Claudia was lit at her press conference today:
She noted that the Constitution of Apatzingán, which was created during the Mexican War of Independence, referred to territory now known as the United States as Mexican America.
At the time of the document’s creation in 1814, large parts of what is now the southwestern United States were still under Spanish control. Mexico, when it became an independent country in 1821, was much larger than it is today, as its territory included all or part of several modern-day U.S. states.
“The Constitution of Apatzingán was of Mexican America. So we’re going to call it Mexican America,” Sheinbaum said, as she gestured toward an old map showing modern-day United States territory referred to as Mexican America.
“It sounds nice, right?” she said again, riffing on Trump’s declaration that the name “the Gulf of America” has a “beautiful ring to it.”
“Obviously the name ‘Gulf of Mexico’ is recognized by the United Nations,” Sheinbaum told reporters.
She later said that the Gulf of Mexico has been known as such since at least 1607.
She also pushed back on Trump’s contention that cartels run Mexico, saying that he confused the current Mexican administration with that of Felipe Calderón, whose security minister was recently sentenced to 38 years in US federal prison for colluding with the Sinaloa Cartel. Calderón was a member of the PAN party and his term ended in 2012, so that’s basically calling Trump out of touch as well as reminding voters that Morena (her party) didn’t have that kind of corruption.
She also brushed off the tariff talk by saying she though that Mexico would have a good relationship with the second Trump administration, since the first Trump administration had a good relationship with her predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), who assumed office in December, 2018.
So, as always, #EsClaudia, the end.
(My Mom, RIP, was Mexican-American and on her telling, the US stole a big chunk of Arizona and New Mexico from Mexico, so this isn’t ancient history to some Mexicans.)
Baud
We should have elected a woman.
satby
I liking her. Useful if I have to ask my exchange sons to sponsor me for asylum.
different-church-lady
Imagine someone not afraid of Trump. I know, it’s difficult, but just try…
Baud
Some of Europe is coming to Denmark’s defense.
One hopes Trump will wake up some European voters who may be curious or apathetic about Putin supported fascist movements in their own countries.
Suzanne
“It sounds pretty, no?”
LMAO. A tip of the hat for the word “pretty”.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Very easy to do. Most of us Dems aren’t and haven’t been.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
In 2016, a woman got the most votes, but that wasn’t enough.
different-church-lady
@lowtechcyclist: …backwards, in heels.
Melancholy Jaques
@lowtechcyclist:
The narrowness of the electoral vote losses coupled with popular vote wins in 2000 & 2016 will haunt me for the rest of my life.
PhoenixRising
claro que si, like the song says
Claudia is my president now
Jeffro
one minor upside to trumpov II is that he’ll make it easy for sensible, non-fascist politicians around the world to get re-relected regardless of what’s going on in their country or what the issues are.
all they have to do is tell the voters, “trumpov said X about our country” or “trumpov wants to do Y to our country” and there will be a rally-round-the-flag effect like nobody’s business
Harrison Wesley
Wonder if there are Canadians who wished they could have traded leaders with Mexico. I’m sure there are Americans who feel that way.
KatKapCC
@Baud: Not just “a woman”. I don’t think we’d all be celebrating the impending inauguration of President-elect Nikki Haley.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Jeffro: From your lips to Canadian voters’ ears…
Baud
@KatKapCC:
She’d be better than Trump, but I still would have voted for the Democratic nominee.
scav
Go World! And, L’Anse aux Meadows should give Denmark, Norway, Sweden, general Scandinwhovia superior naming rights, predating all the Spanish ones.
ETA, miles below all the First Nations rights to run the BGN but I’m trusting the Danes et al to wield those coat of arms savage’s clubs in a particularly effective fashion.
Baud
Angela Merkel was the chief foreign anti Trump person the last time around.
Parfigliano
She knows how to do it. Mock him unmercifully everyday. Then mock him more.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady: inorite?
Except a lot of them aren’t really afraid of him, just using him.
Josie
I really like this woman. There are many Hispanics in the southwestern states who have been in the country longer than any Anglos. People tend to forget that.
Trollhattan
@different-church-lady:
Maybe she can have a “little chat” with the LA Times owner, pointing out how he’s alienating potential customers to the south, as well as domestic, by surrendering to Trump without a shot fired.
