Cops

“Una nueva era: los Estados Unidos pueden ejercer impunemente su función de policías del mundo. Y ya se sabe que este país, que nunca fue invadido por nadie, tiene la vieja costumbre de invadir a los demás. En un par de siglos de vida independiente, más de doscientas agresiones armadas contra otros países independientes.”
-Eduardo Galeano

(Ser como ellos, siglo XXI, 47)

Las dictaduras

“Para obligar a los adultos a pensar derechamente, las dictaduras militares usan terapias de sangre y fuego y las democráticas usan la televisión.”
-Eduardo Galeano

(Ser como ellos, siglo XXI, 43)

A little thing called difference

I want to continue on that note and make an important distinction: is not about exoticism, is about plain difference and understanding of that difference. Every one of us shares similar needs, fears, feelings, while we blend our own receipt of understanding the world with that which we call “self”. That receipt inherits a bunch of stuff that we experience, as well as parts and bits of family, friends, the culture that surrounds us, and so on. They become part of who we are.

However, one thing is to like and be proud of his own inherence and another is to be packed along with the sack of stereotypes people understand of your culture (and other aspects too like gender, sexual orientation, etc.). While stereotypes help us approach difference faster, that is just the cover of a book, and if you have the experience of meeting that person, you should go beyond the package and forget about them. I mean, you need to really understand or try to understand that person, go pass the curtain. That is difficult, that is hard for each one of us to understand others with similar background, or even oneself, imagine a person of another culture then. In my case, while I am very proud of my background and my variety of tastes, and while I would defend Latin music and culture any day, it does not mean that I am your puppet of “puertorricanness”. I will laugh about it, I will mock myself about it, but you need to know where the joke lays. I won’t dance a-la-“West Side Story”, nor I’m a good salsa dancer, nor I would be your latin lover symbol. I will not sing just Latin crap because that’s the role you expect me to play, I’m not your toy (Latino Barbie model?). I’m a person …just like you.

PD.

Some of the groups I forgot: I didn’t mentioned anyone in the Anglo world so here it goes….Nirvana (their boom was in the 90’s, sorry), The Cranberries, Sublime, NIN (same as Nirvana), Dookie of Green Day, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Manson, Eminem, Tool, Garbage, No Doubt, Portishead, Massive Attack, Prodigy….in Latin America I forgot about Mano Negra, Manu Chao, Bohemia Suburbana, Café Tacuba, Aterciopelados, Extremoduro, Mago de Oz….in Germany Rammstein, Subsonica in Italia….fill the blank with the French, Asians, Africans and Portuguese….