Response to Daily Bruin’s Apology

The UCLA Daily Bruin’s “Editor’s Note: Apology to our readers” Tues. Oct. 28th came after a culturally insensitive Mojo blog post, originally titled “The Seven Easiest Costumes Ever that will Get You $3 Chipotle on Halloween.” The post included a Día de los Muertos costume as one of the seven, and included a GIF that read “Holy Burrito” accompanied with a man dressed in a sombrero, poncho and fake mustache.

The blog post was extremely disappointing, to say the least. La Gente Newsmagazine does not condone any ignorant behaviors of cultural or racial insensitivity. Reducing part of our community’s culture to a simple “wardrobe choice,” as the Editor’s Note mentions, and reducing part of our community’s culture to an unrealistic, rather stereotypical image is not acceptable.

Instinctually, we were left with the questions of how such a clearly offensive blog post passed through editors for publication, and why the Editor’s Note did not apologize to the community that this blog post affected.

We appreciate the accountability that is highlighted in the apology. However, we absolutely expect serious systematic actions to make sure this never happens again, including a complete follow through of what the Editor’s Note is requiring from the entire Daily Bruin staff: “diversity and sensitivity training.”

As always, our mission at La Gente Newsmagazine is to represent the Latina/o community who is often underrepresented and, as seen in the blog post, misrepresented. We invite dialogue and all questions regarding this topic.