Honduran minister who insulted Obama quits

[Pirate Smile]

Source: Reuters

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) – The Honduran minister who called U.S. President Barack Obama "that little black guy" quit the country's post-coup interim government on Tuesday, citing U.S. Embassy "pressures."

A U.S. embassy spokeswoman denied the United States was exerting any pressure, saying the embassy had no contact with a government it did not recognize.

Enrique Ortez's resignation comes just days after he was moved from the post of foreign minister to minister of government and justice in the wake of his comment about Obama. The interim government had previously apologized to the United States.

A government spokesman said interim President Roberto Micheletti had accepted the resignation.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090715/wl_nm/us_honduras_minister_2

[babylonsister]

1. Is our new prez commanding respect regardless of who's in charge?

I won't pretend to know what's up with Honduras as it changes daily, but this is pretty interesting.

[timeforpeace]

2. That's a good sign. They're cleaning house.

[BlooInBloo]

3. He and Blithering Idiot should get together and compare notes.

[Cha]

4. THis will make

the head of the repuke party piss in pants.

[Alamuti Lotus]

5. Just trying to make the coup plotters more palatable to US government and industry

Open support for the coup (barely concealed at the moment) is right around the corner. And unlike victory in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan, that actually is right around the corner.

The report naturally sanitizes the minister's language; he did not say "that little black guy", the word was "negrito" which is more akin to "the little nigger" (and at another time, "that little negrito plantation slave"). Merely revealing the profoundly racist ideals of his class background and at the time quite deliberately inflammatory, but all of that wouldn't sit well in the long-term with the New York Times editorial board so that little fact must be erased from history in order to resurrect these fascists as "someone we can do business with".

The idiot also claimed that Zelayev and Chavez were in league smuggling drugs and other nefariousness. But why not just make it all about Obama, everything else seems to be.

[progdonkey]

6. do you speak Spanish? n/t

[Judi Lynn]

7. Glad you pointed there was a keener insult intended. I've seen comments from someone here

I've known of since 2000 who's been all over Latin America for years that a stinging racial insult was clearly meant, and that attempting to claim it means only "little black boy" is to miss it by a mile.

[izquierdista]

9. "little black boy" is accurate

Try calling a grown African American in the South that, and I guarantee that you will convey offense -- lots of it.

[EFerrari]

8. Exactly. n/t

[AlphaCentauri]

12. The term "el negrito" doesn't make any reference to a slave in the plantation

there are many different aspect in latin american history and culture that have no equivalents in the US culture and history.

Cubans of African decent won't see them selves as African Cubans, they are simply Cubans and they won't see them selves as slaves in a plantation when someone call them "Mi negro", "El Negrito", "Mi Morenazo" or "El negro Jose".

Sometimes it is just ridiculous to measure other countries with the US Cultural and historical baggage.

What the imposed SOB honduran minister said was offensive because of the context in which he said it not because of the word he used.


See if there are any intentions to denigrate a person in these songs.

Si Dios Fuera Negro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43-cn2q7yps

El Negro Jose
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS0SvJw_44s

La Negra Tomasa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY-MOVsdhdQ
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GszmaWV8Mp8


El Negrito Sandia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emCBJcx0VjA

[EFerrari]

13. One of the three times this idiot used one of those terms,

he did reference field work. I don't know if I still have the link but the term was new to me and I posted about it. Negrito de something. I'll see if I can dig it up.

Eta: negrito del batey:



Enrique Ortez Col­in­drez, the for­eign min­is­ter of Honduras’s ille­gal gov­ern­ment, speak­ing to a Hon­duran TV sta­tion on June 29:

“He nego­ci­ado con mari­cones, pros­ti­tu­tas, con ñángaras (izquierdis­tas), negros, blan­cos. Ese es mi tra­bajo, yo estudié eso. No tengo pre­juicios raciales, me gusta el negrito del batey que está pre­si­di­endo los Esta­dos Unidos.”

