not in the least offended, Ruben, lo siento, mi primo.   It’s like trying to explain colors to a blind man.  But thanks for painting me with the broad brush of your stereotypes and prejudices, and discounting out of hand any opinion that does not match your own. 

Very progressive of you.