January 8, 2012 By 4 Comments

Papa John’s Apologized @ABC_dotcom Decides to Ignore the Issue

Before Papa Johns racially charged receipts naming a woman “Lady with Chinky Eyes” was published TV network ABC had already offended Puerto Ricans by calling them Drug Dealers. I find it funny that the first link I found was on ABC News so at least we know ABC has an idea of what they have to do.

In Papa Johns case it was an employee who made a poor choice in writing a very offensive name which prints out a receipt. ABC’s part we have to say it was a collective effort (Writers, Editors, Producers, @amaury_nolasco, and other ABC team memberS) to make a lame joke insult Puerto Rican’s like me.  Different to PapaJohns who apologized a few hours later days have gone by and ABC has decided to ignore the issue and stay silent.

We want to congratulate Papa John’s on sending a formal apology in less than two days when ABC had taken a lot longer.

The Issue Will Not Disappear

I have seen the support many who visit my blog have given me and my fellow brothers at the Latino Rebels.

The Latino Rebels and Julio Varela have kept me informed on what i going on and how the overall Puerto Rican Community everywhere has reacted the reason I created the previous video.

Info to Send the Video (Thanks to the Latino Rebels for Sharing)

Here are the details from Puerto Rican actress Darlene Vazquetelles, and director Carlos Jiménez, who recently formed the nonprofit Puerto Rican Alliance for Awareness (PRAA):

Right now I am in Chicago filming a movie. The director of the movie is also Puerto Rican and after discussing what happened [this week on ABC] we decided to do something about it.

This weekend we have off from filming so we have decided to do a mini-documentary in protest of what happened. The way we are doing it is by putting every Puerto Rican we know and come across here in Chicago in front of the camera stating their names, occupation and stating that they do not sell drugs.

This will be airing on You Tube. We already have the support of the Puerto Rican Parade Committee of Chicago. We are also receiving videos from all over the USA and Puerto Rico through email which will be included in the video.

Name

Occupation

and the tag line at the end “I am Puerto Rican and I DO NOT sell drugs”

Tomorrow starting around 4pm CST, we will be recording people in the Puerto Rican Parade Committee Headquarters in Chicago. For those who cannot be there, we are asking them to send us videos to carlosjimenez88@yahoo.com. (IMPORTANT: For the people that will be sending videos, please put camera in horizontal position and send by tomorrow Sunday at 11 pm Central Time with no background sounds like tvs or people talking.)

We are asking them to do it ASAP as we will be editing all day on Monday

We already have press interested and covering the event tomorrow.

 Sign Letty Caban’s Petition

Also feel free to stop at Change.org a petition created by Letty Caban to have ABC Apologize.

Any Questions?

If any of you have any questions feel free to send them my way.

Once again thanks to Darlene, Carlos (@kachifilms), Letty Caban, and the Great Julio Varela better known as @julito77 for giving their time and uniting against the same common effort.

 

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  • http://latinorebels.com Latino Rebels

    Thank you, by the way we did update the Calling All Boricua posts from the PRAA with more address details: http://juliorvarela.com/2012/01/08/today-puerto-rican-alliance-for-awareness-calls-for-videos-from-boricuas-saying-i-dont-sell-drugs/ and also on Rebels site. Also, http://twitter.com/PRAAwareness is now on Twitter!

    • http://raulcolon.net Raul Colon

      Yes I did follow them and mentioned them already! Will update my info based on yours. 

  • http://twitter.com/franklogic Frankie De Soto

    Well put Raul. I applaud Papa Johns in taking the initial steps in apologizing for the action of one of their employees. In today’s society, where customer service and human engagement is important within the online media landscape, it’s vital that companies take responsibility for any actions deemed negative to their brand, you can’t sweep it under the rug anymore. People have the ability to produce and control online content to the point that it might affect the brand for a very long time. ABC on the other hand, still have much to learn on how to do crisis management. As a Puerto Rican myself, I to am also offended by this attempt at a comedic remark that Puerto Ricans are good drug dealers. Puerto Ricans are really trying to break from this negative stereotype and to have a national television show on air revive it really diminishes are efforts in breaking it. Racism and indiscrimination is a very sensitive subject and as you can see doesn’t really work well for comedies. If ABC immediately apologized and promised to be more studious with their scripts then I can forgive and forget, we humans aren’t perfect but to ignore the feedback of their ABC fans who are Puerto Ricans is much like an open wound, if not treated quickly and properly it will start to fester and the infection will spread, and for ABC it’s the negativity of their brand. Once again, the tech savvy people are utilizing social media to express their opinions and hopefully this will pressure ABC to respond back with a proper apology. Perhaps they should study other companies that failed to properly communicate for their mistakes, I suggest they study the United Airlines incident where they failed to compensate for damaging a musician’s guitar. ABC should not undervalue their Latino audiences.

    • http://raulcolon.net Raul Colon

      Frankie, We are all human and we make mistakes but apparently old style media, Amaury’s Publicist and bad habits makes them ignore the problem until it goes away. 

      I know for a fact it won’t go away. Especially with great people like you supporting the fact that they need to apologize. Mil Gracias hermano!