An Honorary Spanish Diva, I am

I feel that as a society, we can learn alot by studying social behavior and trends of the past. They can help us understand ourselves as people and the circumstances of that time. Prior to the civil rights movements, American society ridiculed ethnicities as a form of entertainment and was never questioned. We of course now know better, or so we think.

Prior to the "politically correct era" of the 90's, this kind of behavior was still present in many forms, only that instead of direct ridiculing, it was moreso on public behavior. Guns, cigarrette smoking, violence on television was still deemed appropriate and never questioned the effect on children. Remember those toy guns and candy cigarrettes? Apparently they're responsible for our violent behavior and our need for vices. We don't know how accurate that is but we chose to omit this from our children's view.

Did banning such behavior really make you want to shoot a gun or smoke a cigarrette? Of course not, because you knew better and like any kid, you asked questions. If children don't see this kind of behavior and register its existance in society, how can they ever know the effects of it?

So there is where we fall into those problems again and our youth engage in these activities.

I feel the same towards the topic of discussion I mentioned in my first paragraph: the use of imagery to ridicule ethnicities in the form of entertainment. I'll use this form: Blackface


Blackface, for whatever reason, became a standard of minstrel shows during most of the early part of the 20th century. A white person would wear such features to "resemble" a typical coloured person and engage in that kind of speech. This was all too common and until colored folks stood up and said "that's enough", people then saw that you can't merely paint people like that. The imagery was deemed innapropriate and rightfdully so.

However, now a days people never discuss this in schools or in the media. Society has chosen to white wash the racist trends of the past and pretend to our kids as this kind of mentality never existed..so what has happened? We've fallen again into a trap. But nowadays the caricatures are "homosexuals". Look at movies, or even "Will & Grace". "Gay" doesn't think..gay acts. Gay has no say, gay makes the punchlines or in some cases IS the punchline. Society seems to think that the fact that gay is even on the map is a step forward but really..what kind of step are we talking about? Where are we going?

Aside from the sexuality, once we resolve this issue, it'll come back in another form. So instead of debating, we should just reflect and see why people do the things they do.