One more time: people are not tacos. Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images
First Lady of the United States Jill Biden is the outrage cycle’s main character this week, after she compared a coalition of Hispanic voters to breakfast tacos. The offence occurred during an event called, and I am not making this up, the LatinX IncluXion Luncheon.
If you spent 10 years trying to write a satire that encapsulates our present moment in American Democratic politics, you could do no better than this story. It is practically art. It is divinely ridiculous. But it’s also an incident from which certain conclusions can be drawn — about where the Left stands politically, and what the future holds, here at the almost-halfway point to our next presidential election.
The LatinX IncluXion Luncheon took place on Monday, in the Texas city of San Antonio, and Biden was attempting to compliment civil rights activist Raul Yzaguirre. “Raul helped build this organisation with the understanding that the diversity of this community, as distinct as the bodegas of the Bronx, as beautiful as the blossoms of Miami, and as unique as the breakfast tacos here in San Antonio, is your strength,” she said — mispronouncing “bodegas” as “BO-guh-duhs”. For the uninitiated, that is basically the closest thing we have in New York City to the crime of lese-majesty.
The backlash came swiftly from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, which released a statement that read, in part, “NAHJ encourages Dr. Biden and her speech writing team to take the time in the future to better understand the complexities of our people and communities. We are not tacos.”
The First Lady, of course, did not write this speech herself — as evidenced by the fact that it included a word she didn’t know and couldn’t pronounce. And the “tacos” line, of course, is not something she — or any normal person — would ever come up with organically. It’s pure political strategy, a too-earnest pandering to various identity groups that has dominated the liberal discourse for the past six years. It’s just unfortunate for Jill Biden that her speechwriters and political aides failed to realise that this type of rhetoric has not only reached the limits of its usefulness, but has lately become akin to walking around with a sign on your back that says “cancel me”.
This happened quite fast. It is only two years since the racial reckoning of 2020, a year when you couldn’t open your email without combing through half a dozen new corporate diversity declarations from every organisation you’d ever had contact with in your life. Your newspaper, your cable company, your dermatologist, the company that mails pineapples to your in-laws every year as a holiday gift: all of them wanted you to know that they stood in support of social justice. This was the year when the diversity industry climbed to a $7.6 billion valuation (and counting), and expensive DEI consultants flooded en masse into corporate life. It’s when Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility was a bestseller in its (approximately) 53rd millionth printing; when Democratic politicians took the knee wearing kente cloth; when celebrities purged their white guilt in self-produced confessional videos.
The momentum of the diversity movement was unstoppable, partly because Americans were united in genuine horror over the murder of George Floyd, but also because the country had been in pandemic lockdown for months, and everyone was bored and stir crazy and absolutely desperate to do something. Here was something to believe in and an excuse to flout the stay-at-home order, and by God, we were going to take it.
But as the landscape of daily life became littered with solidarity statements and BLACK LIVES MATTER signs, the significance of these expressions began to subtly shift. What started as legitimate outrage and demand for change was evolving into a sort of status signal, a code by which good liberals could recognise others of their kind. And as the summer wore on, the signs started taking on a subtext: not just I’m one of you, but also please don’t hurt me. Store owners plastered social justice slogans in their windows in the hope that their businesses would be spared if a riot broke out. Diners at sidewalk cafes were confronted by mobs of angry protesters who refused to let them eat until or unless they raised a fist for black lives. Silence, of course, was violence — and power was coalescing in new and different places.
The desperation to demonstrate that you were down with the cause was palpable, and not unfounded. In one viral video, released at the moment when cancelling so-called “Karens” had become America’s new favorite spectator sport, a sobbing woman tries frantically to shield both her face and her licence plate from view. The unseen videographer accuses her of calling him the n-word; she protests that she’s done no such thing. “I have a black husband!” she shrieks, terrified.
