Taco Grande

[anthontherun]

If the song had been about a guy who likes to eat a lot of hamburgers and hot dogs, would it have been considered an anti-American song? Of course not.

I think Al dodged a bullet by not releasing "We Got the Beef." If he had performed that in the 1950s, he'd have been blacklisted and it'd be impossible to find any "Communist Al" Yankovic records anywhere.

[algonacchick]

Okay, I can see your point, Jon. I'll just restate that the person who wrote the article thinks the character in the song is Mexican. I think that's where he tries to go for the racism angle. He also says some not so nice things about this character, mostly about how he eats so much. The descriptions he uses for the way he eats are kind of offensive. Also, "Slowpoke Rodriguez"?? What he says about the song is more offensive than the song itself, which is not. I guess I did initially say that the character in the song is white, so I that may have been confusing when I said later that race didn't matter. I apologize.

Is there a "phew" smiley?

[Burger]

Latinos/Hispanics are indeed a race. Mexican food is great. The song is obviously not racist or anything close.
My theory is that the narrator of Taco Grande is a white guy from Southern California who just loves Mexican food and will never shut up about eating it, which is a fairly common trait among white people in Southern California.

Sounds like me! I love mexican food.

[mellow weasel]

Race has no actual meaning in a biological sense; it's a human construct based on skin pigmentation.

Yes it has , it's a legit term to define an intraspecific population system that isn't distinctive enough to be called a subspecies, and yet is easily recognized. There are snake races, aphid races etc. - it's not a human priviledge. Also in case of humans it isn't based only on skin pigmentation. Take a group of albinos and there will be no difficulty to tell what race they are unless they're mixed, in which case it would be impossible anyway .

[minnick27]

I go to the aphid races on saturday nights. A better time you will not find

[algonacchick]

Why is my name included in that quote, mellow weasel? I never said that.

[Teh Dingo]

Please stick to reactions to the CRACKED article only or drop the matter entirely. We don't need to be going down the rabbit hole of race on this forum. We're WOWAY, not the American Civil Liberties Union.

[mellow weasel]

Why is my name included in that quote, mellow weasel? I never said that.

, I deleted your quote within his quote, but failed to delete your name...

[algonacchick]

mellow weasel - Looks like the comment was deleted, anyway.

Dingo, I realize that the discussion about race did veer off a bit, but the author of the article tried to call this song racist. We all agree it is not.

And that's all I have to say about that. (Right album, wrong song, but w/e)

[mellow weasel]

mellow weasel - Looks like the comment was deleted, anyway.

I still can see them both (mine and the one I quoted), and I fixed my mistake