This will be my shortest post ever. The video is self explanatory (in Spanish). For all of mi gente who call themselves Mexican, it’s food for thought. I know Cinco de Mayo is tomorrow, and more of a reason to reflect on how you not only portray yourself, but potentially perpetuate a mentality that is hurting the community as a whole (regardless of where you’re living at the moment).
I would really like to hear what you have to say about it, so please leave a comment. Much love, Payazaro.
Este escrito será el más breve de todos. El propósito del video es obvio. Para toda mi raza que se considere y llame “Mexicana”, piensa bien en el mensaje del video. Mañana es Cinco de Mayo y con más razón uno debe de reflexionar en el problem más grave del Mexicano. Sea aquí en Mexico o en cualquier parte del mundo. Y no, no estoy hablando del gripe 🙂
social change starts in the mirror, you got that right bro!
I here you. It is said the “typical American” will always blame someone else for their own faults. UMMM that statement apparently blankets all us all!!
Something that I wanted to point out that mi prima Alex has alluded to is the idea of being “American” and it’s relation to the video. Many of us are American and have that “Mexican” mentality that is argued to be the problem in the clip. To a certain extent, it gets passed down to us if our parents are still conditioned to the way things are done in Mexico (the cynicism, pessimism, and lack of trust in government, etc…). When you place the layer of “minority” on top of that, it’s a pretty dangerous combination to the Mexican American in the US.
Hmm… I agree with most of it, the fundamental problem is lack of education. It is greed, misdeeds and sense of hopelessness that leads people astray. While I can not speak for everyone, I can say this for myself, I try to live my life as a model for others follow. I might not be perfect but I do recognize when there is a right way of doing something and a wrong way of doing something that I almost always choose to do the morally right thing. Be the change that you want to see in the world.
First, what do you think of the argument of “sometimes doing the right thing means doing the wrong thing”?
Secondly, what you attempt to do Jon is commendable. The fact that you are cognizant of the fact that your actions speak louder than words is the point. Like in the video, many can criticize, point out whats wrong, and just complain, moan, and whine. But it’s the “doing” and action that actually makes a difference.
CHANGE
I will start this part of the letter by narrating an anecdote to you I experienced recently while at a debate workshop. I have been telling this story at all, but maybe you can be the first one to understand why this is so important to me. I was judging a practice round by two so called advanced team. The topic was alternative energy. The aff was running a brownfields into brightfields urban development plan. The neg was running gentrification. Both sides were weary, or at least seemingly so to be spending their valued weekend time on a workshop with some dork judging them. I lost my flows so I can’t be completely specific about where it happened, but somewhere in the second cross examination something magical happened. Something similar to what Foucault terms “parrhessia” in Fearless Speech. There was something powerful about what the kids were doing in their discussion, and now that I think about it the power in the speech was derived from the truth they were speaking. The truth about their lives. The fact that gentrification is more than a debate argument if you live in inner city Oakland. The fact that community development and environmental judgment sounds a little different if you wake up every night to an asthma attack because of the waste site you live next door to and can’t go to the doctor as often as you’d like to because your insurance just doesn’t cover it.
At some point at the end of the cross-x one of the kids in the neg congratulated his partner by saying “My homeboy here not only looks like Barack Obama, he speaks like him, too.” That phrase has stuck with me, it made me cry during the Obama inauguration (I will expand on this soon) and it’s making me cry right now because I realize how long I’ve been waiting to hear it. How long I’ve been waiting for a role model for my people that is not famous for playing a sport, or for MTV style hip hop or for some horrible crime. You have a man that pulled himself by his bootstraps against all odds because of the way he speaks. Because of the content of his character. It doesn’t matter to what extent that is completely true, he is already a symbol and the change his words and his narrative have effected–at least in me and the children I’ve been working with–a change that is beyond anything he can do in office.
