Rights groups want Latino media to end gay pranks, on-air ridicule — This nonsense, of course, goes on while the FCC is screwing over Howard Stern and other moning radio hosts with massive fines for their language. It would seem that if Howard Stern were Juan Sternista, he’d be set.
When the call came on his cell phone, Roberto Hernandez was driving to work in San Francisco. The caller, who identified himself as Juan, said in Spanish that he had met Hernandez at a gay bar and wanted to see him again.
“Refresh my memory, there are so many Juans,” said a puzzled Hernandez. The man described himself as slim with “a very nice butt.” Eventually, the caller offered to give Hernandez his phone number — then announced that the conversation was being broadcast live nationwide on the “Raul Brindis and Pepito Show,” a Spanish-language morning radio program…
“If I were to put on a scale the sensitivity of Spanish-language radio to gay and lesbian issues, I would have to put it at less than 1 on scale of 1 to 10,” said Ivan Roman, executive director of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. “It’s ridiculous. It’s seen as perfectly normal to ridicule gays and lesbians, to see them as less than human.”
After pressure from gay groups, companies including Chevrolet and KFC recently withdrew advertisements from two Spanish-language television talk shows in which audience members physically attacked gay men, lesbians and transgender people. Those shows aired in key Latino markets, including San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles.
But such improprieties are often undetected or ignored, and when the FCC catches violations, the fines are small, said Lisbeth Melendez Rivera of the National Latino Coalition for Justice.
“If you had an English DJ saying ‘faggot’ and ‘fudge packers’ — don’t tell me the FCC wouldn’t get on their butts,” Rivera said. “I guarantee you the same words in English would bring a higher fine. … We want parity on this issue, and this is not parity.”
You know what was screaming in my head as I was reading this: Wardrobe Malfunction.
For some reason the fine for showing a woman’s body part can be in the hundreds of thousands but actually promoting hate, intolerance, prejudice and bigetry on the air garners knowing winks and nods?
And it seems this is a race issue. For one reason or another the FCC doesn’t want to handle the Hispanic community like other communities. Excellent, so now on top of all the hatred we find racism. The governmental body charged with monitoring communications refuses to protect a group of people from violent hate-speak just because why? Because the purpotrating community is known for doing it on a regular basis? (Or maybe lobbiests, money, politics, who knows…)
It’s embarassing. It appears that gay and transgendered people are one of the few groups left some people are allowed to opening hate and torment. And if it really is prevelant in the Hispanic communitty as a whole (and I wouldn’t know whether it was or not) what does that say about that comunity?
Like I said, it’s just embarassing.
I’m a white guy who has spent most of the last 15 years as a “minority” among other religions and ethnicities.
Sensitivity training among most non-whites and non-westerners is nearly nonexistent.
I’ve had it drilled into me since I was a wee lad to be sensitive to other people’s differences.
Among the people I live now (south Asians) this notion of cultural accommodation or sensitivity is just simply never taught. The norm is to mock and judge other cultures!
Prior to living over here, I lived in a totally Mexican or Mexican-American (mostly the former) context. Even though they were living in America, I don’t think it ever occurred to them to proactively “adapt” to their host culture. I don’t think anyone ever encouraged them to do so.
When I moved overseas, I spent many many hours learning about culture, sensitivity, reading about local & religious history, etc. My company even paid for some of it. Most was on my own time and dime. I haven’t kept track but it must be thousands of hours, by now.
Most immigrants to America — in my observation — would never proactively buy and read even a single book about US history let alone spend thousands of hours trying to understand their host culture.
I’m not saying this to JUDGE minorities, but to put this in context.
As our country becomes more diverse (not a bad thing in my mind) cultural sensitivity training shouldn’t just be for white guys anymore.