There’s no denying that the world looks a lot different now than it did in 1947. And while the list of all of the positive changes that the decades stretching between now and then have done for the world and minorities, a recent campaign is also highlighting the ways in which our current president could take some notes on certain values the United States held dear during this time. Particularly ones that had been pressed for by one of our former presidents.

As part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor Policy” effort, he worked to promote positive and healthy relations between the United States in Latin American countries.

At the time Rooseveltaimed to ensure that the North, Central and South American countries avoided breaking under the influence of Axis countries during World War II. As part of this campaign, Roosevelt comissioned a Spanish and a Portuguese version of the U.S. national anthem. According to Time Magazine he also “recruited Hollywood to participate in this Good Neighbor Policy; Walt Disney went on goodwill tour of South America, hoping to find a new market for his films, and ended up producing two movies inspired by the trip: Saludos Amigos (1942) and The Three Caballeros (1944). The Brazilian star Carmen Miranda also got a boost, and her role in The Gang’s All Here made her even more famous in the U.S. And alongside these cross-cultural exchanges, the U.S. government decided it needed an anthem that could reach Spanish speakers.”

According to NPR, Clotilde Arias, wrote wrote the translation at the end of World War II, was born in the small Peruvian city, Iquitos in 1901 and moved to New York City to become a composer when she was 22-years-old. Her version of the anthem is now part of an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Now in an effort to support Latino communities affected by the coronavirus, the non-profit We Are All Human Foundation’s Hispanic Star campaign commissioned the a remake of the song.

Hoping to raise awareness of its Hispanic Recovery Plan and efforts to help to connect Hispanic small businesses and workers with resources during the pandemic, the campaign brought the old recording from obscurity.

For the song, the 2019 winner of the singing competition La Voz,  Jeidimar Rijos, performed “El Pendón Estrellado.” Or, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” 

The song has already received quite a bit of comments and support on Youtube.

Hang in there, fam. We can only get through this together.

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In 2015, Emmy award-winning host Rodner Figueroa was rightfully dumped from Univision after calling Michelle Obama a monkey during “El Gordo Y La Flaca.” During a segment of the show, the host cracked “Michelle Obama looks like she is of the cast of ‘The Planet Of The Apes,'” as he pointed to a set of pictures of the First Lady. His words shocked and infuriated most people, but let’s be real, few POC were surprised.

Non POC have been associating Black people with monkeys for ions in an effort to denigrate them as less worthy of human than white people.

It is exactly what BBC DJ Danny Baker did and intended to do when he made a joke recently about the debut of the Black Royal Baby yesterday.

The broadcaster Danny Baker was fired by BBC Radio 5 Live yesterday after he published a racist post on Twitter yesterday.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s newborn son, Archie, was compared to a chimpanzee.

The tweet, which has since been taken down by Baker, featured an old photo of a couple holding the hands of a suited chimpanzee. The caption: “Royal baby leaves hospital.”

Fortunately, it didn’t take long for the BBC to give the host the boot and in response tweeted the most unexceptional apology for a racist attack since Rodner Figueroa issued an apology for calling Michelle Obama a monkey and griped at her in an open letter blaming her for his own firing. (“I was verbally notified that a complaint from your office led to my dismissal,” Figueroa whined at the time.

Like Figueroa, Baker also refused to take his medicine and blamed just about everyone else for having “diseased” minds and misinterpreting the tweet.

“Sorry my gag pic of the little fella in the posh outfit has whipped some up. Never occurred to me because, well, mind not diseased,” he wrote in a tweet.

Yes, mi gente, if you ever need an example of how not to make an apology/ blame everyone else for your own wrongdoings just look to a racist white person. Of course, on different levels both Baker and Figueroa’s racist comparisons stem from an even greater issue. Black Power intimidates people who are both white and weak.

But you know what? The Black Baby Prince (and FYI he might a “lord” not technically a “prince” but we’re gonna call him that Black Baby Prince because that is the respect his Black Power deserves) and Michelle Obama stay strong and Black. And like the rest of us who’ve endured similar jokes they are always, always above the peons who couldn’t tell a bad joke from a good one if it fired them from their jobs, swiped their paychecks and slapped them on the face.

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