Tag: mexican

Vampire Watch 2011

If science movies like Outbreak and Nosferatu have taught us anything, it’s that it only takes a single Patient Zero to ruin life as we know it.

A Mexican migrant worker has become the first person to die in the U.S. from the bite of a spooky vampire bat. He was bitten on the heel in Mexico–which also makes this the first non-Internet foot-fetishist vampire story–and died shortly after arriving in Louisiana to work on a sugar cane plantation.

Authorities have been careful to not disclose the current location of his body as local teenage girls have begun staking out graveyards to swoon at him. This is even more problematic as he died from rabies, leaving it up in the air whether he belongs on Team Edward or Jacob.

‘José, can you see those five guys over there?’

Every now and then, an otherwise meaningless story achieves national significance because it contains the right combination of clickable elements. And that’s when The Guys document it in our ever-growing tableau of Profiles of Sadness.

Five Live Oak High School (Morgan Hill, Calif.) students were sent home on May 5 for their choice in clothing. They were all sitting together at lunch when approached by the vice principal. Two were wearing American flag bandannas, and the rest American flag t-shirts.

Yes, all five members of the group–at that lunch table–just happened to wear American paraphernalia, including ‘do-rags, on Cinco de Mayo. (So, either this was a calculated attempt for attention on the traditionally Mexican day, or they’re always dressed as the NASCARiest rednecks west of the Rockies.)

Still, administrators asked them to leave because they were afraid that their t-shirts would antagonize Mexican-American students, causing a race riot within their own walls.

And just to make sure that threat seemed real enough, the reporter found a stupid student believing that the day belongs solely to Mexicans:

“‘I think they should apologize cause it is a Mexican Heritage Day,’ Annicia Nunez, a Live Oak High student, said. ‘We don’t deserve to be get disrespected like that. We wouldn’t do that on Fourth of July.'”

So, for those keeping score at home, we’ve got:

  • The violation of five students’ free speech rights for clothing that doesn’t violate dress code policy (except maybe the hats part).
  • The intentional expression of unpopular speech without regard for any possible consequences, and then complaints when said consequences were realized.
  • The intentional selection of a poor interview subject who does not believe American independence applies to her entire ethnicity, yet a holiday sponsored by Corona does apply to her entire school.
  • The subsequent celebration of five a$$holes because of the way this was handled.

Only in America, folks. This could only happen in America.