UPDATE: SC Mexican restaurant responds to uproar over racist T-shirts
Palmetto Record, 1/7/2013
UPDATE: An interview with Taco Cid’s owner, Leanne Snelgrove, has been added to the bottom of this post.
A Mexican restaurant in South Carolina is raising eyebrows for its T-shirts depicting “how to catch an illegal immigrant” — with old-style box traps using tacos as bait.
Taco Cid used to have at least four locations in South Carolina, but is now down to just the one in West Columbia. Since it’s safe to say the owner isn’t going out of his way to attract an authentic Latino clientele, it’s not exactly hard to see why.
After Palmetto Public Record’s story on the racist T-shirts went national on Monday, Taco Cidupdated its website to respond to the controversy. ”Our t-shirts were created as a witty and comical statement regarding ILLEGAL immigrants,” the statement reads. “There are NO racial nor hate remarks towards any specific ethnic group.”
This is, of course, a bald-face lie, since the T-shirts are clearly aimed at Latinos. As we reported above, the lettering uses the colors of the Mexican flag — and the taco trap wouldn’t make much sense if the shirt was referring to illegal immigrants from, say, Canada. Whatever the restaurant may have intended, the shirts’ racist imagery is an offensive swipe at all Latinos. ...
“As most tax paying Americans, we do believe ILLEGAL immigrants are taxing the system we support and live under, thereby, causing us to work harder and pay more taxes in support of their illegal activities which our government has simply chosen to look the other way.”
In addition to being a run-on sentence, this point is wildly misleading. As Palmetto Public Record reported back in June, undocumented immigrants actually contribute a great deal to a state’s economy — and removing them through deportation or draconian immigration policies would have an equally chilling effect on the recovering economy ...
Almost as interesting as the fact that there is still one customer service business in the U.S. willing to be this politically incorrect, is the unprofessional tone of this "Palmetto Record," which sounds as if it might be owned by La Raza. I like the paper's bit about invading "Canadians," since, yes, who among us has not had our towns transformed by invading Canadians? (Its the French speaking ones that most tick me off.)
All this shows once again how PC binds European Americans down with countless little chains. Imagine if millions of white Americans were sneaking across the border into some other nation and setting up housekeeping as if they owned the place. A T-shirt like this one poking fun at us wouldn't even register on the radar, as governments and citizens of those nations would mobilize to arrest us and kick us out, at best.
And if "undocumented immigrants" (translation: illegal aliens) are such a boon to the economy, by now California should be Shangri-la.
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