Fun article...

[Guest Invader3k]

From the Greeley (Colorado) Tribune:

http://www.greeleytrib.com/article.php?sid=9406

 

Singer’s words prompt outrage

Story By Jim Kehl

 

Chad Brock

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When country singer Chad Brock took the stage Friday night, he faced 7,000 admiring fans. By the time he walked off, he had alienated many of them.

 

Brock, who opened for Sawyer Brown at the Greeley Independence Stampede, said during his show that he was tired of having to adapt for immigrants, that they should learn English and that they should leave the country if they didn’t like it.

 

Surprised Hispanic leaders in Greeley voiced their displeasure Saturday with the Stampede committee’s silence and lack of action after Brock’s show.

 

“What really bothers me is that the Stampede committee did not stand up and make some kind of comment, a disclaimer, saying that the Stampede does not endorse or support the views of Mr. Chad Brock,” said Priscilla Falcon, a professor at theUniversity of Northern Colorado.

 

But the Stampede committee was taken by surprise, as well.

 

“His comments were not appropriate, and they are not the views of the Greeley Stampede,” said Kyle Holman, director of marketing for the Stampede. “We are not pleased that it happened on our stage.”

 

He said Brock made the comments during his show and the Stampede does not control what entertainers do on stage.

 

Phone calls to Brock’s management were unanswered.

 

Brock’s comments precipitated the audience’s most energetic cheers during his performance, but they also sent some people looking for the exit.

 

Lifetime Greeley resident and country music fan Rita Archer, 68, believes Brock only said what thousands in the area have been thinking for a long time.

 

“Hooray for Chad Brock,” she said. “If Mexican-Americans are going to live here, they should learn English.”

 

Others, like Jose Suarez, department chair of the Hispanic studies program at UNC, question the message the Stampede committee is sending to Hispanics by bringing acts like Brock to Greeley. “The Stampede is promoting racism,” he said. “They are sponsoring animosity toward 30 percent of the population in Greeley. Why did they allow some guy to get up and make racist comments, telling us to go home?”

 

It adds up to one thing for Falcon: the Stampede is paying for blatant racism. “Here we are, trying to get along with the Stampede and the people in this community, and then they hire somebody like this who uses his platform to make racist comments.”

 

Holman said the Stampede brings acts based on who’s hot and up-and-coming. “We bring in acts people want to see,” he said.

 

Pulling the entertainer from the stage may not have been an option. “I don’t think there was even time to pull the show,” Holman said. He first heard about Brock’s comments after the concert.

 

But Falcon thinks there was plenty of time. “At the Greeley Fiesta, we ask for tapes and videos of all the performers we hire to check them out. The Stampede committee is a lot more practiced and proficient at this than we are. They had to know this performer had these kinds of feelings about Hispanics.”

 

Holman said the Stampede committee had no indications that Brock would speak out the way he did. “We bring in acts we think will conduct themselves in an appropriate manner,” he said.

 

Holman would not say whether Brock would be asked to return to the Stampede, saying it was a decision for the committee.

 

Lew Hagenlock, the committee member responsible for the acts that come to the Stampede, wouldn’t comment on Brock’s show.

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What do you all think about this? The original page has a lot of comments from readers posted about this...and most of them favor Chad Brock's comments. I would tend to agree with the sentiments he expressed, though I don't know if a concert is the appropriate venue to air such views. What do you think?

[Guest DragonflyKid]

I agree with Brock, coming from California (which will be part of Mexico in 50 years the way the Mexican population is skyrocketing) I see 2nd generation Mexicans speaking spanish in public while I'm supposed to learn a foreign language to improve my chances of getting work here in the U.S. Speaking from experience many Mexicans come over here for a better life but also to exploit what America has that Mexico doesn't. They have an attitude that now that they have it good in America they can do what they want. Look at the way the cinco de mayo is celebrated, what is the point of celebrating the independance of a country that is so bad off that so many are all too eager to leave? If one left a shitty country it's stupid that that person then turn around and celebrate that country's independance as if it means anything to them. And all that MECHA crap about wanting to take back California and some other westren states is happening slowly but surely. They can't even take care of their own country with it's horrid economy so they want to exploit and take over a well-off country and ruin that too.

[Guest DrTom]

I think it's simple: if you live in a country, you should bloody well learn the language. If I moved to Japan, I'd make sure I knew Japanese, at least enough to get me by at first. This is another byproducy of "multiculturalism," but really, I'm tired of having to adapt to everyone else's culture and have no one else adapt to ours.

 

Having said that, there is a time and a place for such views to be spoken, and I don't think a concert in that venue was either.

 

Of course, the issue is complicated by the fact that English is NOT the official language of the US. There has been a movement in place to make it so for a while, but those folks have always butted heads with the multiculturalists.

[Guest bob_barron]

I agree with Brock- If you live here- speak the language

[Guest Vern Gagne]

I agree with Chad Brock. If you dare say immigrants should learn english you're a racist. It also doesn't suprise me that the concert promoter caved in, and had to be quick to kiss up to the hispanic community.

 

What I found odd is that many fans where alienated at a country music concert. That would seem like a safe place to make a comment like that.

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

Ted Nugent did something like this a while ago and got some Hispanic "leader" of some group in a hissyfit over it.

 

My belief is that if you want to come over here, then you gots to know English. Just because our children can't read does that mean our new citizens born in other countries are also allowed to be illiterate? I don't think so.

 

I got no problem with people coming over. Just make sure you can read the "entrance" door.

[Guest Vyce]

They should declare English the official language and require that people speak it in their professional & public lives.

 

And they'd better do it quick.

 

Cause if you believe the census bureau, in 50 years half the population of this country will be Hispanic, and then it'll be US who have to learn Spanish.

 

Frankly, my Spanish sucks, and I'm too lazy to learn it again.

 

I don't want to have to move to Canada, folks, just so I can speak with fellow gringos.

[Guest DrTom]

"in 50 years half the population of this country will be Hispanic, and then it'll be US who have to learn Spanish."

 

I refuse to learn Spanish to communicate into the English-speaking country into which I was born. Maybe multiculturalism will die the horrible death it has deserved for so long, and we can finally get English made the national language without getting a bunch of ninny do-gooders up in arms about it.

[Guest Some Guy]

While I speak passible Spanish, I do not wish to have to speak it in my country. I don't mind it in little bits, because that's all I can do. When I went to Mexico last year I tried to speak spanish to the locals who were tryng to make me pay too much for inferior products, but they had trouble understanding a white kid with a Boston accent. Spanish people roll their "Rs" we don't pronounce them.

 

I think Andrew "Dice" Clay said it best, "If you don't speak the language, get the fuck out of the country!"

Or at least make a concerted attempt to learn it quickly. I used to work next door to a White Hen Pantry (since taken over by my boss and complete with new employees), the woman who ran it at the time refused to hire english speaking white people because they asked for raises (that's true), so as a result the store in the middle of an upper-middle class town that's 99% white was full of poor speaking Arabs. Some of them tried to learn English, others didn't an you guess which ones kept their job when my boss took over? And how many compliments we got by our customers , especially our female ones we got? (the Arab men don't exactly treat women with proper respect)

The moral of the story is if you move to an English speaking country learn the language or it might cost you your job.

[Guest bob_barron]

While I do think everyone should know English and I don't see what's wrong with a little diversity.