To some people, the sight of that sobbing, desperate woman was deeply distasteful: a sign of things gone too far. But to others, it was a lightbulb moment: here was an opportunity. You could see it in the way that allegations of racism began to run rampant — not on the political Right, but through the most diversity-conscious, progressive spaces. The industries rocked hardest by the reckoning, and where most cancellations occur today, were not hotbeds of white supremacy but Left-liberal havens, populated by highly educated white people who prided themselves on their progressive bona fides and lived in terror of causing offence.
Media, fashion, publishing, television, the non-profit industrial complex: somehow, it was always the people doing the most who were next on the chopping block. The yoga studio owner who hosted free classes for students of colour. The novelist who diligently sought sensitivity reads in hopes of avoiding offence. The café owners who set out to create a welcoming LGBT community space. The summer camp with not one but two separate diversity committees to address issues of racial equity. The greater your dedication to diversity, the less likely your business was to survive a callout for even the most minor offences against it. Suddenly, nothing made you a target quite like being an ally (except apologising, of course).
And those statements that used to signal solidarity, even status — that used to be a tool for self-advancement in a world where caring about diversity was the best thing you could do for your brand — have taken on a new shade of meaning. Now, to say you care is to advertise your susceptibility to allegations of not-caring. You’re telling people that you can be squeezed, for apologies, or for money, or for whatever shred of publicity or attention or advantage might be gained by humiliating you.
Jill Biden is being squeezed. Not because she actually did anything wrong, but because she cares about being seen to do right, and that makes her vulnerable. Let’s be clear about this: nobody actually believes that the First Lady of the United States, a 71-year-old professional with a doctoral degree, needs to be instructed as to the difference between people and tacos. Even the group of people who just issued a public statement declaring themselves not to be tacos do not believe it. Biden’s speech was many things — cringy, pandering, clearly unrehearsed — but it was not racist, not by any stretch of the imagination.
And yet, as long as someone can benefit from claiming they believe otherwise, they will — and the rest of us have to go along with it.
This might be the worst part: that everyone, from the First Lady to the NAHJ to the media covering this ridiculous story have to keep pretending that it’s a real thing, that it really matters. Journalists have to dutifully publish the interviews with the offended parties, who in turn dutifully manage to keep saying “We are not tacos” with a straight face. Jill Biden has to dutifully apologise and thank her interlocutors for the opportunity to listen, learn, and do better. And ordinary liberals who want to remain such, in good standing, have to dutifully nod along as if the party weren’t on the verge of collapsing under the weight of its own ridiculousness.
Meanwhile, the economy is imploding, no laws are being passed, our president’s approval rating is hovering around 30%, and those Latino voters who we claim to care about so much are fleeing in droves to the Republican party — where a candidate need not bother with endless racial sensitivity charades that cater solely to the sensibilities of an elite class of progressive activists. Donald Trump not only refused to celebrate diversity, unless you count tweeting a picture of himself on Cinco de Mayo — eating, of all things, a taco bowl — alongside the caption, I LOVE HISPANICS! He also vowed to build a wall to keep Mexicans — who, he suggested, were mostly rapists — out of the country, a comment for which he refused to apologise. And yet, for a growing number of voters, even that is better than the cringe coming out of the Left.
And if things continue this way, that tweeting, taco-bowl eating orange ex-President will be re-elected in 2024 by a multi-racial coalition who care far more about the price of gas than they do about the culture wars. Melania Trump, who not only makes no apologies for her husband’s coarseness but really doesn’t care about immigrants will resume her position as the least-enthusiastic, and least seen, First Lady ever to set foot in the White House. But sure, let’s keep holding our politicians hostage to increasingly tortured purity tests. Let’s nitpick and police and snipe over etiquette until every last normal person in our orbit has fled. Let’s keep schooling the First Lady on the difference between a taco and a person. This will definitely end well.
Kat Rosenfield is an UnHerd columnist and co-host of the Feminine Chaos podcast. Her latest novel is You Must Remember This.