Ruckus
@Baud:
I’m sure that there are people that should never be elected – male and female. However seemingly a lot of the males are so full of human exhaust semi solids that they should never be near any lever of power whatsoever. We have once again elected one now who will hold a rather high position who has aged out, quite possibly at least a decade ago. But even without that aging out stuff was one crappy president last time. So there must be a rather large level of voters who like crap, as in pure, unadulterated, rotten and smelly crappy.
Someone once said that a large portion of humanity barely qualifies as human and as they elected this person AGAIN there must be no accounting for taste, ignorance, stupidity, hate, or ignorance. (Ignorance absolutely deserved to be there at least twice!)
WaterGirl
@KatKapCC:
Not that woman! :-)
eemom
I think that pretty much every democracy in the world EXCEPT this one has had a woman leader at some point. And that includes countries with intensely patriarchal populations like India (Indira Gandhi), Pakistan (Benazir Bhutto), and Israel (Golda Meir).
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: We can have one if we let Mexico annex the US.
Baud
@eemom:
Not sure about Japan. But yeah, we’re really behind.
dexwood
This New Mexican welcomes our new woman president. Well done, Madame President, mock that motherfucker.
Spanky
@Baud: Jina?
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: Most Americans know nothing about the rest of the world and have no clue about how backward we are in many ways.
Baud
@Spanky:
Who?
VFX Lurker
The immediate aftermath of the Mexican-American war was large numbers of Mexican households finding themselves on the American side of the newly-redrawn borders. One thing that struck me in Erika Lee’s America for Americans was that these new American citizens initially had “white” status until they didn’t.
The definition of “white” gets applied/retracted from different American demographics over time (ex: German-Americans losing “white” status during WWI). I knew Irish-Americans did not have “white” status 200 years ago, but I had no idea Mexican-Americans once had “white” status in this country.
mali muso
@eemom: Even Indonesia, largest Muslim majority country in the world, has had a woman president.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Josie:
I toured the San Estevan del Rey Mission Church years ago. Best 2 parts of it was the guide pointing out how old it was, 1629, and even better, how the local native population tossed several successive priests over a cliff during the early attempts to convert them. And during the 1680 Revolt, they tossed over a few more.
It stands as a tourist attraction, not as a church and they like it that way.
Josie
@Josie: Poorly stated. I should have said “whose families have been here longer than any Anglos.”
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
I wonder how many care.
Jackie
@WaterGirl:
Makes me wonder if it had been Harris vs Haley, who would have been worse for male and some women voters: Black/Indian or Indian?
Professor Bigfoot
@Josie: Most Americans don’t know what the “Last Stand at the Alamo” was really all about, either.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
The mission at San Jose del Cabo, Baja California Sur, has an inlay (some kind of ceramic) showing the priests being killed by the original inhabitants of the peninsula. The natives chased them out once but they came back and built the mission and I guess the Catholics decided that it was important to show “you got us once”.
Josie
@Professor Bigfoot: Exactly.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: I wonder how many like it that way. Actually, I don’t wonder.
Gin & Tonic
@KatKapCC: The first woman President of the US will be a Republican. You read it here first.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
If Donald Trump transitions, he’s entitled to another two terms.
KatKapCC
@Gin & Tonic: I’ve long believed that, and it makes me want to scream.
@mistermix.bsky.social
FWIW (nothing, really) This was my prediction from the post about Trump’s presser yesterday. I think I underestimated her.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: You’re Jonathan Turley, aren’t you?
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m just familiar with how the current Supreme Court analyzes the Constitution.
TBone
Salute
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FL21AiqrjXA
Ohio Mom
@KatKapCC: An old friend used to predict that Nikki Haley would be the first woman president. I shuddered then and I shudder now.
It’s a lot of cognitive dissonance to process. Yes, I would like to see a woman president, to honor all the woman who worked for the day. But a Republican? Nope, I’d rather have another old white man who is a Democrat.
Spanky
@Baud: Was there a woman leader of China? (Post empire.)
zhena gogolia
@Ohio Mom: Me too.
tobie
@Parfigliano: If I recall correctly, Vicente Foxx was good at mocking Trump too. Interesting political culture.
sab
@Ohio Mom: Me too. Sandra Day O’Connor comes to mind.
Baud
@Ohio Mom:
I’ll vote for the Dem against Haley, but we had two chances.
Baud
@Spanky:
Don’t know and not a democracy, which is what the original comment was limited to.
sab
@Professor Bigfoot: Wasn’t it another failed rebellion in defense of slavery, where the Mexican Government had the good sense to kill all the American immigrant rebels?
