Dame Edna "forget Spanish"

[Trechter, Sara]

I did go grab Vanity Fair off the shelves of our university bookstore and read the Dame Edna column there, so that no purchase was necessary.  I suspected that with a full context, I might find irony or satire. In context, it came off as more racist than the email, but with other possible interpretations. No pats on the back for this insight because it was also the independent interpretation of my teenager, who saw it as "ambiguously racist."  As Tim pointed out, Dame Edna's words are most likely a manipulation to get a response from the readership, a typical tactic in such media. This too is offensive to some of us, but we wrote letters to Vanity Fair in protest anyway. I figured that the folks offended at the Cesar Chavez Institute were probably more astute about all the possible interpretations given their expertise than I (even as a linguist :)). Laura, your post didn't only provoke "wonderful erudition." Perhaps there are other people who are also taking action, but are!
 too shy to post about that in an academic forum. It's been an interesting discussion, one that will extend into the classroom for many of us.

Sara Trechter, Assoc. Professor
Linguistics Program/English Department
CSU, Chico
Chico, CA
(530) 898-5447
strechter at csuchico.edu