http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-10-19-halloween-mask_N.htm 'Illegal Alien' mask flap spooks retailers By Marisol Bello, USA TODAY Richard Zagone, a Chicago mask designer, says he was trying to be ironic when he and his brother came up with the "Illegal Alien" Halloween mask, a space alien with a droopy black mustache. Wow whose bright idea was this?
sheesh its not like part of the costume are a pair of maracas, a sombrero, and random smileys printed all over the costume...
How is anything about this "out of line" or racist. You hopped a fence to get over here. You deserve to be ridiculed. Especially when there is some documentory coming out about how hispanics will be the "majority" in the next 30 years with Edward James Olmos going "it's too late" like they're actually conceiving newborn Mexicans like they read it in a pamphlet. I've got a problem with fence-jumpers.
Halloween is, at its very core, about moral and social escapism as well as satire. It seems like all the best holidays have been stripped of their traditional meaning and societal value for the sake of commercially and politically motivated family and kid-friendliness. But I guess if Wal-Mart doesn't sell Nazi, Taliban or even Confederate uniforms, or Kunta Kinte shackles and chains, then I guess they should be hesitant to sell these as well. Hopefully this guy gets enough publicity that he can still make money selling these at honest-to-goodness costume stores where they probably belonged in the first place. Sometimes free speech needs to be tolerated not just because of political principle, but for purely economic reasons. In a time of 10-15% unemployment, should we really be forcing retail stores to scrap whole product lines - writing off entire financing, manufacturing, shipping and marketing cash flows - smack dab in the middle of a holiday season? We sacrificed our luxuries during the '40s war economy, should we maybe sacrifice our taboos and prudishness during the '00s consumption economy? Idea: somebody should set up an online retailer of all the stuff, like this costume, that gets banned on eBay, at retail stores or even historically controversial stuff that gets banned from Sotheby's. I think that inventory would be large and controversial enough to make some money.
You seem to think that I have anything to do with this? Minimum wage is what caused illegals to get employment. Of course, if you ever took an economics course, you would know this already.
Insinuating that one of the problems with immigration is an increase in the population of Hispanics, which comprise the two oldest ethnic groups on this side of the globe. That the largest ethnic group in this hemisphere becoming a plurality in its second physically largest country is treated like some coming crisis is pure, unadulterated white supremacy. This is probably what disgusts a lot of legally raised, law abiding, fully productive Latino Americans into defending illegal immigrants. This and the fact that most of our original immigration laws were made up out of thin air in the nineteenth century to terrorize and evict non-whites that helped build this country on the cheap. Time to stop treating the third-most populous and fourth largest territory on the goddamned planet like some suburban gated community.
