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Regarding La Raza
Primero, soy un gringo de los Estados Unitos.
Secondly, I speak very little Spanish, so I’m going to write this in my native tongue.
An ally of the cause just forwarded this along to me:
So what? You might be asking. Am I offended by “Mexican Pride”?
Not at all. I do not object to “Mexican Pride” anymore than I object to “Irish Pride” or “Jewish Pride” or “Black Pride” or “Gay Pride” or “[Enter-your-group-or-clique-here] Pride”.
My objection stems from the phrase: “Primero La Raza”.
Unless I am misunderstanding something, the English equivalent of this statement is “Primarily, the race” or “the race comes first”. This would strike me as an incredibly racist statement.
However, this phrase might be more accurately translated as “The First Race”. This would strike me as inaccurate (I believe humans began in Africa, not Mexico), but not overtly racist.
This is a plea to Quinn, or anyone else reading this who understands Latino culture better than I do: what is the meaning of this phrase? Is it comparable to “Kiss Me, I’m Irish?”, or, something more along the lines of “White Power”, minus the white?
This is most certainly protected under our wonderful First Amendment either way. I’m just curious what it means. I would like to understand the intent behind this slogan.
Ud. aliado en la libertad,
Zap
P.S. Bonus points for the first person to correct my “spanglish” grammar.
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