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SubscribeA wonderful essay that perfectly captures our current cultural dystopia.
Hey Democrats, keep on keepin’ on with your diversity nonsense. You’ll do more for Republican chances in the midterms than the Republicans can possibly do for themselves.
Very insightful – the sad state of affairs on the Left.
To my mind, emry, there is nothing sad about it at all. People this stupid should not continue, reproduce, or proliferate. The world will be a far, far better place without them.
In this regard, Darwin was completely right
In my view, both Left and Right have their pathologies and contributions – which is why I’m a centrist. If the Left go insane (as today), I’m happy to side with the conservatives. If the Right go nasty, I’m happy to side with the progressives.
Excellent comment. I’m in pretty much the same boat. I was mildly liberal until 2015. The Left has become a death cult.
Darwin was not right. He admitted it himself – read it carefully – sadly, most fall under his sleight of reasoning.
I think that it is absolutely brilliant. The political left is not just eating its own tail, but is working its way up to the head – which it proposes to have for supper, with a nice Chianti.
What’s not to like? That the left should die miserably, slowly, and excruciatingly, by its own hand, writhing in the agony inflicted by its own self-loathing is the most perfect karma that I can imagine.
The mistake of normal sane people is to react at all all to this consumate nonsense. They should simply pass by on the other side, and let the messy mass-suicide continue in its own time and space – hopefully a “safe space” in which the political left can thoroughly destroy itself.
Yes, the political Left have become modern-day flagellants. They were tedious back in the Middle Ages and they are tedious today.
The monks with the boards in Python’s Holy Grail.
Always reminds me of the end stages of the French revolution, the Salem witch trials, and many other ridiculous moments in human history when common sense was abandoned and adults acted like children. The phrase “never again” rings hollow once more. It’s been doing that a lot lately.
Thank you Ms. Rosenfield, nice article. Crocodile tears for the left-wing.
After the French revolution, France was still French, after the USSR collapsed Russia was able to return. When the loony left are finished in the West there will be no return of your country, the effect of open borders will last forever
This is an excellent (and enjoyable) article except for one thing. I never heard Trump saying that “Mexicans were “mostly rapists.” Nor did he say that about immigrants. What he said was that too many illegal immigrants were rapists, agents of drug cartels, human “traffickers” and so on. And the evidence shows that he was correct. Given that Rosenfield’s point in her article was that words are easily manipulated for ideological purposes, I think that she should have been more careful in citing this example.
Why do you care what Trump said about Mexicans when seemingly neither Mexican-Americans nor even Trump himself care?
I’m afraid you are falling into the trap of thinking ‘team X is bad, so team Y must be good’. Unfortunately they are all detestable in their own special ways.
Is this like Tolstoy? All good people are alike; detestable people are each detestable in their own way.?
That’s the narrative they must stick with, regardless of its validity.
In 2015, when Trump launched his campaign, he did talk about Mexicans: https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/donald-trump-presidential-bid-costing-him-msna629311
“Let’s be clear about this: nobody actually believes that the First Lady of the United States, a 71-year-old professional with a doctoral degree, needs to be instructed as to the difference between people and tacos.”
Eh…it’s an Ed.D, and a squishy one at that. Not convinced!
Perhaps a 71-year old professional who can’t be bothered to read and edit the speech she is to give could tell us something about the speaker.
Read her so-called PhD dissertation, which is on line, and you will find no evidence of reasoning, logic, mastery of English, or even an ability to do simple math. But then, that should not be surprising. Schools of Education were created to implement the central doctrine of the Public Education racket: every advanced degree entitles the teacher to more money, regardless of his/her achievements.
I certainly agreed with the majority of your article but found your description of our former President and First Lady to be most disrespectful and inaccurate. Never has a First Lady been so terribly treated by the woke media and magazines. Michelle Obama featured on every cover. Melania, a model, not on a single one. She wasn’t in hiding, she was shunned again by the woke media.