——–

“I have nego­ti­ated with queers, pros­ti­tutes, left­ists, blacks, whites. This is my job, I stud­ied for it. I am not racially prej­u­diced. I like the little black sugar plan­ta­tion worker who is pres­i­dent of the United States.”

[AlphaCentauri]

14. Its all about the context and the labels he used

he knows how to offend people there is no doubts about it.
But I just don't agree that the term "El Negrito" by it self means a slave in the plantation like it is suggested in post #5

[EFerrari]

15. Oh, of course, you're right, imo. n/t

[AlphaCentauri]

16. Enjoy the music

if you like Salsa

[EFerrari]

17. "Traigan me a mi negra / que la quiero ver aqui/

con su rebozo de seda / que le traje de Tepic"

:hi:

[AlphaCentauri]

18. LOL that so racist

Negrita de mis pesares,
ojos de papel volando.
Negrita de mis pesares,
ojos de papel volando.
A todos diles que sí
pero no les digas cuándo.
Así me dijiste a mí;
por eso vivo penando.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G-U82PriO0

:headbang:

[Alamuti Lotus]

19. Well, no it was *not* suggested that it means that by itself

That was from yet another time the guy opened his mouth. Initially there was the "little negrito who knows nothing" remark; later he repeated a similar foot-in-mouth exercise, and finally there was the paragraph EFerrari posted above.

[Dramarama]

20. True

would "el guero" be offensive

[EFerrari]

21. Depends on context, again. I called one of my neighbors "Chelito" --

he's very, very blonde -- and now several of his friends do here on the block. He knows it means "white guy", basically, but it's understood as a friendly nickname, not a put down in any way.

[damntexdem]

10. Good start -- now the rest of the fake government needs to quit.

I'm sure that President Zelaya would be happy to accept their resignations. ;-)

[Judi Lynn]

11. Quite a mouth on this little, ugly old right-winger.

Honduran coup collaborator calls Obama equivalent of "Field Ni**er"
by FAIR via Freak Radio
Wednesday Jul 15th, 2009 1:59 PM

"I like the little black sugar plantation worker who is president of the United States."

Article by Steve Rendall, of FAIR, from Counterspin 7/10/09:
On June 29, the day he was installed by Honduran coup leaders as the country's new interim foreign minister, Enrique Ortez Colindres repeatedly used racist slurs to describe U.S. president Barack Obama.

Using the word "negrito," a well-recognized and profoundly racist epithet, whose literal translation means "little black man" or "little black boy," Ortez referred to Obama as "that little black boy who knows nothing about nothing" <"ese negrito que no sabe nada de nada"> and "a little black man who doesn't know where Tegucigalpa is" <"el negrito, no conoce donde queda Tegucigalpa">. In another case, he told the Honduran newspaper El Tiempo (translation from DailyKos):

"I have negotiated with queers, prostitutes, leftists, blacks, whites. This is my job; I studied for it. I am not racially prejudiced. I like the little black sugar plantation worker who is president of the United States."

For more than a week after they were uttered, Ortez's slurs were a big story in Latin American and around the world: The Chinese and French wire services Xinhua and Agence France Presse covered them, among others . But besides online sites like Daily Kos and the Huffington Post, the story was mostly ignored by U.S. journalists, who otherwise freely quoted Ortez about Honduras' coup and constitutional crisis.

That wasn’t the case when Hugo Chavez called George W. Bush the devil in an address at the U.N. in 2006. Then the arguably lesser insult was discussed for days in the U.S. media.

Wednesday, July 8, offered big new developments in the story when a U.S. diplomat in Honduras complained about the slurs and Ortez offered a brief apology. Then, later that afternoon, Ortez was fired and replaced by the coup government's president.

But today, two days later, the New York Times has yet to mention any aspect of the story, and the Washington Post only ran a brief 120-word Associated Press report about the apology (though nothing about the resignation) on July 9--its readers only then learning about the original slights.

And so it would appear that, at least in this case, few U.S. journalists think it's much of a story when a high-ranking foreign official, otherwise in the news, launches a racist attack, even one that targets the president of the United States.http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/15/18608159.php