Channing Kennedy
Right Flu, Wrong Swine
on a serious note: Interested in the facts behind the messaging around swine flu? RaceWire’s Yvonne Liu has written an excellent piece tracing swine flu to factory farm production in America, and showing how the same unfair labor practices that allow workplaces to exploit undocumented workers have also led to a serious disease that’s killed hundreds on both sides of the border. Check it out.
Let me be among the first to say that the move by some to rename ‘swine flu’ to ‘Mexican flu’ is offensive on its face and in its roots. It does everything to fuel unfounded fears, and it politicizes a serious health crisis in a thinly veiled effort to stoke hatred toward an already-vulnerable group. Worst of all, it doesn’t even blame the right people!
That’s why I’m proposing that this very serious disease be renamed ‘Spring Breaker flu,’ after the lazy, amoral, disease-ridden rich white kids who have breached our borders time and again, destroying our economy with their unsustainable leech-like lifestyles, and now, robbing us of our health. The spread of swine flu — sorry, Spring Breaker flu — can be indisputably linked to Americans returning from vacations in Mexico (1, 2, 3). And it is Americans who can afford to take vacations who deserve the blame.
“Illegal aliens Spring Breakers are bringing in a deadly new flu strain. Make no mistake about it.” — Michael Savage
“I’ve blogged for years about the spread of contagious diseases from around the world into the US as a result of uncontrolled immigration trust-fund vacationers.” — Michelle Malkin
“What happens if there’s a rash of deaths in Mexico… and if you’re a family in Mexico and people are dying and Americans are not, why wouldn’t you flood this border blame the USA’s unjust trade and economic policies that have crippled Mexico’s ability to respond to a health crisis?” — Glenn Beck
“What better way to sneak a virus into this country than to give it to Mexicans rich white kids … then spread a rumor there there are construction jobs T-Pain concerts here, and there they come.” — Neal Boortz, on the very real possibility that swine flu is a manmade virus planted by Al Qaeda Dane Cook
Conservative Handsome media personalities have baselessly accurately blamed Mexican immigrants American vacationers for spreading the disease across the border … Several media reports on U.S. swine flu patients indicated that they had recently traveled to Mexico. — Media Matters, April 27 2009
So let’s call it what it is.
Some facts, for your health: Spring Breaker flu, also called the ‘WOOO!’ flu for the celebratory sound that Spring Breakers make while giving innocent people diseases, sprang from the dystopian ‘hot zone’ of Cancun’s tourist resorts. It’s believed that the Spring Breakers first sought to plant the disease in Mexico, a country they fear out of ignorance, visiting solely to exploit it and to leave it in shambles.
Next, they brought it across the border to the United States’ high schools, colleges, and military bases — all known hotbeds of Spring Breaker ‘culture.’ Or as the rest of us know it: cell-phone photography, idiot-screaming, and a malicious disinterest of most of North America. Spring Breakers’ disregard for the law is shown by their disease’s refusal to stay within agreed-upon national borders.
The flu spreads through moisture and contact, something that Spring Breakers engage in constantly, as can be witnessed in the harrowing documentaries “The Real Cancun” and “Girls Gone Wild 8” and this one Mardi Gras VHS that my mom’s boyfriend had.
A note: Spring Breaker flu is not the same as being rich and white; the difference is that rich-white-ness doesn't spread. Prolonged exposure to rich-white-ness leaves communities proportionally less rich, and their citizens considered further from white. Being rich and white is believed to be hereditary.
So what can be done to fight back against this wave of germ WASPfare? While canceling the Real World is an admirable act, not to mention a good way to fight the Spring Breaker flu, more must be done.
Mexico must seal its border to the north, to cordon off the human cause of the outbreak. Perhaps a wall of some sort can be built. When the effects to Mexico's economy are considered levelly, there can be no other recourse than to sever all ties with a culture that has no regard for the North American way of life.
Mexico cannot lay prone while retirees and sweatshops and fun-loving college kids defile her borders again and again. Mexican people must come together, now, to fight back against the the NAFTA flu -- sorry, the Spring Breaker flu -- preferably by putting a bunch of bored scared people with guns along the border, barrel-sights trained to fire at the first sign of a novelty trucker cap or an alcoholic beverage in a container shaped like a penis.
At this point, some bleeding hearts may think I'm somehow, I don't know, exploiting a serious epidemic, as a way of pushing a political agenda that demonizes a distorted parody of a group I can't be bothered to learn anything about. You might even say that the examples I've provided do little to make my case, and demonstrate nothing but my own ignorance. Wrong on all counts, fascist! I mean, if I were some jingoist nutbar, then why would so many respected media voices, quoted at the top of this piece, agree with me?
See? And every one an upstanding, long-accepted member of our proud journalistic tradition, in which pride in one's craft puts one far above unconscionable fearmongering. A public figure with lower standards would be every bit as callow, thoughtless, malicious, anti-North American, and just plain dangerous as those sub-human trust fund babies who are to blame for our ills.
Posted at 5:55 AM, Apr 30, 2009 in Immigration | Permalink | View Comments
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Comments
We (in Mexico) who are NOT (contrary to idiot media in both countries) about to die salute you!
Posted by: Susan Starr | April 30, 2009 1:52 PM
I found this link through feministing, though I do read RaceWire from time to time and well, I just wanted to say...
This is hysterical... and, given that I don't follow right-wing talking heads that much, I appreciate the original quotes (though the doctored ones are much better)... it's stunning the depths that hatemongering and white supremacism can stoop to... or maybe it's not...
