The best response to a blog post ever? From Diego Pava in Boca Raton
This was unexpected. We received a concisely written rebuttal to a post we ran yesterday titled: “Sometimes there’s nothing more sorry than an apology.” about Ozzie Guillen.
Diego Pava sent us a fantastic response via e-mail and said it was cool to publish it at the site. So here you go.
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Colin,
First of all I want to congratulate you on your blog and podcast, both of them very entertaining, love the good work you and John are doing.
Before getting all political here I want to let you know a little about myself, I am Colombian born and raised from a family of essentially coffee growers, many of them still today live in farms. I went to Denver,Colorado from 1996 to 1998 to learn English at Denver University. It was a crazy sports time over there with the Broncos trying to get Elway a Superbowl and the avalanche winning the Stanley cup so it’s no wonder that I became a fan of all teams from Colorado, Something that has survived until today. I am currently a PhD student in electrical engineering at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida.
Also, before I start, let me clarify that in many aspects I disagree completely with the position the Cuban exile has over Cuba, I think the embargo is idiotic and useless and has helped Castro stay in Power because he can always blame USA of all the problems created by his communist regime. I also hate the veto they impose on any artist that visit the island, a position I find fascist and offensive. I hate the way they treat other Latin communities only because they have a special immigration law., making a long story short I am not in any way a friend of the Cuban exile politics.
I also agree with you that this country is suffering from a political correctness pandemic that is getting out of control and to a level that is not just silly but totally ridiculous. As an outsider let me tell you I find the PC police mostly insufferable, obnoxious and sometimes unintentionally funny but utterly useless. Trying to cover someones racism with PC words is like trying to cover a wound made with a sword with a band-aid.
.But people in America seems to have forgotten who Fidel Castro is, he was the guy that let the soviet Union put hundreds of nukes aiming at American cities. If the war with the soviets had started, most of Americans casualties would come from missiles launched from Cuba. After the cold war ended USA did nothing to Castro just because there is nothing the island can offer, so the government just ignored the Cuban regime.
Now let’s stop for a minute and lets think of Castro from the Cuban exile perspective. Imagine that some bearded crackhead takes Colorado by force and declares it an independent nation, stating that he is some sort of a messiah that will solve all your problems. Then he starts his government and your brother disagrees with the political model of the bearded crackhead. When he finds out, your brother get arrested and you never hear from him again. Your cousin, on the other hand, tried to promote a public demonstration against the crackhead and got himself executed by the firing squad. Fearing yo are next, you have to leave Colorado and leave everything behind your house your friends, everything, you and your immediate family have to cross on foot the Rockies to get to Utah but you have no winter clothes. Some of them does not make it, and tthe few that does are received by some Utahns that really don’t want you there, You can never return to Colorado, because the crackhead is still there in part because he kills, jails, disappears any opposition from within, in part because the rest of USA does not give a bleep about Colorado.
You have been in Utah for many years, your sons are Utahans themselves now, but you still wish you could come back to good old Colorado.But you are now there paying taxes and consuming, suddenly, the Utah Jazz decides to move to your neighborhood full of people from Colorado, you may be a minority in Utah but you are certainly a majority in that neighborhood and the Jazz decided to move there because they know Coloradans are crazy about basketball (hey man we are pretending remember?) They build a huge arena that obviously you have to pay with your taxes, but you are happy with your new team.
Then the coach of the team you welcomed,to your neighborhood, the team you are supporting now with your money and your taxes says that the loves, admires and respects the bearded crackhead of Colorado because he is a tough SOB, the same crackhead that killed your cousin, let your brother rot in a jail and made you scape from your home on foot trough the Rockies losing family in the path, Would you be pissed at the coach?
What happens if I told you that I admire and respect the kids from Columbine high school because they really knew how to use a gun and were tough SOBs, would you be mad at me? What if I told you that I admire Osama Bin Laden because he evaded the American Army for years and was a tough SOB, would you be mad at me? To put you in perspective, Castro in one single day killed ten times the number of victims on Columbine, and has killed 5 times more Cubans than Americans died on 911
Would you be pissed? I know I would, you know why? because I have lived it myself, the Colombian guerrilla has murdered and kidnapped thousands of Colombians, destroyed families and covered in blood an otherwise beautiful country, I have lost friends and distant family on the hands of the guerrillas. When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on TV his admiration for Guerrillas leader Manuel Marulanda and even made a statue of him praising him for surviving all these years it really felt like a personal insult to me, even today I hate that SOB and Castro for supporting the Colombian guerrilla and bringing death to my people.
I am pretty sure Ozzie did not meant to hurt the Cubans with his commentaries, I’m pretty sure he did not calculate the effect his words could have, and many times you say or do things that offend and hurt people unintentionally, And that’s the perfect time for an apology. I love that Ozzie made his apology in Spanish, because that was something between him and the Cubans, and now is time for the Cubans to forgive because this is USA, the country of opportunities and second chances. Let Ozzie learn his lesson, there is not shame in being wrong and facing the consequences. Freedom of speech is not that you can say whatever you want and not expect repercussions, freedom of speech is that you can say whatever you want but people have the right to be pissed at you, and if they are pissed, you have the right to let them be pissed or try to appease them and, frankly, why would you want to keep your main clients pissed at you?
Sorry for the length of this message, feel free to publish if you want although you will have to forgive my grammar, I assure you in Spanish I do can write.
Keep up the good work man!
Diego Pava /(@salentoq in twitter)
