F’ed-Up Headline of the Day

Hotel mistakes Nobel laureate for bag lady

She was wearing a Mayan dress, the traditional attire of indigenous people in central America, and the hotel’s response was also traditional: throw her out.

The woman was Rigoberta Menchu Tum, who was asked in an interview before receiving her Nobel Peace Prize in 1992,

Q: Do you personally feel the effects of racism?
A: Definitely. During the last summit in San Jose in Portugal, with all the Central American Presidents present, the Guatemalan delegation threatened to leave the summit if I entered the main session to present a document on the development of Guatemala.
It was inconceivable to them that an indigenous woman, self taught, born to a humble family in the mountains, who ate roots and leaves, didn’t go to school and who has no professional title would appear there. It was the greatest shame. The racists won’t stand for the presence of a person who is not of their race and convictions.

She also said, in the same interview, “We are not myths of the past, ruins in the jungle, or zoos. We are people and we want to be respected, not to be victims of intolerance and racism.”