Kat is required to stick with the narrative.
It was refreshing to have a First Lady who didn’t ascend into an office of activism the moment she inhabited the White House. My classical liberal sensitivities are greatly turned off by the almost royal authority invested in most modern First Ladies. They have a staff – a STAFF! – even though they are elected to do precisely nothing. Michelle Obama’s weekly “initiatives” and “programs” made me want to alternately vomit and or weep for what America had become.
When did Hillary Clinton apologize for her husband’s coarseness? Oh, right. She never has. In fact, she and her husband took a little break from selling American assets to the Chinese to appear all over television blaming his obscenities on a “vast right-wing conspiracy” – and that was for just one of his indecent incidents. She then went on create international disasters as Booby Prize Secretary of State before the world dodged a nuclear-sized bullet when she lost her presidential race against a “short-fingered vulgarian” detested by all the cool kids and their media mouth-breathers.
I’ll take an unenthusiastic, unseen, unelected First Lady every damn time.
Or the “basket of deplorables” all her own.
Is that David Brent writing the First Lady’s speeches?
While she understands the insanity of the leftists, this woman completely misses the boat on Trump.
“He also vowed to build a wall to keep Mexicans — who, he suggested, were mostly rapists — out of the country, a comment for which he refused to apologise. And yet, for a growing number of voters, even that is better than the cringe coming out of the Left.”
Trump NEVER said MOST Mexicans were rapists, only that rapists were part of the group. And that is 100% true since some have been caught and prosecuted. Trump need NOT apologize for speaking a fact that has been widely mischaracterized, but Kat should.
It’s part of the narrative and will never go away. It’s one reason why we can’t communicate with each other anymore. We each believe our own facts.
A lie repeated often enough becomes truth. The writer has an obvious bias and it shows. As Warren noted, it’s the narrative used to attack Trump.
The rest of the article is OK except revealing that Biden didn’t practice her speech before an adequate sample which suggests overconfidence. And her speech writers need better training as they attempt to be relevant to an audience they clearly know little about.
Great article, thank you KR.
>but also because the country had been in pandemic lockdown for months, and everyone was bored and stir crazy and absolutely desperate to do something. Here was something to believe in and an excuse to flout the stay-at-home order
This was so obviously why things got out of control in 2020, and somehow never crossed the minds of all the people I mentioned it to at the time.
When someone from the left begins to acknowledge the folly and complete hypocrisy of the left, we can now have hope of a reversal from this dystopian society they have created. Amen.
“Media, fashion, publishing, television, the non-profit industrial complex …” Sectors which preach diversity and equality but which are dominated by rich, white people.
Some of these sectors also have high levels of sexual abuse of young women trying to start a career. Like his friend Epstein, Jean-Luc Brunel was suicided conveniently before a trial that would expose the widespread abuse of models and shame the fashion industry. That is if the people running the industry knew the meaning of shame.
Of course not! What a silly question! I’m not Hispanic– I’m Jewish, so I assume she thinks I’m a bagel with a schmear, or perhaps a piece of gefilte fish.
Rosenfield has it down on this and many similar issues… Excellent logic backed by solid writing. She and the likes of Murry and Wiess are what the Western World needs now…
A small aside: Perhaps we should stop describing progressive activists as “Elite” (I can think of a few alternatives, and I bet you can too)…
The Democrat self-immolation has taught Republicans a new word – schadenfreude
I get paid over 190$ per hour working from home with 2 kids at home. I never thought I’d be able to do it but my best friend earns over 10k a month doing this and she convinced me to try. The potential with this is endless. Heres what I’ve been doing..
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This article, as all others written by the author dares to say what no corporate entity will. In terms of the BLM swell in 2020, Floyd was a career criminal and it has been noted elsewhere that “ Drug use, high blood pressure, heart disease and disrespect of the law caused his death”.
For the death of this man the country was turned upside down?