Steve LaBonne
@sab: Texas, the only state to secede twice (from Mexico and from the US) in defense of slavery.
KatKapCC
@Gin & Tonic: I constantly get him confused with Jeffrey Toobin and I was about to say “I sure effing hope not”.
TBone
This deguello drove Deano to drink hahahaha
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AR-KbvXvBd8
KatKapCC
@Ohio Mom: Yeah, I really wonder how I would process it. Like…yes, it would be good to finally have a woman. But how do I celebrate that if the woman is a piece of trash? Like, if Obama hadn’t been president and instead Herman Cain was the first Black POTUS, I don’t know if many Black Dems would have been super thrilled about that.
mali muso
@KatKapCC: I remember when the consensus amongst my circle was that Colin Powell would be the first Black President.
Suzanne
I remember reading some pundit, probably like twenty years ago now, saying that America’s first woman president would be a Republican. It horrified me then to think that that would be true, but the longer I live, the more I think that’s probably correct.
Wag
@KatKapCC:
If it’s any consolation I think (hope) that Nikki Haley would be a step above Margaret Thatcher.
Suzanne
@tobie: We would probably be well-served by more Trump trolling. It seems to be the tone appropriate for the era.
KatKapCC
@Wag: Low bar, but agreed. If I’d been presented a choice between Haley and Trump, obviously I’d go for Haley. I mean, if only for the fact that her face and voice don’t make me want to yack.
Gin & Tonic
@KatKapCC: Baud and Toobin have at least one thing in common.
Suzanne
@KatKapCC: Haley is Normal Evil, TFG is Chaotic Evil.
Sure Lurkalot
Very good to see that President Scheinbaum does not cower before the sundowning, pantshitting loon, unlike our media and billionaires.
New Deal democrat
In re a related but more serious issue raised by T—-p’s gonzo press conference, both France and Germany have issued statements warning him about threatening Greenland:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg9gvg3452o
Shakti
@Jackie: @Ohio Mom: Unless there is a significant change in how this country votes and how the Republican base votes (I just don’t see her really switching her base of support tbh), she doesn’t make it past the primary stage.
And she’s not the type of person to actually volunteer for a glass cliff situation. That’s not what Republicans do. Trump got handed a dandy situation* to take a wrecking ball to.
Also, I no longer have the presumption that being a woman means that woman would have any particular group loyalty to women, even a small subset of women who most closely match her. 2016 put that to rest. I would even go as far to say I stopped self describing myself as a feminist because it’s not a useful political label that describes a voting bloc with any real power. But YMMV.
*economy, yes, inflation is a problem, housing costs and food costs have gone up and up. But notice how Obama got elected right as the recession hit. And notice how Biden got elected when covid was tanking the economy.
@Gin & Tonic: I am refusing to think about the most likely candidates. No, they’re not qualified in the slightest. But what does that even mean anymore.
eemom
@KatKapCC:
Toobin is a standard issue media shithack best known for visibly jerking off on a zoom call during Covid.
Turley is a fucksum law professor who is a wholly owned whore of the republican party.
Baud
This in interesting.
NaijaGal
@Suzanne: I think the Democrats could have a woman president elected, but only after a Republican president has wrecked the economy or botched a pandemic (or both). Obama and Biden had that going for them (in addition to political skill, of course). Clinton and Harris, in addition to dealing with misogyny and in Harris’ case, racism, were attempting to take over from stable administrations with decent outcomes.
Get a woman to run in 2028 after this person craters the economy and she’ll win. Unfortunately, most Americans will be averse to even trying that after two losses, which is a damn shame.
lynno
Remember the Alamo?
Suzanne
@tobie: The more I think about this…. maybe you’re on to something here. Fetterman’s campaign mocked/trolled the fuck out of Dr. Oz and got a ton of attention.
Americans have gotten kind of outwardly meaner, and I think not being outwardly mean is kind of interpreted as insincerity and fakeness, maybe even dishonesty, by some. I occasionally think about how TFG was so triggered by being mocked by Obama at the WHCD.
KatKapCC
@eemom: I know who each man is. It’s just that their names and faces and bios are so similar that my brain mixed them up.
Baud
@KatKapCC:
It’s like the two Naomi’s.
Professor Bigfoot
@sab: Bingo. The men at the Alamo were there because they wanted to keep their slaves, so fuck those guys.
artem1s
true fact, the proto-confederates of the failed revolution of the failed Republic of Texas lost the Battle of the Alamo.
KatKapCC
@Baud: Sounds like a thriller novel.
