Or Caesar Romero's 
Posted on 10/14/2003 12:45:53 PM PDT by mrustow
As I write this column, a bit of harmless, racist, fluff is transpiring on the TV screen: The Hispanic Day Parade. A celebration of Latin "pride." The hosts are alleged journalists Jim Watkins, who is white, and Lolita Lopez, who is Hispanic, with Hispanic reporter Matt Garcia working the street (the announcers note that reporter Marysol Castro, who worked with Garcia in 2002, is on vacation in Costa Rica, or she’d be there, too). The parade this year was dedicated to the memory of Latin singer, Celia Cruz, who died on July 16 at the age of "around 79." Lolita Lopez, who is apparently an expert on both Latin and non-Latin – i.e., ALL – cultures, tells us, "I think it’s hard for non-Hispanics to understand how important Celia was to Hispanics."
Imagine if a white TV host said, "I think it’s hard for non-whites to understand how important Frank Sinatra was to whites." He’d be fired and whitelisted from the industry, before you could say, "KKK." But let a Hispanic mouth such racist twattle, and she’ll get a promotion.
Music is universal; anyone who loves music can appreciate Frank Sinatra. Likewise, to the degree Celia Cruz’s singing was great -- having heard very little of her music, I’m in no position to judge -- anyone can appreciate it. Granted, an English-speaker may have an advantage with Sinatra, just as a Spanish-speaker may have an advantage with Cruz, but one’s racial or ethnic background will not help one. (And language fluency is more important for appreciating the lyrics, rather than the singer.)
And yet, Lopez and Watkins do not appreciate Cruz as a singer. Their concern is with "how important Celia was to Hispanics." Thus is something universal – art – hijacked and turned into the private property of racist "pride." Thus does any Latin ignoramus become an "expert" on music written or performed by any Latin, the way every black ignoramus today thinks he is an "expert" on any and all music (and non-music, i.e., hip hop) ever performed by blacks.
The hosts then read a trivia question: Who was the 1940s Hollywood love goddess, who was born in Mexico as Margarita Carmen Cansino? I immediately shouted out, "Rita Hayworth!" (When my mother came for a visit later that day, and I told her the question, she refused to even say, "Rita Hayworth," responding simply, "Everyone knows that!")
Actually, she was born in Manhattan, but who’s quibbling?
When Watkins and Lopez come back on, the hosts – who apparently have never seen any of Hayworth’s many wonderful movies, launch into a lecture on white racism, though without using the phrase.
Lolita Lopez, who reacts as if she were hearing the name Rita Hayworth for the first time, informs us that "people didn’t know that" Hayworth was Hispanic. Watkins adds, helpfully, that "Maybe it was because it was not so popular for someone to be" Hispanic back then. "Not so popular," as in THOSE RACIST WHITES.
And now, to the facts. As my mother noted, everyone knew that Rita Hayworth was a Latin; that contributed to her mystique, and she became a huge star playing a hot tamale, Gilda.
However, the real reason Rita Hayworth wasn’t known as a "Hispanic," was that she wasn’t one. Her father, dancer (and son of a dancer) Eduardo Cansino, immigrated to America from Spain in 1913; Rita was born in Manhattan on October 17, 1918. Until a few years ago, "Hispanic" referred to countries that had been conquered by Spain, and where Spanish was spoken, but not to Spain itself. Hispanic nationalists then decided to eliminate the distinction between conqueror and conquered, as regards Spain, replacing it in the role of conqueror and colonial power -- history be damned -- with the U.S.
Since Hayworth’s mother, Volga (whose maiden name was Hayworth), was Irish-English, Hayworth would more accurately be described as Anglo-Irish than as Hispanic, but with cultural/racial imperialism, one need have only one drop of the privileged culture, to be defined by it. (One drop of culture? Hey, I’m not the one who started using culture as synonymous now with race, now with religion; I just follow matters where they lead.) If anything, it was Hayworth’s Anglo-Irish roots which were suppressed. Heck, it would have been more accurate, had she been identified as being of Jewish descent (on her father's side), than as Hispanic. Where's the ADL, when you need it!
