Feature image courtesy of the Hartford Courant
Have you watched this video yet? The video of East Haven, Connecticut Mayor Joseph Maturo’s interview with WPIX reporter Mario Diaz regarding an FBI investigation of civil rights violations perpetrated against the Latino community by East Haven police? No? The interview is actually kind of funny at first. Well, funny if you enjoy seeing inarticulate dingbats struggle to respond to simple questions. A few minutes into the interview Diaz asks Maturo what he plans on doing for the Latino community during this trying time and Maturo responds with “Well, I might have tacos when I go home. I’m not sure yet.” Then he spends the next few minutes rambling on about ethnic food trying to explain himself. In subsequent interviews, he blamed his “insensitive” comments on stress.
Um, yeah.
Actually, there is some truth to a stress defense. People who are under physical and mental stress, especially seniors like the mayor, can find verbal and cognitive regulation difficult when engaged in conversation. Kinda like Archie Bunker: the older you get, the more crap you let fly out of your mouth–because you can no longer hold your bullshit beliefs inside your head as easily as you could when you were in the prime of your sorry excuse for a life. Of course, you have to be FULL OF SHIT IN THE FIRST PLACE to ever end up in a situation where it just flies out your mouth. Nonracist people don’t make random racist comments. They certainly don’t make racist comments when explicitly talking about sensitive racial matters during a televised interview with a journalist. Rather, racists lose control of their ability to keep it to themselves and end up blurting it out, making for primo Youtube clips. So, this guy wants us to believe he’s not a racist? He didn’t mean it? Not buying it. P.S. If that’s how he talks to a Latino reporter while on camera while being asked about a serious FBI investigation on racial profiling and civil rights abuses against Latinos in his town, we can only imagine what he says off camera.
If there is one thing worse than a racist, it’s cowering, closeted racist. In fact, we’ve been seeing a lot of this watered-down racism from Republicans lately, huh? Santorum, who doesn’t want to help ”Blah” people and Newt with all his code speak. Call me old fashioned, but I like my racists riding hard on horses, donning their whitest April Fresh bed linens, burning crosses in hand. But, Maturo, too, is unwilling to own up to his ignorance and hatred. Instead, he immediately backpedals, reading a lame excuse for an apology to the press the next day. Hey, Maturo and your cowardly brethren: you people may think your racism is subtle, but really, it’s quite obvious to everyone. It’s also quite obvious that you can’t grow a pair and own the shit that comes out of your mouth.
And these people want to lead our country? They can’t even deliver a racially-charged insult properly! How can they govern our country properly?!
While I find the interview (and the delivery of 2,000 tacos to East Haven Town Hall) mildly amusing, my laughter is cut short by the thought of the Latinos that have been victimized by these mouth-breathing, gun-totting, pea-brained monsters in blue, the East Haven police–dubbed “bullies with badges” by the U.S. Department of Justice. It’s fairly sad to think that this is what political leadership looks like in 2012. Downright depressing when you read the outpouring of support on Maturo’s FB page. There is no apology he can offer that will undo this. The best we can do is work to make sure these kinds of things don’t happen again.
To help in this effort, I am going to offer these quick tips to anyone concerned about concealing their anti-Latino racism: Never speak on the topic of tacos in the presence of Latinos unless it has been explicitly brought up by the Latino himself. Also, tacos are a Mexican food, and not as Maturo says, “Latin food.” When in doubt on how to hold a civilized conversation in public with another human being, just keep your taco-hole closed if you have nothing of any worth to say.