El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán

[nukethewhalesagain]

Am I missing something or is that not really that different? You're not saying the people are stupid just the culture that almost all of them follow? I mean wouldn't following a culture of stupidity make you stupid?

Anyway he hasn't given any examples of this culture of stupidity.

[Deacon]

Well, sure, some of it is the Tortilla Factor (a lack of proper nutrition), and much of it is a lack of decent education (people scoff at the typical education system in most of America, but they are paragons of excellence comparitively). But those ingredients are spread across a cultural foundation of shortsightedness, corruption, and infidelity. That's just sort of how it is. I'm sure some people are going to misread that as a condemnation of all things (and people) hispanic, which is an unfortunate and inaccurate knee-jerk perception, but the point stands.

[StruckingFuggle]

Am I missing something or is that not really that different?

Yes, you are. One is saying "genetics makes these people stupid", the other is "the culture encourages stupid people, and hey, it just so happens that the vast majority of this culture possesses the similar genetics, but even someone vastly different, rasied in it, would probably turn out dumb, too".

[sergio]

I had to meet several US people to stop myself from stupid generalizations against all americans. May I just ask to avoid such generalizations towards my part of the world? I mean, I didn't choose to be born here. I have studied for years to be better, I don't want to be disqualified just because my skin is darker and because I happen to like tortillas...

I mean, I can be dumb enough to eat at McDonalds too

Back to the thread, please!

[StruckingFuggle]

Well, you said you studied for years (and by extention I'm guessing worked hard?) to be better, which in a way ... that statement really sort of backs up what Deacon's saying, hm?

[sergio]

Well, yes and no. Yes, because I can criticize a lot of things in my country that I chose not to adopt, and no because he disqualifies me as an educated person without even knowing me.

Nothing is black or white, I know :] I avoid generalizations, like "every american is fat" or "all republicans are close-minded", so I think it's fair to ask for the same thing.

[kyoryu]

I think you're confusing the statement he made. I think he said that 99.9% of the people in that culture are hispanic, not that 99.9% of hispanic people are part of that culture.

I'm a skiier and a snowboarder, so as an analogy, lemme put it this way:

When I go skiing, I notice that a lot of the rude people I meet tend to be snowboarders. That's not an insult, it's not anything except an actual observation. That doesn't mean that all snowboarders are jerks... it just means that most of the jerks are snowboarders.

Saying most A are B does not mean that most B are A.

Or, to use your fat american example, you can't say all americans are obese, but it's probably not far from the truth to say that most morbidly obese people are americans!

[StruckingFuggle]

Right, kyoryu... and it's its also probably fair to say that the predominant culture of America encourages that obesity, too.

[nukethewhalesagain]

[quote="Deacon";p="493030"]Well, sure, some of it is the Tortilla Factor (a lack of proper nutrition), and much of it is a lack of decent education (people scoff at the typical education system in most of America, but they are paragons of excellence comparitively). But those ingredients are spread across a cultural foundation of shortsightedness, corruption, and infidelity. That's just sort of how it is. I'm sure some people are going to misread that as a condemnation of all things (and people) hispanic, which is an unfortunate and inaccurate knee-jerk perception, but the point stands.[/quote]

Most of your points have more to do with poverty than with intelligence. Even then some of them are inaccurate. At least in Mexico that is.

I mean mexican people eat tortillas or whatever stereotypical foods you can think of because they are cheap. Corn is grown everywhere and corn flower is easily available. Rice and beans are cheap and easy to get too. The healthy food is comparatively expensive. On the other hand in the United States where helty food is cheaper and readily available, the obesity and diabtetes rates are still above the rest of the world. Obviously using this as an example is a little hypocritical.

The education levels in a country are almost always directly related with the economy of a country. Still in my experience the public education in Mexico is better in most areas. The math and science taught in Mexico is more advanced in grades k-12 in mexico than in the U.S. The problem in Mexico is that a lot of children have to drop out of school to work farms and land with parents. And even when students finish school the higher education system in Mexico is subpar because it doesn't have the resources available in the United States.

The only thing I can wholeheartedly agree with you on is the corruption in Latin America, but economic factors are involved there too. For example, the police are easily bribed because the bribes collected in one day add up to more than what a police officer makes in a two week pay period. So basically the main problem with Mexico is not that it is stupid or that its culture is holding it back but that it is poor and corruption and the economy is holding it back.

Posted Mon May 09, 2005 10:59 pm:

so 99.99% of the latin american culture is hispanic? What's the other .000000001%?

[StruckingFuggle]

"I mean mexican people eat tortillas or whatever stereotypical foods you can think of because they are cheap. Corn is grown everywhere and corn flower is easily available. Rice and beans are cheap and easy to get too. The healthy food is comparatively expensive. On the other hand in the United States where helty food is cheaper and readily available, the obesity and diabtetes rates are still above the rest of the world. Obviously using this as an example is a little hypocritical.

Except you might notice that your points A and B don't really cohere here, giving you a faulty conclusion C ... notice that as you say, cheap mexican food isn't "good for you", but they eat it because its cheap ... ... and then you present the US, saying that healthy food is cheaper here ( I can't say comparative with mexico, but it's certainly not cheaper than unhealthier alternatives here ), and then say nothing about how many people pursue such options (not that many, in fact, you might say, given obesity/diabeties) ... can you see where this statement sort of falls apart, NTWA?

