With the United States men’s national team having missed out on the 2018 World Cup, a lot of Americans are leaning heavily into supporting Mexico. One of them is USMNT star Landon Donovan, who’s pushing support for El Tri as part of a sponsored campaign that he was presumably paid money for.
Landon Donovan says you should root for Mexico. You can if you want, or not.
And while we’re here, please don’t tell Mexicans how to act Mexican if you are not Mexican.
But sponsored or not, Donovan’s support for the Mexican national team at this World Cup appears to be genuine. So genuine, in fact, that he laid into former teammate and Mexican-American Carlos Bocanegra for questioning him. Donovan tries to make a political point, strangely equates supporting a soccer team with standing up for Mexicans who have been mistreated in America, and explains Bocanegra’s own heritage to him.
Another Mexican-American former teammate of Donovan’s, ESPN soccer analyst Herculez Gomez, did not take very kindly to Donovan’s comments.
A white person explaining to a Mexican-American how to act Mexican is crummy enough on its face, but it’s even more distasteful when it’s attached to a message sponsored by a company that’s admitted to screwing its customers and is accused in lawsuits of targeting Mexican-Americans for predatory lending. You can take a guess as to why Wells Fargo is putting money into advertisements that align it with support for Mexico.
This is not to criticize Landon Donovan for taking a check from an unethical company — I’m sure my employer makes a lot of money from advertisements by companies that I find to be personally distasteful. But if you’re going to get on a soapbox and do some moral grandstanding, you should probably make sure you’re on higher ground than the people you’re criticizing.
You can support Mexico if you want. They have a fun soccer team with a lot of cool fans. You can hate the Mexican national team if you want, too. That doesn’t mean you hate Mexicans.
It’s just a soccer team. Soccer teams are not politicians or political parties. It’s really not that deep. Also, if you’re white, please don’t tell Mexican-Americans how to act Mexican, that’s very dumb and bad.
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