Semantics aside, far from hiding the Latin portion of her background, Hayworth’s first film studio, Fox, reportedly exaggerated her Latin side, by dying her dark brown hair black. Later, producers had her hair colored red, and eventually, auburn, but she often played Latins (in Blood and Sand, You Were Never Lovelier, The Loves of Carmen, and countless supporting roles in B movies early in her career).
As Hayworth-scholar and webmistress Cynthia Claudia De La Hoz wrote me, “During the 30's and 40's Latins were ‘in.’ Especially when it came to the dances - rumbas, congas, tangos, cha cha's. And they did love to play up Rita's Latin side for certain roles. With Rita's look she could be an exotic temptress one minute and an all-American sweetheart the next. That's part of the reason she was Columbia Pictures' greatest asset and audiences loved her. If you read old articles you wouldn't read ‘Rita's mother is half English and half Irish,’ but they would say ‘Rita's father is Spanish’ and they often included pictures of she and him from their days as the ‘Dancing Cansinos.’”
Indeed, not only did the Latin branch of Hayworth’s family tree contribute to her mystique, but it took on a life of its own. Hayworth was reportedly the inspiration behind the classic 1954 movie, starring Ava Gardner, that Joseph Mankiewicz wrote and directed, The Barefoot Contessa. Contessa recounts the life of actress "Maria Vargas," who was discovered by a ruthless Hollywood producer (billionaire Howard Hughes) as a barefoot-dancing, impoverished Spanish peasant. Like Hayworth, "Maria" chose her men poorly, and ended up with an Italian aristocrat who murdered her; Hayworth had in 1949 married, and in early 1953 divorced, Muslim Prince Aly Khan of Pakistan. There the similarities ended – although she was discovered by a Hollywood producer while dancing, Rita Hayworth was never poor, was born and raised in the U.S., and was the third generation of a family of moderately successful dancers, The Dancing Cansinos.
(At the time, some observers believed Contessa was based on the life of its star, Ava Gardner, who grew up barefoot in rural North Carolina, and also had notoriously bad luck with men.)
With blonde Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth was one of the two most popular pin-up girls among American G.I.s and flyboys during World War II. Her many wonderful pictures include Gilda, The Lady from Shanghai, Pal Joey, The Story on Page One, Separate Tables and They Came to Cordura. Hayworth was a lovely dancer, but could not sing; her singing voice was always dubbed. Although she made her mark in musicals and light comedies, in the late 1940s through the 1950s, she developed into a solid dramatic actress. Hayworth had five unhappy marriages – to Edward C. Judson, Orson Welles, Prince Aly Khan, singer Dick Haymes and screenwriter James Hill.
Sadly, Rita Hayworth was stricken, while still in her forties (some of her friends have claimed the onset was even earlier), with premature senility, which was then renamed "Alzheimer’s disease." She suffered increasing difficulty remembering her lines; by the time she was in her early fifties, the job proved impossible.
For years before Hayworth’s death on 1987, at the age of 68, supermarket tabloids incorrectly identified her bizarre behavior as stemming from being a drunk. In her last years, her daughter, Princess Yasmin Khan, cared for her. The publicity surrounding Hayworth’s early demise, however, and a fundraising and publicity campaign begun and continued into the present by her daughter, provided the greatest spur to support for, and research into senility/Alzheimer’s. No one who knew anything about Rita Hayworth’s life would fail to mention the Alzheimer’s connection.
All of this would be news to Lolita Lopez. We live in a time in which well-to-do ignoramuses are designated "experts" on people and subjects based on the flimsiest, demographic connection.
Later in the broadcast, Jim Watkins shows colorfully clad South American dancers, and says the costumes and dance expressed the “anger” of the people at being enslaved, but never mentions that it was the Spaniards who were the slave masters. (School children today are taught that only white American men were slave masters.) The sage Lolita Lopez adds, regarding the costumes, that there’s a "deeper meaning" to things that seem ordinary.
