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Oh, hey! Remember that mayor from East Haven, Connecticut, who was so racist this week? Joseph Maturo Jr.? Well, that clip when “viral” (CNN’s word) and made what had been a small local news story into a big national news story, as things that go “viral” so often will, and so now poor, so totally racist Joseph Maturo Jr. is not only fielding critical inquiries from his down-to-Earth local news team, but also from the shiny-faced big boys from CNN and what have you. Well, good. It beats another report on “parents, find out how much arsenic could be in your baby’s legs,” or whatever. To recap: the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested four East Haven police officers on charges of racial discrimination against the local latino community, and when a local news team asked the mayor what he was going to do to reassure and improve the lives of his latino constituents, he said that he was going to have tacos for dinner, or maybe spaghetti. Haaaa. Naturally, his office has since received more than 500 mailed in PROTEST TACOS! Unfortunately, of course, Protest Tacos almost never achieve their stated goals due to the fact that they are just as delicious as Regular Tacos. Joseph Maturo Jr. has apologized for his comments, because at the end of the day he is a human being living in 2012, so even if he doesn’t know that you shouldn’t make some crazy racist statements as the mayor in response to a legitimate FBI-involved political/racial scandal in your city, he at least knows that YOU BETTER ‘POLOGIZE! And then, when pressed by CNN cameras*, he even went on to explain what he was trying to say, and that’s when shit got real racist all over again:
So, the reason that Joseph Maturo Jr. in response to the question “what are you going to do for the Latino community” said that maybe he would just get tacos for dinner was because he, personally, as a white man, in a SEAT OF POWER, doesn’t feel SO RACIALLY THREATENED in his OWN CITY that he can’t GO GET FOOD AT A RESTAURANT. What the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck is even going on in that dude’s BRAIN? Buddy! The FBI didn’t arrest four of your police officers for racial discrimination against WHITE MAYORS. What is he even talking about? Who on Earth was worried that Joseph Maturo Jr. didn’t feel comfortable going to get dinner somewhere? It’s also worth noting that this is basically the equivalent of the I Have a Black Friend Defense, but it goes even further in a kind of novel and amazing way. Because this is basically the I Don’t Have A Black Friend But I Would Be Allowed By Society To Have A Black Friend If I Wanted One Defense. Good defense! BANG BANG BANG GOES THE JUDGE’S GAVEL. America’s mayor. Your boyfriend.
*I know it’s important to keep our eye on the prize here and recognize who is genuinely at fault, but I think we can also slap CNN on the wrist for that racial tension baiting interview clip with the woman who didn’t speak English. Good grief! Had to use that clip, CNN? Couldn’t find another clip? Had to run that clip for 10 minutes? Very cool of you, CNN. Just doing your job. Journalism all the way never say die.
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At least we can rest assured that none of US are racist, guys. You know, because we watched The Wire.
And “The Color of Friendship”: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0213565/
I never saw The Wire, but I DID see The Help three times !
You poor, delicious, anthropomorphic entree.
Is this really a thing that people say? Good grief.
Wait, people mailed in protest tacos? Has…has anyone seen facetaco? I worry.
No! Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet taco;
And flights of peppers sing thee to thy rest.
“Tell me about the tacos, George!”
Where’s facetaco at, String? Where the fuck is facetaco?
i laughed a lot at this comment.
“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!” – Ronald Reagan, raising a glass of vodka
I think what he was trying to say in the first place was something like “I don’t want people to think this town has a race problem just because a few of its cops are racists. I’m certainly not racist, and I feel that I have a good relationship with our Latino community.” And that is a reasonable thing for a mayor to say. But what he said was not that.
I think what I’m getting at here is that the mayor of East Haven is a very stupid man. What he said evinces a startling lack of understanding both of our cultural expectations and of what racism even is. In some ways I pity him, because he was clearly unprepared to deal with this. But in other ways, I think this is good because I know that the people of his town will soon have a different, if not necessarily better, mayor.
I am not sure if I agree that that’s what he was trying to say in the first video. I think he was trying to say “Problem? What problem? I am going to do nothing for the Latino community after this because I don’t think they are experiencing discrimination except maybe for the four police officers that were just arrested. I will go about my daily business because I don’t think that anything needs to be done and I think you’re insane and contemptible for suggesting such a thing.”
Or something, it was hard to tell because he’s bananas.
Yeah, this. He is actually buds with the police chief and thinks the problem is fake. Now since he’s a worm he’s trying to spin his comment to mean something convoluted and nonsensical, which is classic Dunning-Kruger-type behavior.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
(Dunning and Kruger demonstrated that stupid people think that they are above average.)
Protest always WAS the most politically active member of the Taco family.
Everyone knows that the only way to heal the cultural divisions in Connecticut is not to eat tacos. It’s to eat taco salad. Racism over.
The more I see of this guy, the more I think that he might not be racist – he might just be legally, medically, and intensely insane.
He’s not racist or insane I don’t think. Just very very…very very very stupid. So stupid that he’s the perfect candidate to be the mayor of a large city, because that is completely the norm these days. you know what I’m talkin bout, gobblegirl
I am not in Toronto, so I am of course horrified by him but also (not so secretly) amused that it’s happening to the Centre Of The Universe ™. He sort of seems like the Mayor Toronto deserves, (if you’re an Albertan jerk like me).
See…this is the crazy attitude of non-Torontonians who think that Toronto hasn’t endured horrible mayor after horrible mayor for decades. If anything, it’s kind of time we were given a mayor we don’t deserve, if only for a brief pleasant break. It is also a circular argument…part of why I think a lot of people think we are the worst (Admittedly, a lot of people here are THE WORST, but this is merely an offshoot of population and having more assholes per capita simply due to numbers) is because we are regularly represented by the worst of the worst.
you can mail a taco? wouldn’t it taste like stamps then?
Seems like a job for Tracy Jordan and Denise Richards.
I don’t know what I dislike more: Fox News for having an opinion, however flawed, or CNN for not having any perspective at all and treating everything like it deserves the blandest respect possible.
i was juuuuuust ranting about this last night. beer *may* have been a factor.
Should CNN Be a Taco Vigilante?
TacOMG … sometimes I think people don’t realize they can just stop talking.
Maybe it’s because I skipped breakfast, but right now I’m thinking that I’d say just about anything to get thousands of free tacos delivered to my office.