Posted by Dan Ewert : 4/05/2002 01:24:00 AM (Archive Link)
An article on Foxnews.com has sparked my interests. If you haven’t seen Speedy Gonzales on TV recently, there’s a reason… he’s not there. Appears the Cartoon Network which has sole broadcasting rights for the Warner Brothers cartoons refuses to air him because of the alleged Hispanic stereotypes involved. Here’s the weird part, though… Hispanics love him. Not only is he hugely popular in Latin America (where the Cartoon Network has no qualms showing Speedy’s cartoons on their Spanish station), but the country’s oldest Hispanic-American rights group, the League of Latin American United Citizens, wants him back. However, the CN spokesman, Laurie Goldberg, said it’s unlikely he’ll be back. "We're not about pushing the boundary. We're not HBO," she said. "We have a diverse audience and we have an impressionable audience." It seems to me that the diverse audience doesn’t have a problem with him.

I often think it’s strange that many white people are far more concerned about material that can be construed as offensive to minorities than the minorities themselves are. I think it’s a form of white guilt. But if a group of people you’re worried about offending aren’t offended by something, why should you feel offended for them? Not only do I think this bizarre, I think it’s rude. It’s as if the majority feels it has to look out for the minority because they’re not qualified or enlightened enough to do so on their own. It’s the “white people to rescue” mentality. I imagine there are probably plenty of white Democrats out there who think the civil rights movement was only made possible through their benevolence and transcendent righteousness. Such ideas are the most racist I can think of because they maintain the notion of the white patron who must continually help the minorities and save them from their own misguided follies. It takes away the minority’s right to self-direction.