{"id":1460,"date":"2014-10-24T14:50:14","date_gmt":"2014-10-24T21:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theamericancrawl.com\/?p=1460"},"modified":"2018-04-20T01:05:55","modified_gmt":"2018-04-20T07:05:55","slug":"some-context-regarding-violence-and-illegal-petes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theamericancrawl.com\/?p=1460","title":{"rendered":"Some context regarding “violence” and Illegal Pete’s"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, a group of us were able to meet with Peter Turner, the owner of Illegal Pete\u2019s. The event was level headed and filled with rational discourse about concerns around the name of the restaurant. It was covered, later that day by the Coloradoan<\/a>. And while I appreciate the media coverage, the article does not portray the even keeled nature of the meeting and quoted me without a lot of context to clarify my meaning. The article has since gotten radio coverage, additional news articles here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>, an editorial response here<\/a>, Reddit discussion here<\/a>, was on the Drudge Report<\/a>, etc.<\/p>\n

To be clear, I stand behind the sentence I am quoted as saying in the meeting: “This is a place that’s going to instill violence in our community.” In the meeting I discussed that there are forms of symbolic violence<\/a> and physical violence; I believe Illegal Pete\u2019s will foster both (based on the violent rhetoric in the comments supporting the company, I frankly see this violence already at work.) What\u2019s missing however is the explanation of how the word \u201cIllegal\u201d is not simply a word about the immigration status of an individual. In many contexts today, it is a label that we place on Latinos wholesale. Many people in the meeting voiced the fact that they were born and raised in Colorado or other parts of the U.S. and have been verbally attacked and berated\u2013violent language\u2013telling them to \u2018go back where they came from,\u2019 that they are illegal<\/em>, that they are different<\/em> from other citizens in the country. Based on skin tone or language practices, Latinos are perpetually treated differently. To be clear (this is something that is not understood by many of the negative commenters I\u2019ve heard from), this does not have anything<\/em> to do with one\u2019s legal status in the United States; Latinos are regularly labeled as illegal.<\/p>\n

In this context, I shared with Pete at the meeting that his restaurant\u2019s name continues a legacy of hate speech and violence that is worsening in the current sociopolitical climate. We need to reconsider the “I-word”<\/a> in general. A colleague shared this video in my Facebook feed, which I find illustrative:<\/p>\n