Coming soon :: GLAAD 2.0
Did you hear the joke about the passionate Latino who shocked the gay white male by calling him five minutes early for their phone appointment (as opposed to being late-which, as everyone knows, is a well-known trait of "those people")?
Politically incorrect defamation or clever play on stereotypes? Like all attempts at humor, the answer depends largely upon context. In this case, the teller and the target were one in the same: Jarrett Barrios, incoming president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).
If that charged word were "faggot" instead of "Latino"-and if the stereotype was sexual promiscuity instead of tardiness-it wouldn’t be long before Barrios became the recipient of a GLAAD press release compelling him to apologize and requesting media outlets not mention the offending word by name in their coverage of the story. Barrios would get no free pass on defamation just because he was a member of the minority group he lampooned.
No free pass
That’s exactly what happened recently when Perez Hilton was taken to task by GLAAD for calling the manager of the Black Eyed Peas "faggot." In a comment to EDGE, Hilton responded to the recent GLAAD flap: "I’m starting my own gay non-profit. It’s going to be called HAPPY (Homosexuals And Perverts Protecting YOU - from GLAAD)!"
That the incoming president of a watchdog organization’s very first statement to EDGE was a playful, self-aware reference to his ethnicity can only mean one of two things: Barrios is either a hateful racist who thinks Latinos work on a clock set to just past what’s acceptable - or, more likely, he’s comfortable enough in his own skin that he can crack a joke which seeks to diffuse the destructive power of a stereotype with a preemptive strike that brings it out into the light of day.
