[RAICES] crap in vanity fair

[jib02 at hampshire.edu]

For all of you who were seriously offended by the column in Vanity Fair I'd 
like you all to know that Dame Edna is a famous comedian. Hellloooo!! Her 
column is in the magazine solely for humorous purposes. Of course its supposed 
to be ridiculous. So is she. I advise that before you get horribly upset about 
something you do some reseach. This was the most pointless and stupid petition 
Ive ever seen.
Julia
http://www.dame-edna.com/

Quoting daniel older <djolder1 at yahoo.com>:

> 
> The following appeared in Vanity Fair magazine
> (February 2003), p. 116,
> in the column "Ask Dame Edna":
> Dear Dame Edna,
> I would very much like to learn a foreign language,
> preferably French or
> Italian, but every time I mention this, people tell me
> to learn Spanish
> instead. They say, "Everyone is going to be speaking
> Spanish in 10
> years. George W. Bush speaks Spanish." Could this be
> true? Are we all
> going to have to speak Spanish? Torn Romantic, Palm
> Beach
> Dear Torn:
> Forget Spanish. There's nothing in that language worth
> reading except
> Don Quixote, and a quick listen to the CD of Man of La
> Mancha will take
> care of that. There was a poet named Garcia Lorca, but
> I'd leave him on
> the intellectual back burner if I were you. As for
> everyone's speaking
> it, what twaddle! Who speaks it that you are really
> desperate to talk
> to? The help? Your leaf blower? Study French or
> German, where there are
> at least a few books worth reading, or, if you're
> American, try English.
> Dame Edna
> If this example of anti-Latino racism offends you,
> this petition
> encourages you to participate in a mass effort to
> request a formal
> apology from Vanity Fair and "Dame Edna," to support a
> boycott of Vanity
> Fair magazine, and to urge others to do the same.
> If you would like to sign the petition, please copy
> (rather than
> forward) this email in a new message, sign it and
> number your name, and
> circulate it widely.
> 
> If you receive this list with 100 names signed, please
> send it to the
> Editor at vfmail at vf.com
> Thank you!
> Dear Editor,
> We, the undersigned, are infuriated at Dame Edna's
> response to Torn
> Romantic, Palm Beach (Vanity Fair, February 2003).
> Dame Edna could have
> chosen any number of amusing responses; however, she
> responded using
> cheap, two-dimensional stereotypes of Latinos and
> Latin Americans,
> revealing not only her racism but also her profound
> ignorance of who we
> are. As of last week, we are officially the largest
> minority population
> in the United States at 37 million and 13% of the
> population. Without
> us, the economy of the United States would come to a
> complete
> standstill. Moreover, if Dame Edna were even remotely
> cultured or
> educated, she would have read and lost herself in the
> exquisite writings
> of countless Latin American authors, including Nobel
> prize winners
> Octavio Paz, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, and Pablo Neruda.
> Dame Edna would
> have NEVER written such blatantly offensive material
> about African
> Americans or Jews, for obvious reasons. It seems that
> Dame Edna AND the
> Editors of Vanity Fair believe that Latinos and Latin
> Americans cannot
> read, and even if we could, we would never be Vanity
> Fair readers. We
> demand an apology in print in the next issue of Vanity
> Fair from the
> Editors and from Dame Edna. In the meantime, we will
> be mobilizing a
> boycott in protest of Vanity Fair.
> Signed,
> 1. Dr. Nicholas De Genova, Professor, Latino Studies,
> Columbia
> University, New York City.
> 2.  Nadia Guessous, Graduate Student, Anthropology and
> Gender Studies, 
> Columbia University, New York City, NY.  USA.
> 3. Lucia Gimeno, Organizer, Brooklyn, NY.  USA 
> 4. Daniel José Older, student, Amherst MA USA
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
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