Considering Watkins and Lopez’ huge credibility problem, I’m skeptical, to say the least, about their slave dancer story.
And so, Lopez and Watkins encourage Hispanics watching the broadcast to hate innocent whites (but not Spaniards), based on non-existent, past "racism." As Lopez emphasizes, the audience is "absorbing everything."
The lies spread by Jim Watkins and Lolita Lopez are, unfortunately, all too typical of today’s mainstream media reporters, and of educators, as well.
The Hispanic youngsters in the parade’s TV audience attend schools where teachers and administrators – many of whom are themselves illiterate in English – typically refuse to speak English to their Hispanic students. That’s the real face of "pride." These racist, incompetent "educators" fill children’s heads with the notion that they are victims of "discrimination," and that it doesn’t matter what they do to improve their lot.
It’s no wonder that at 44.1%, Latin immigrants have by far the highest high school dropout rate of any group in New York City, almost three times the overall rate of 16%, and over three times the non-Hispanic rate. And when the dropouts fail to get jobs, they will know why – "discriminacion!"
The same Hispanic ethnic gangsters who deprive Hispanic kids of an education, then demand money for "dropout prevention programs" (read: more patronage jobs for Hispanic ethnic gangsters).
Not only do Hispanic "educators" refuse to teach Hispanic children English, but like "news people" such as Jim Watkins and Lolita Lopez, they deliberately teach them lies.
Howard Schwach, the longtime editor of the newspaper, The Wave, which serves the Rockaway area of Queens, recently retired after over thirty years as a classroom teacher and social studies curriculum (and textbook) writer within the New York City school system. In the September 19 edition of The Wave, Schwach wrote of the propaganda foisted on the world by the schools and by National Public Radio (NPR), which once came to Far Rockaway IS (Intermediate School) 53 "for three days to do a story on the need for an increased Bilingual program – a program that destroys Hispanic kids but is the darling of Latino politicians everywhere…."
"When the story aired, however, there was a segment about the history being taught at the school decrying the fact that a Hispanic man … played a big part in the Confederacy. In fact, he was billed as being ‘more important to the Confederacy than Robert E. Lee.’
"He never existed."
Schwach told how such lies are spread by the New York City teacher’s union, the United Federation of Teachers, and the New York City Education Department (the newly renamed Board of Education), under the guise of "authentic learning." Authentic learning propagandists insist that unless history is rewritten – like pseudo-historical Hollywood movies and TV shows -- to place non-existent blacks and Hispanics in prominent historical roles, kids from those groups will not be interested in learning. "Authentic learning" is the multicultural culmination of "relevance."
(If the propagandists were logical, they would realize that their claims imply that it is impossible to teach Hispanic kids: Either they will ignore teachers, or demand flattering lies from them.)
For better or worse, such demands are not made in the name of white kids.
(Schwach has also written of how the UFT trains teachers to instruct children that a non-existent black woman was one of the leaders of the 1848 Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention, in order to engage black children.)
Just imagine how those same students would likely react to someone who later on, destroyed their illusions about the precious Hispanic role in the Confederacy. And why would an educator seek to elevate Hispanic kids’ self-esteem, by inventing a hero who was a pillar of the slave system? Do these people even know what the Civil War was about?!
The interviewers were shocked at Schwach’s refusal to write curricula based on lies, and refused to hire him. Maybe they could get some help from NPR and the WB.
And as retired New York City assistant principal Edwin Selzer observed in a sworn affidavit published in the anthology, The Failure of Bilingual Education, "once a child was in a bilingual education program, he ... was never mainstreamed into regular English-speaking classes." Selzer reported, too, that "many students graduating from Eastern District High School were illiterate in both Spanish and English."
Bilingual education is the greatest method ever devised, to arrest language acquisition.