Anyways, thanks for the lighter note... just one little question - is there any difference between calling it "Spring Breaker Flu" and calling it "Swine Flu"? I thought those two types were synonyms.
Posted by: puck | April 30, 2009 1:52 PM
Heh. Wooo! Flu. Classic.
I personally favor Smithfield Flu, or Factory Farming Flu.
The last paragraph is made of pure win.
Posted by: Scathing Indifference | April 30, 2009 2:10 PM
Scathing,
'Factory Farming Flu' is the best one I've heard to date, actually. 'Fff' for short.
"I can't come in today."
"Why?"
"Fff--"
"STAY HOME"
Posted by: Channing | April 30, 2009 3:54 PM
Also here via Feministing and very glad to have found you. If I can't sleep tonight I'm just gonna ponder those words in Glenn Beck's mouth.
But here's another vote for Factory Farm Flu, which I nominated in a post I wrote yesterday. I think that could have legs. Or maybe trotters.
Posted by: Sungold | April 30, 2009 7:02 PM
How about we rename it Smithfield Farms Flu?
http://www.narconews.com/Issue57/article3512.html
Posted by: Daffodil | May 1, 2009 9:34 AM
Let me get this straight: because 'rich white kids' infiltrate Mexico and spend their money there while on Spring Break, you think that the 'swine flu' or the H1N1 Virus (as the USA Administration is calling it...) should be renamed in 'honor' of the 'rich white kids'? OK. Gotcha.
Lets forget some important things here. Mexico is THIRD WORLD NATION where peoples from industrialized countries can't even DRINK UNBOTTLED WATER for fear of dysentary. OK. Got that part. Also, Mexico is a country with a barely functioning government that's being OVERRUN BY DRUG LORDS KIDNAPPING AND KILING people. Right. Got that part too. OK. Also, the Mexican Federal Guard has to be sent to control the drug lords because said drug lords are KILLING AND KIDNAPPING COPS. Right.
Oh. Right. A Mexican government spokesperson has gone on the record to say that it's unfair to blame Mexico as the starting point for the virus because it can't be verified. Right. Barely functioning government...out of control drug lords...and a barely functioning healthcare system...but it's 'unfair' to say that the start of the (coming) pandemic was centered around a PIG FARM (hence the name of 'swine flu') in Mexico where there are virtually NO QUALITY CONTROL policies. No showers before starting work...no showers at the end of the work day...and people working in street clothes.
Right. Got it. All of it. Thanks. Good to know.
Posted by: conservative | May 1, 2009 10:00 AM
The first link you posted to give evidence to your claim that swine flu is the fault of "spring breakers" is the only legitimate one. The second and third links you've posted have NOTHING to do with rich white kids going on spring break. One is about an older couple going on vacation there and another is about an elementary school kid getting sick when his family went to Mexico. You should probably provide better evidence rather than making yourself look foolish with completely irrelevant links. Posting the only one that had to do with your argument would have sufficed. But you're probably right... having only one example out of the hundreds of people who have become ill probably would have hurt your hypothesis, which is completely unfounded.
Posted by: Heather | May 1, 2009 11:00 PM
Even though I didn't agree with every word, I loved the somewhat lighthearted spin you put on a very concerning situation. I've never read this blog before but clicked on it thinking the "swine" being referred to were conservative commentators around the country.
This infection could have been contained where it originated had it not been for the world's insatiable appetite for Mexico's vacation spots. It's an odd thing to me that some people despise Mexicans here in the US, legal or not, yet they can't get enough of Cancun and other vacation spots.
The backlash felt by many Latinos nationwide over the swine flu is appalling especially considering that they AREN'T the ones bringing it into the US in the first place. Even if they were, there's no justification for that kind of ignorance!
Posted by: Dee | May 3, 2009 6:18 PM
Hi all,
Thanks for commenting -- it's great to hear everyone's thoughts.
It's true that the case this piece makes against rich white vacationers is flimsy at best, built on a minimal foundation of real world evidence; I only linked to five individual cases in which a stateside outbreak of swine flu was linked to an American having vacationed in Mexico, and one case in Scotland.
My argument is intentionally ridiculous. This is a satire piece; my goal in writing it was to illustrate, through example, the malevolent frivolity of the pundits and media personalities using this serious epidemic as a springboard for their own political agendas.
Michael Savage's claim that swine flu is a collaborative effort between Mexico and al Qaeda is every bit as ludicrously disingenuous as calling for the quarantine of all 'trust fund babies.' I don't know if Savage believes every word he says, but I do know he's not going for laughs. As detailed in the final paragraph, he and his contemporaries are the swine that this piece of satire aims to skewer.
RaceWire's published several articles in the last few days that get more into depth with the politics and science around swine flu. They're all informative, thought-provoking, and well worth a read.
Posted by: Channing | May 3, 2009 10:16 PM
Re the comment by "conservative," I think you have a problem there, pot. Indeed, the kettle I live in IS black at the government level, but then your words SO fit the USA: "Barely functioning government...out of control drug lords...and a barely functioning healthcare system."
Posted by: Susan Starr | May 4, 2009 11:18 AM
ROFL!
Nice call on the "swine" flu mess...
Posted by: CDF | May 4, 2009 6:56 PM
On Cinco de Mayo, in honor of our neighbors to the South, let me say on their behalf, "Next Spring let's erradicate those cucarachas from the North!" Brilliant piece--puts things in proper perspective by turning the camera upside down...
Posted by: Steve McGlamery | May 5, 2009 4:55 AM