I don’t know if you remember the French world cup in 98. I’ve never been too much of a soccer fan but I remember one game and will never forget it: Mexico v. Germany in octafinals. As you probably know, Germany has been a world cup champion several times, not surprisingly given the German taste of excellence. Mexico has always made it to the world cup, but like most Mexicans will testify, they have a knack for “coming close.” This time was not the exception by result but it was an exception nonetheless. The entire first half Mexico was on the attack, Germany was barely able to make any attacks. The first half ended scoreless. The second half starts and in the first minute of the game, a Mexican player whose name I shamefully forget right now weasels his way through the German defense and gets the ball to “El Matador” Luis Hernandez, he does a half moon kick which of course results in a goal and magic takes place. I can’t even begin to imagine what this must have meant for bars all over the US, for schools and homes and storefronts all over Mexico. I have never been a big fan of soccer but it doesn’t take a whiz to understand the beauty of that goal.
The beauty of the awakened spirit in the crowd yelling “Si se puede.” The very creed that Obama now claims to be American. I guess it could be American if we forget about the stupid Mexico-US border. If Americans can truly come together as a people. For now, though, it is a Mexican creed, it is a powerful creed. Mexico wound up losing the game but you could see in both teams the satisfaction and happiness of a good challenge, the team captains exchanged shirts. People from the land of Nietzsche, Wagner, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Beethoven and all the world famous soccer players whose names I don’t know exchanged shirts with my people because in spite of, or perhaps because of economic hardship, we learned to shine.
What does this have to do with the kids in the debate round? Well, I think the two stories, along with Barack Obama’s election are dramatic examples. I guess I need to extrapolate more on what I mean by dramatic examples. In the movie “Batman Begins,” when Bruce Wayne explains to Alfred Pennyworth his plans to become Batman, he says “People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy and I can’t do that as a man…as a symbol I can do that”( I am paraphrasing). Similar to Bruce Wayne’s character, I think people cannot see the possibility of change unless it is put in their faces in a way that they can touch and see and smell. These examples do that, I think, and at least for me, they have been enough to help me awaken to my life. This leads me to the third and final section of this letter, the best advice you have ever given me.
–> “sometimes doing the right thing means doing the wrong thing”?
I there it needs to be broken down into 4 sections: Doing the Right thing for the Right Reason, The Right thing for the Wrong, The wrong thing for the Right Reason, The Wrong thing for the Wrong reason.
I would have to argue that as long as you are doing the right thing for the right reason you can not do “the wrong thing.” It all goes back to ethics… We all know what the right thing to do is… the problem with many of us is simply doing it.
Never in my life would I have imagined myself as becoming spiritual… yet with more education it only seems natural.
“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate, I do.” – Romans 7:15
Thanks Jon. That was deep…
I agree with you, but that is also problematic when you have people like Adolf Hitler who think and believe they are doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Todos estos problemas son problemas de educacion y principios la unica forma de corregirlos es empezar con nosotros mismo y educando a nuestros hijos con los principios adecuados
Aside from my typos… Thanks.
Hitler was different, while I can not dispute that he was a good leader I can certainly say that he was NOT a good moral leader. A leader is able to identify and persuade people to believe his ideologies and commit to action, hence the holocaust.
Hitler did the wrong thing for the right reason. He firmly believed that Germany got screwed after WWI, in many instances he was absolutely correct. Stagflation and enormous debt plagued Germany, he looked for a means to his end and so we now know it as “Hitler’s War.”
Tell me this, if you truly believed that you were doing the Right thing for the Right reason would you not stand trial to face your enemies?
Ironically I’ll look to Fidel Castro for some guidance: “I do not fear prison, as I do not fear the fury of the miserable tyrant who took the lives of 70 of my comrades. Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me.”
Be careful what you say about Fidel Castro. The Patriot Act may imprison you. The Bush administration is still listening. I’ve spoken too much already…
Interesting to know that we are creating bad choices instead of making our country better. Is time to change and act for the better of each citizen. I like your video.