At the top of this column, I spoke of "harmless, racist fluff." I need to revise that statement. This stuff is not harmless.
In case you’d like to complain about the WB’s combination of racism and ignorance, its news director, Karen Scott, can be reached at (212) 210-2411, and e-mailed via links at this page.
Or Caesar Romero's
Speaking of which (well, sort of) not too long ago I saw Rita Hayworth in the musical "You Were Never Lovelier" w/ Fred Astaire. Man, not only was she a knock out but could she dance! (And in heels!)
I have not seen that picture, but I fully intend to. I read somewhere that when Fred Astaire was asked once who his favorite dancing partner was, rather than give the obvious answer, he named Rita. I wonder how a certain someone felt about that.
Hayworth was born in BROOKLYN.
50% of NYC HS students fail to graduate in 4 years, 30% fail to get GED by 21.
Marysol Castro is the sexiest NYC talking head...dumb as a stump but so sweet.
And Texas youth are being fed a lie in their current Texas school history textbooks which state that William Gowens was a runaway black slave. The Daughters of the Texas Revolution society during Black History month a 2 years ago had their annual essay contest on Mr. Gowens. In a sleezy attempt to garner the Black vote, Texas State Representative Dan Kubiak authored (cough, plagiarized, imo) his book about "black of skin, but true blue Texan" Wm. Gowens.
Only problem is that Gowens was NEVER a slave which was proven in court at the time. Gowens was also NOT a black but a Melungeon which has been proven through DNA testing. But who cares. It's all about revisionism.
There is so much historical revisionism and just plain B.S. here that a lesson is in order.
The word “Hispanic” has only recently been co-opted as the Politically Correct code word for “non-white Spanish speakers” just like the word “immigrant” has been co-opted to mean “illegal alien” and the word “gay” has been co-opted to mean….well, never mind. You get the picture.
“Hispania” was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula just like “Britannia” was the Roman name for the British Isles.
The 1973 Webster’s Dictionary defines Hispanic as: Adj [Latin “hispanicus” from “Hispania” Iberian peninsula, Spain]: of or relating to the people, speech or culture of Spain, Spain and Portugal or Latin America.”
If anyone has a claim to the name “Hispanic” it is a Spaniard from the Iberian Peninsula and, in Latin America, that is exactly what the term “Hispano” means, something with a direct relationship to Spain. A European Spanish bank doing business in Mexico or elsewhere in the world would call itself “Hispano”. For example: Santander Central Hispano.
In Mexico, individuals who still bears a huge chip on their shoulder that their Indian ancestors were conquered by Spain would go ballistic if you called them “Hispanos” just as Irish Republicans would go ballistic if you called them “British”.
“Hispania”, like “Britannia” has a proud history. Hispania was part of Roman civilization 200 years before the British Isles were ever civilized. Hispania produced the two “Good Emperors” Trajan and Hadrian. Yet, Politically Correct speech has stripped the ancient title of Hispania from Spain.
There is no “Hispanic” race any more than there is a “Britannic” race.
My own family has it’s roots in Galicia and Asturias the ancient Celtic areas of northern Spain by way of Cuba for a few generations. My great-grandfather, my grandfather, my father, myself and my children were all born blond and blue-eyed as were most of their their ancestors since before they ever came in contact with the Romans 2100 years ago. However, so-called “Anglos” now label me “Hispanic” because I was born in Cuba and declare that I am no longer white.
What’s up with that?
If you note, in ”I Love Lucy”, Ricky Ricardo never referred to himself as “Hispanic”. He referred to himself as “Cuban”.