Jackie
Sure…. Alito’s call with TCFG was purely innocent…
TS
@Baud:
I think QEII was near the top in that regard, but she was head of state rather than head of government
K-Mo
(Ashton Kutcher voice)
BUUUUURRRRNNNN!!!!
AWJ
From ABC: Samuel Alito spoke to Trump by phone yesterday to recommend one of his former law clerks for a job in the administration, just hours before Trump’s lawyers filed an emergency motion asking them to block Trump’s sentencing in the New York hush money case.
eemom
@Baud:
Ah no, the good Naomi Klein SO does not deserve to be mixed up with lifelong narcissist fraud Wolf. (And yes, she has ALWAYS been that way, fucking “Beauty Myth” or not. I’m her college classmate and I know.)
TS
@Jackie:
There is no longer separation of powers – trump owns them all. And they openly merge together to do his will.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
And that fucking guy is about to go completely senile. I expect it to happen during his reign of stupidity. The big question is will it make him better or worse? And who will actually be making the decisions? Cause he’s about to leap way past freshman senility, falling off the cliff of complete and utter senility. It’s not all that long of a fall, but the bottom breaks more than one’s fall.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@TS:
The SCOTUS can’t interfere in state level courts like Trump is asking them to, AFAIK. I’m not a lawyer tho
cain
@eemom: What about Canada? Did they have a woman? I cant remember.. I understand that there might be an indian candidate.
MagdaInBlack
@Ruckus: I doubt he is making any decisions now. He just thinks he is.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@cain:
Just one:
Wasn’t 1993 the year the Progressive Conservatives got wiped out to like two seats and that’s the outcome all Canandian political parties fear?
tobie
@Suzanne: We have gotten meaner and could really use jokes. I was recently listening to an interview with Norman Lear when he was 100 or 101 — I believe he died when he was 102 — and he mentioned that it used to be that at the end of a dinner party people would trade jokes. We don’t do that any longer. It’s a big loss. I don’t have a deeper analysis of this but I feel like it’s an important sign of the times.
Harrison Wesley
Didn’t Christine Todd Whitman take a shot at the Republican presidential candidacy a number of years ago? I remember it was at least talked about.
Suzanne
@tobie: I think we (royal we — Dems) lost an important weapon in our arsenal in recent years: we really used to be the funnier team, I feel like. That’s not to say that our electeds weren’t serious people, they largely were/are. But, like…. Republicans were old and square and easily offended and just super-fucken-not-fun. But now, I don’t think we have the corner on humor like we used to.
A lot of grimness has happened in the last few years and I know that weighs on me. That’s probably true of most of us.
scav
@tobie: As with most things, it’s probably complicated by the types of jokes being shared after dinner. There are a lot that rely on and reenforce the existing social/racial/ethnic hierarchies.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Makes sense to me.
More broadly, (royal) we don’t project confidence in ourselves, which is closely related to being funny, but broader. And I’m speaking more about social media. I think our electeds actually are better in this respect.
tl;dr we’re a wet blanket.
Baud
@scav:
Surely those aren’t the only funny jokes.
tobie
@Suzanne: Yeah, something happened. We got old. Life got heavy and now the inmates are running the asylum. Can’t imagine how hard this must be for young people. As I think about what I can do over the next four years, that’s the group I should invest my energy in.
@scav: You’re absolutely right about the danger of jokes. I’m left with making fun of my own people to lighten up my mother’s mood.
Glory b
@KatKapCC: As we say, all our skinfolk aren’t our kinfolk.
I remember hearing white female journalists saying that McCain might have wrapped up the female vote with Sarah Palin.
None mentioned why women would prefer a woman that would happily reverse the gains women had made.
catclub
@Spanky: Madame Mao?
scav
@Baud: No, but they are within the realm of possibility. Rather like the simple “elect a woman” mantra, the “things were better when we shared jokes” heuristic needs to contend with the reality of Maggie T and the broad swath of jokes that hit down. Optimism as a term suffers less from this issue, but jebus knows, we’re not exactly losing to a wildly optimistic crowd — they seem to be hyped on marketing more and newer ways on how everything is falling apart. It’s almost more a chose which things are actually collapsing moment.
Suzanne
@Baud: Humor’s a double-edged sword for women. Being funny is often read as attention-seeking., and remember all that bullshit about “the laugh”?! I will note, the TikTok video of Harris being asked what her favorite swear word was….. Spawn the Elder sent that to me, and I sent it to SuzMom, and she must have watched it fifteen times. It’s really funny.
