The folks over at autostaddle.com gave Seth Rogan’s movie Sausage Party a good review. Specifically highlighting Salma Hayek describing her role as “a Surprisingly Endearing Lesbian Taco”.

Then all Hell Broke loose. Autostraddle unwisely chose a white straight woman to write the review. Latinos and Latinas screamed racism. Then Latinxs (yes that’s a new word) were pissed that the taco wasn’t bisexual. When selecting positive reviews of the movie they chose the opinion of mainstream newspapers and websites and didn’t specifically seek out reviews written by women of color, generally; or Latina women, specifically.

The Apology

Yvonne was the Straight, White, Woman who wrote the review.

A note from Yvonne: I want to apologize to our Latinx readers specifically because I could’ve stopped this from happening, especially when I recognized the red flags and didn’t stop to question them. I knew the taco was a racist caricature but attributed it to a systemic problem in media that wasn’t necessarily our problem. But it became our problem when we used our voice as a queer publication to write a positive review of that racist caricature and perpetuated a racist narrative for the sake of the queer representation in the film. I was wrong for not stopping this immediately, especially when it deeply effects my own people. I’m a Latina and I’m also susceptible to the racist, oppressive system we live in. I know how incredibly challenging it is to find genuine Latinx representations in media and I’m sorry I was a disservice to Latinxs by not demanding better. These aren’t our stories and we deserve better. I’m deeply shamed by this deplorable mistake and I will definitely learn from this and make sure I can provide the best representation for people of color going forward.

Autostraddle.com