Much confusion would be avoided is so-called “Anglos” adopted the Cuban habit of just plain calling things as they are. For example, Cubans would ethnically and racially classify the following individuals as follows:
Celia Cruz: Cubana Negra (Cuban Black)
Daisy Fuentes: Cubana Blanca (Cuban White)
Jennifer Lopez: Puertoriqueña Mulata (Puerto Rican Mulata)
Edgar Martinez: Puertoriqueña Blanco (Puerto Rican White)
Cruz Bustamante: Mexicano Mestizo (Mexican Mestizo)
Peruvian ex-President Alberto Fujimori: Peruano Japones (Peruvian Japanese)
Gold aureus of Roman Emperor Hadrian honoring his home province of Hispania
He was certainly way up there on the list, and one of the more notorious examples of it. It's said by some that one of Monroe's abortions- and there are some REALLY wild stories that go with that darker corner of life in the post-WWII Hollywood of the late 1940s and early '50s- was to rid her of a child sired by Cohn.
But I need to correct a goof I made in refering to the mob's representative at the time being Johnny *Accordo*- that should of course be John Roselli, who had also been the middleman for the CIA attempts to have Fidel Castro killed by sources outside their usual circle of friends, and who had not only also been particularly implicated in arranging not only the November 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas in November of 1963, but also of former Chicago Outfit boss Sam Giancanna in his Chicago suburban home. In June 1975 Roselli testified to the Senate committee investigating assassinations, and just before he was to testify to another Senate panel in July of 1976, Roselli disappeared. He surfaced, literally, in an oil drum floating off Florida's Dumfoundling Bay in Miami, having been strangled and stabbed but still alive when his legs were sawed off so he could be fit and stuffed into the oil drum to embark on his new nautical adventure.
“Before he died, Roselli hinted to associates that he knew who had arranged President Kennedy’s murder. It was the same conspirators, he suggested, whom he had recruited earlier to kill Cuban Premier Fidel Castro. To save their skins, the plotters lined up Lee Harvey Oswald to pull the trigger. According to Roselli’s version, Oswald may have shot Kennedy or may have acted as a decoy while others ambushed him from closer range. When Oswald was picked up, Roselli suggested, the underworld conspirators feared he would crack and disclose information that might lead to them. This almost certainly would have brought a massive U.S. crackdown on the mafia. So Jack Ruby was ordered to eliminate Oswald, making it appear as an act of reprisal against the President’s killer. At least this is how Roselli explained the tragedy in Dallas.”Interestingly enough, the silenced .22 pistol modified to CIA specifications and used to kill Mooney Giancana was traced to a Florida dealer with previous ties to CIA/Cuban exile activities, not particularly far from the bay where Roselli had unexpectedly popped back up to the surface. Probably just one of those funny little coincidences....All this evidently was known to Senator Schweiker and prompted him to make his unsuccessful attempt to get Roselli to reveal all he knew about the mafia thugs recruited by the CIA. Roselli’s complicity in the Dallas events was examined in the Senate Intelligence committee already in June 1975 when committee chairman Frank Church asked him:
“Did you know a Jack Rubenstein?”
“No,” Roselli answered.
“Did you know a Jack Ruby?”
“No.”
It was later revealed that Roselli was lying, seeing in this his own salvation. Roselli knew very well Jack Rubenstein, alias Jack Ruby. And just because of this the once omnipotent underworld magnate ended his eventful life in an oil drum.
-archy-/-
There you go again, making snide remarks about Sicilians!
I LOVE the games we play with race and ethnicity in this country, don't you? :-)
You're the only one playing games around here.
There is now, and it's all your doing!
Am I about to have fun the next time I have to fill out any form or inquiry- purely for statistical purposes, we are assured, of course!- and am asked of which race I belong! Oh my, yes!
And if they do not like my Britannic response, those filthy racists can just go to hell. If they can make up their own chosen names for such designations, so then can I. Though I'd happily accept Cubano-Blanco as well, having spent part of my early childhood there with my dad, a CalTex refinery engineer....
-archy-/-
You're the only one playing games around here.
Not any more he's not. See my post #117 above!
Viva mi Raza! Azucar!
-archy-/-
Then there is Ricardo Montalban
y tambien, Emilio Fernandez, one heck of a character actor.
One thing. Cruz Bustamante is not mestizo I'm pretty sure.
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