But, again, it’s not really about the electeds. It’s about all of us. And you’re right, there’s a lack of confidence and ease. Even here, it feels a bit less funny than it used to.
TBone
I said ain’t that right, big man? Aw hell, he can’t hear…
https://youtu.be/eqhFuz_bF2w?si=1QCvMdFX0v0W-InY
Glory b
@mali muso: As I recall, he was interested but other Republicans threatened to bring up his wife’s mental health issues (I think she had been hospitalized more than once).
It seems that was enough for him to put those thoughts aside.
Baud
@scav:
Well, the jokes at dinner parties thing is pretty narrow. But I certainly feel like there’s been a heavy blanket increasingly dragging us down. I can’t say for certain whether it drives people away, but it doesn’t seem implausible.
Shakti
@Suzanne:
I know I’m meaner than I was ten years ago, or even really five years ago.
It’s not so much thinking that not being outwardly mean is insincere, it’s just that nobody seems to believe that it’s a sign of strength, or that niceties are worth observing, or there are limits and walls between your personal life and public life.
So observing niceties when other people are not following them is a sign of deference — to people who don’t deserve it.
@tobie: We have plenty of jokes floating around. They’re just meaner and more kick down. Or there’s a lot of dark bleak humor.
For me it really showed up with covid — I went from someone who wouldn’t find slipping on a banana peel funny to a a superfan of the coffin dancer meme.
I had a mean smile pasted on my face when I heard about LePen, and Kissinger, and I didn’t expect to actually start dancing at my computer when Limbaugh died. But I did.
Nothing’s really funny. But I sure do come up with a lot of jokes (that I don’t utter.) Inside out Millennial GenXer irony poisoning? I don’t know.
Keith P.
Anyone else get serious Putin-Ukraine vibes from Trump’s Greenland fantasy? He’s already claiming most Greenlanders really want to be Americans, and it won’t be long before Elon Musk pushes out a poll that says as much. Pretty soon, it’ll change to “they want us to liberate them from Denmark(!)”
Aussie Sheila
@Baud:
That’s the best and funniest comment here! Well done. 😉😉
I mean the ‘transition’ one. Excellent!
KatKapCC
@Keith P.: Like daddy, like son.
rationalman
Shouldn’t the Spanish American War be renamed to Spain USA War.
America was not involved. There is North America, Central America and South America. North America is Canada, Mexico and USA so not even all of one part of a America was involved. USA and Randolph Hearst newspaper started it with false claim the war ship USS Maine was attacked while in Havana Harbor (sounds familiar like Gulf of Tonkin story 60 years later).
Shouldn’t the Spanish Global Flu pandemic be renamed to USA Global Flu pandemic.
1918-1920 Spanish Flu Global pandemic where more people died than in WW1 did not start in Spain or any Spanish speaking country. It started in middle USA (Kansas, Arkansas) so should be called USA Flu epidemic that USA passed on to the world.
Glory b
@eemom: “If Books Could Kill” podcast has a funny episode about the two Naomis.
Suzanne
@Baud:
One of the things that makes political campaigns really hard is that it’s a small slice of people who are actually listening to the candidates and what they’re saying. So people’s ideas of what the parties are and what the candidates support gets filled in by other things. Their niece with blue hair who works at Starbucks, annoying college protestors they saw on Fox News. All these people that you associate with or live in proximity to, all this stuff you see on TV or social media….. they become a synecdoche for the candidate or the party. It’s a really difficult thing to fight.
So, it makes me feel like we need to get some of that mojo back, in our personal lives as well as our humor sphere.
Steve LaBonne
@Keith P.: Of course. Where do you think he learned it?
scav
@Baud: Could it be the dragging wet blanket really hurt us by driving down general participation in the election? Because again, I think it’s a general wet draggy blanket, it’s not just us. Note that I am not counting the people now assaulting journalists saying “It’s Trumps America Now!” or haunting all the live youtubes of the CA fires gloating among the happy optimists over the election crowd.
Baud
@scav:
Turnout didn’t fall proportionally, so something is affecting us more.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Easier said than done. It means cutting people out who can’t make the transition.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: Status quo parties have been getting clobbered everywhere, the Democrats actually not as badly as most. Republicans just kicking over the table should reset that, unfortunately not before they have done massive damage.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Suzanne:
I went down a rabbit hole in the r/ezraklein subreddit (yes, it’s a thing that exists) the other day when I was looking up something about the USPS. I looked at threads from just after the election, and christ, was it full of a lot of idiots, from the self-described “moderate centrists/liberals” to leftists, to right-wingers, quite a few comments were saying Dems lost because of “identity politics” and “the groups”. It read like a far-right/GOP caricature of the Democratic Party when mainstream Dem politicians hardly talk about that stuff in their speeches to voters. Hell, Harris herself focused a lot on the economy.