The math and science taught in Mexico is more advanced in grades k-12 in mexico than in the U.S.

Also, just a smaaaaall beef, you only needed one "in Mexico" there.

( ... wait... holy shit, Deacon, am I arguing from the same standpoint you are, or totally misreading you? )

[Phong]

[quote="sergio";p="493061"]I had to meet several US people to stop myself from stupid generalizations against all americans. May I just ask to avoid such generalizations towards my part of the world? I mean, I didn't choose to be born here. I have studied for years to be better, I don't want to be disqualified just because my skin is darker and because I happen to like tortillas...

I mean, I can be dumb enough to eat at McDonalds too

Back to the thread, please![/quote]

Sergio, my sister-in-law was born in Brownsville, and raised in Monterrey, and Matamorros. She is one of the most intelligent people I know, very well educated, and she holds the mexican equivalent of a Bachelors Degree in Mass Communications. I've always been very clear on the fact that this is not the average educational level in Mexico.

Poverty in Mexico is at an epidemic level, and it's my understanding that in many of the poor families, children do not even commonly finish high school, thus not even reaching these classes that are "more advanced", they instead enter the workforce to help their families get by. So, regardless of whether or not the educational system is better at higher levels, it hardly makes a difference if the vast majority of the mexican populous is not even getting High School educated.

And though I know it is difficult, try and forgive the bias of Americans. The Mexicans that we encounter, for example here in Houston, are on average the dregs of Mexican society, who came here to escape desperate poverty, so our view of Mexicans is skewed by this.

And sergio, I don't claim that my country is perfect, at least admit that yours has some faults too. You can admit that your country isn't perfect, and still be a patriot.

I also remind you that though I think it's innacurate, it was General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana who said "A hundred years to come, my people will not be fit for liberty. They do not know what it is, unenlightened as they are, and under the influence if the Catholic clergy. A despostism is the proper government for them, but there is no reason why it should not be a wise and virtuous one."

[StruckingFuggle]

You can admit that your country isn't perfect, and still be a patriot.

You know, I don't think think you can think your country is perfect and still be a patriot...

...

[nukethewhalesagain]

StruckingFuggle, I believe my point is valid. Deacon used the poor health of the country as an example of the stupidity of the culture. I said that the people eat what they do (no mention of health since while I know the food is unhealthy I also believen that it has good qualities too) because it is what they can afford and not because they are stupid and don't realize that they are killing themselves. The U.S., on the other hand, has a better economy and cheaper healthy food (cheaper than mexico not cheaper than unhealthy food) and yet still has a high obesity and diabetes rate. All I am saying is that if you are going to use the health of the country as an argument against the people of mexico then you have to use it against the people of the United States too.

Phong, I agree with you completely (and on a coincidental note, I am from Brownsville/Matamoros too). The only argument I was making about the educational system is that it is better in higher levels but the country is held back by the fact that students have to drop out of school so that they can work and help their families.

I know that my country is imperfect. Corruption is rampant and the people are poor and this causes ignorance, but it is wrong to write off an entire culture because of these factors.

[Martin Blank]

He used the nutrition as an example of what's wrong with the culture. Children without proper nutrition can often have difficulty in education because their brains are not developing at the rate they should.

Corruption is a big problem there, and the highest-level corruption breeds lower-level corruption. It seems that things have gotten a little better since Vicente Fox was elected (though I'd like his government to stop promoting illegal crossings into the US), but there are still a lot of changes that should be made to open the economy up and crack down on the corruption that is still rife in the system.

[Deacon]

Christ all-fucking-mighty. Did nobody catch how I grew up south of the border? How my mother grew up in Guadalajara and didn't even learn English for the first time until her family moved to the States when she was in high school? How I visit my family who's lived in Ameca, Jalisco, my whole life? There IS no "stereotype" and "typical Mexicans we encounter in Houston" (or San Antonio in my case). There's first-hand fucking experience, and that includes attending classes where I'm the only non-national (and for a while the only person with any but the most primitive grasp of the English language) and they're extolling the amazing virtues of the heritage and the culture and the history and how everything Mexico is greater than anything else. At least in Guatemala there was more a sense of self-improvement rather than self-aggrandizement, though it was scary there for a month or two as "GRINGOS ROBANINOS" was blazened across Guatemala City on highway overpasses and such within eyeshot of our back yard in Vista Hermosa because people made up stories about hippy backpackers murdering local children, harvesting their organs (pointing at their their belly to show where the cuts were made to harvest the kidneys), and hiking around in the jungle with the organs wrapped in a napkin in the backpack for a week or two before taking the magical Plug-n-Play organs to be sold on the booming organ market in the US, only to be caught, trapped in a house, and eventually rushed and beaten to death.

It's not ALWAYS cool to have your friends make CNN Headline News.

There are so many cultural strongholds of ignorance and general backwardness that darken the land south of about Cotulla, and you cannot deny what I'm saying. There's a huge number of factors involved, here, and it's going to take more than an election or two to change things up. It's going to take a generational cultural revolution along the lines of the Renaissance from the Dark Ages.