Slog
News & ArtsThursday, June 14, 2012
2012 / Politics They All Look Alike...
Posted by Dan Savage on Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 1:41 PM
...to the RNC:
In an effort to court Latino voters, the RNC’s Spanish-language outreach website installed a prominent photo of adorable Latino children as its main image. Or at least that’s what the RNC thought the photo depicted. It turns out the kids aren’t Latino at all. In an embarrassing mix-up, US News and World Report discovered that RNCLatinos.com used a stock photo apparently depicting Asian children on the site. The image they chose is tagged by its creators with such terms as “asian,” “thailand,” “japanese” and “interracial,” as are dozens of related photos by the same source featuring Asian preschoolers playing in parks.
4
Asian people can be Latino, so can white people or black people. We're talking about the difference between ethnicity/culture and race.
6
But they're brown! What difference does it make? Latino? Asian? All that's important, is they aren't white!
8
No "Let's Practice, President Romney" that's all YOU got.
Enjoy your cowardly anonymous spamming and your "practicing" -- reality has a liberal bias.
Enjoy your cowardly anonymous spamming and your "practicing" -- reality has a liberal bias.
9
Spoiler: the RNC doesn't actually care about courting Latino voters, and the few Latino voters wo actually were going to vote Republican this year don't care about this website.
15
#4
I understand that "Latino" is an ethnicity and "Asian" is a race, but the children depicted were not Latino Asians. And I don't think the RNC were intending to do voter outreach to Latino Asians.
Most Republicans think George Zimmerman is Mexican. They have no fucking clue.
I understand that "Latino" is an ethnicity and "Asian" is a race, but the children depicted were not Latino Asians. And I don't think the RNC were intending to do voter outreach to Latino Asians.
Most Republicans think George Zimmerman is Mexican. They have no fucking clue.
18
Was it Bachmann who said that to a classroom full of Latino kids?
The best thing about it is that they don't even understand why someone might be annoyed; they have no concept of ethnicity because they're all the same ethnicity. Let's start going around accusing them of being Unitarians.
The best thing about it is that they don't even understand why someone might be annoyed; they have no concept of ethnicity because they're all the same ethnicity. Let's start going around accusing them of being Unitarians.
19
The RNC and Romney campaigns need to spend a few of those Adelson bucks ($10 million in one shot!) on at least one sharp-eyed proofreader and fact-checker. Colbert had a good time with the recent misspelling of "America" on Romney's I-Phone app, and this stock-photo incident is another sloppy and careless error.
Stupidity and insensitivity may actively appeal to a subset of Republican voters (Palin's supporters and Rush's Dittoheads come to mind), but the swing-voters the campaigns are targeting rarely have such peculiar preferences.
Stupidity and insensitivity may actively appeal to a subset of Republican voters (Palin's supporters and Rush's Dittoheads come to mind), but the swing-voters the campaigns are targeting rarely have such peculiar preferences.
20
@9: I think you're right. This is to make the hand-wringing white fence-straddlers a little less uneasy voting Republican. In which case, who cares who's really in the picture. Right?
25
Native Americans came here from Asia, by and large. I definitely think there are phenotypic similarities between non-European Hispanics and Northern Asians.
26
The RNC has a problem differentiating between all them non-Whites. They all look alike to the Righties.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PHC3SxDm…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PHC3SxDm…
27
@ 25 (and others): I agree, but that's not the point. If you know you're doing outreach to latinos, then you post a picture of latinos. It's very simple...as in almost impossible to fuck up UNLESS it doesn't occur to you that an error could be offensive. And it's not just any ol' error (like spelling "America" wrong): it is part of a systematic worldview, in which brown-ish people are merely tolerated.
28
What @25 said. Genetically speaking, Native Americans are much closer to Asians than to any other group. When I was in middle school, one of my friends was half-Hispanic and I thought her fully Hispanic mom was Asian at first glance. I think this is hilarious for a different reason -- every time someone mistakes Native Americans or Latinos for Asians, they're indirectly reinforcing what modern geneticists believe and thus helping to disprove their own creationist idiocy.
Advertisement
Most Commented on Slog
-
Portland Voters Are Stoopid by Goldy
-
An I-5 Bridge Over the Skagit River Has Collapsed by Paul Constant
-
Why They Break Windows by Unpaid Intern
-
Did You Steal Our Unpaid Intern's Camera? by Goldy
-
Usually When I'm Sent a Photoshopped Image of a Gun Pointed At Me... by Dan Savage
-
The Only Thing More Tragic than a Bridge Collapse Would Be a 10 Cent a Gallon Increase in the Gas Tax by Goldy
-
Tornado Truthers by Dan Savage
-
Star Trek Releases Deleted Scene of Benedict Cumberbatch Showering to Counter Claims of Sexism by Cienna Madrid
-
Boy Scouts Lift Ban on Gay Members by Paul Constant
-
Should I Buy One of These? by Goldy
Stranger Personals
The Stranger
RSSSeattle Art & Performance Quarterly
A complete guide to Seattle's current art, film, dance, and theater season.
Facebook
Twitter
Comments (28) RSS