They wanted to throw trans people to wolves and at least one person responded when people objected to that framing was “Do you want to be right or do you want to win”? Ummm, I’d rather not compromise my principles or sell my fucking soul to repeat the worst mistakes in American (and foreign history, hello Nazi Germany) history where entire peoples were thrown under the bus and excluded from society basically, at best.
The most striking (and disturbing) thing I’ve noticed is that self-described leftists, in more than one occasion I’ve read, seem to blame and resent trans people themselves for being such a blown up issue in politics despite being a small percentage of the population, instead of the politicians demonizing then in the first place! They want them to sit down and shut up even while they’re being legally erased from existence! They never seem to grasp that the right would just move on to the next scapegoat if they did and it would never end. These people don’t know their history despite being socialists/communists, whatever the hell they are
scav
@Baud: Oh, I thought I saw it had, or at least that the swings toward more conservative weren’t all they were hyped to be. I’m still not seeing any optimism post election exhibited by any side though. At most pleasure in getting their own way and hints of lip-smacking at harm to others, but . . . Something’s going on, 100% granted. I’m just not seeing it as motivated by an optimism gradient.
Old School
@Baud:
They aren’t – and don’t call me Shirley.
Aussie Sheila
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Agree completely re soi dissant US ‘Leftists’. They are by and large, with a few exceptions, utterly useless and many are actively dangerous. I mean in a general political sense. But their general idiocy would be less noxious if and when the US Democratic Party gets its boots on and leans into building organisational capacity and strength in places it now either ignores or neglects.
And before everyone jumps in here, I know parties everywhere lose elections. But where I come from, viable governing political parties run candidates everywhere in every election.
Do they win all time?
Obviously not.
But their name and ‘brand’ is out there and the enthusiasm and quality of partisans and candidates do make a difference, every time. Even in difficult times.
Craig
@TBone: Rio Bravo!
eemom
@TBone:
I love that song!
Lobo
@eemom:
Like Egypt several thousands of years ago!
Torrey
@tobie:
When Norman Mailer (born in the 1920’s) talked about “trading jokes,” I’m fairly sure he wasn’t talking about witty conversation, but about “canned jokes,” the self-contained units, often beginning with, e.g., a rabbi, a priest, and a minister going into a bar or something along those lines. I had a friend who was a salesman, and he was always collecting jokes, since when salesmen (I don’t think it was salespeople, but I could be wrong) got together over drinks at the bar, canned jokes were a good way, back then, to establish camaraderie among people you weren’t planning on being very close to.
As scav points out at #94, a good many of those jokes relied on and reinforced existing social/racial/ethnic hierarchies and stereotypes, and in general I suspect that women didn’t participate as much as men (if, in some cases, at all). The jokes in question were performances. I’m not sure no longer trading jokes after dinner is a loss.
Buggrit
@Torrey: Nowadays we just send one another memes.
JaneE
@VFX Lurker: When I was in the 8th grade in the late ’50’s that question was asked explicitly of my teacher while we were studying civil rights and integration. Pretty much current events back then. “What race are Mexicans” was asked. The answer was “white”. Or possibly Indian (Native American) if they didn’t have any Spanish ancestry. Which brought up Mestizos and what to call someone who is part one or the other.
Just as a matter of course, Mexicans were white. If they spoke Spanish and had a Spanish surname, then the presumed European Spanish ancestry overrode actual skin color which might be very dark brown. Mexicans who didn’t speak Spanish were assumed to be Native.
We still can’t convince people that human beings do not have biological races. Just a wide range of variation.
stinger
@NaijaGal:
I know what you’re saying, but it just kills me that 44 men have run for president and lost, and no one ever says, “Well, we can’t try THAT again! We’re not running any more men!”
Citizen Alan
@Gin & Tonic: i just don’t see it. No Republican can win the White House without the absolute unthinking support of those americans who believe with religious certainty that no woman should ever be in a position of authority over a man.
Chris
Mmm. And wasn’t part of Calderon’s brand supposed to be that he was tough on the cartels? Oh well, nevertheless.