This Cinco De Mayo Event Sparked Outrage Over Its Tone-Deaf ‘Satire’

Before last weekend, Hennessey’s Tavern in Dana Point, California, was regarded as a nice place to unwind after a long day. Reviewers on Yelp extolled the virtues of the bar’s outside seating area, praised the service, and spoke warmly of the crowd, which is comprised, on most nights, of locals. If you go to the same Yelp page today, you’d need to do a lot of scrolling to find those reviews. Before you’re even able to wade into the one-star critiques calling the place a den of racism and iniquity, you’ll have to acknowledge that you’ve read a “clean-up alert” — a notification Yelp puts up on any business that has recently made headlines.

“This business recently made waves in the news, which often means that people come to this page to post their views on the news,” the warning reads, before informing the user that both positive and negative reviews may be inaccurate and that Yelp is doing its best to sort the real talk about bartenders touching their hair excessively while they pour drinks (this one from February 2017) from recent criticisms that there’s hair in the drinks and that the food at Hennessey’s is so bad that it will literally make you defecate on the floors, creating a hazard for other customers (May 7, 2017).

Why the sudden hate? Like Mike Huckabee and then presidential candidate Donald Trump, the people who run Hennessey’s decided that the best way to celebrate Cinco de Mayo was to run a tone-deaf promotion that targeted the Latinx population and made light of Trump’s proposed border wall. The deal? Climb a giant inflatable wall, erected in front of the restaurant and get a “Green Card” which would dub the holder a “permanent drinker” and entitle them to a two-for-one drink special.

Sombreros were on hand to make the event more reductive, and The OC Weekly notes, the staff at the establishment even handed out fake mustaches. The New York Daily News reports that a customer who had been at the bar during the event heard people chanting “Build the wall!” although the establishment’s proprietor, Paul Hennessey, denies this.

As you may have already surmised, while scores of people thought that event was all in good fun, others, those who have already been called “too sensitive” and “humorless” by the bar’s staff (according to Facebook comments), were less than amused by the fact that an establishment in their town was making a joke of Trump’s immigration plans.

The event itself was confusing from the get-go and clearly in bad taste — especially considering that people live in fear of being deported every day, as well as the fact that border crossings, when they do happen, are perilous and sometimes deadly. Still, the bar seemed to be trying to land on the right side of the issue, however clumsily, passing out flyers that read “Tacos Trumps Hate.”

“We’re building a wall…but it’s not what you think,” the flyer, which also transformed the tavern into ‘Jose Hennessey’s Cantina” proudly proclaimed. But the “not what you think” wasn’t ever truly explained — not on the flyer and certainly not at the event — giving it the air of desperation you often see when cheaters are caught in movies. It’s almost as if whoever came up with the idea knew that it would receive backlash and had tried, in a brief burst of self-awareness, to inoculate themselves against it without actually having to cancel the event. After all, inflatable wall rentals don’t come cheap.

The response was quick and brutal. A viral post on Facebook, written by Laycee Barragato Gibson, summed up many people’s feelings of the event (via OC Weekly):

I grew up in South Orange County and went to school at Dana Hills High School. Casual and blatant racism towards the Latinx community has always been a problem in this area. To be honest, it took me moving to Los Angeles for college to fully realize it. Now I refuse to be a silent bystander.

This stunt was disgusting and hurtful. People are being deported and families are being broken up. I know this was meant to be a joke, but so many of us are not laughing.

After the establishment started taking a beating on Facebook and Yelp, Paul Hennessey (who also owns several other locations of the tavern) spoke out on Saturday, doubling down on the event and offering no apology. In fact, as you can see below, he pointed the blame right back at the people who were telling him that what he had done was, at best, casually racist, and, at worst, outright bigotry.

There are a few problems with this statement. First, the people who have taken offense to this stunt are probably already writing to their elected leaders and the president. You really think someone’s first realization that what Trump is proposing is awful would come during a two-for-one drink night at a bar?

Second, what dialogue was this meant to spark? Paul Hennessey didn’t put his goals on the flyer and, by all accounts, he certainly wasn’t handing out pamphlets that explained why the border wall was a bad idea or engaging customers in meaningful conversation about how to protest effectively. At its heart, the whole thing was still a “Bro, let’s get drunk on Cinco de Mayo” party.

In fact, Hennessey’s defense to NYDN was that the restaurant had a taco bar, a margarita bar, and a Mexican musician present — therefore, how could it be racist? The night was all about celebrating Mexican culture while trying to “stick it to the man.” And even though Hennessey has received countless comments pointing out that regardless of his intent the execution was a colossal failure, he refuses to apologize or promise to do better in the future.

Before Hennessey’s doubling down, this event could have been seen as a well-intentioned but ultimately idiotic attempt to talk important issues in the vein of Starbucks’ much-maligned “race together” campaign. Instead, it comes off as something much more smarmy — a reminder that if people are unhappy with how bars like Hennessey’s deal with sensitive subjects that affect real people on a daily basis it’s their fault because something something social justice warriors and snowflakes.

Customers say that the response they’ve received from the tavern’s staff has certainly pointed to the fact that the management now sees anyone with concerns as having too much time on their hands — time that they could be spending writing to their elected officials — rather than customers with problems regarding how a local business is handling very cogent allegations of racism:

Of course, Hennessey is the biggest loser here. Regardless of his intention, says Gustavo Arellano, who broke the story for OC Weekly, the tavern owner’s response has alienated both those attacking the event and those who would have supported it.

“Satire is one of the most dangerous forms of comedy because you’re walking a thin line and it’s so easy to fall off,” he explains. “And if you fall off you just look stupid, but if it’s effective it’s brilliantly disruptive. It’s amazing in its effectiveness of showing the absurdity of a situation. That’s why the great satirists around the world, not only do you remember them, but they’re also usually the people who are persecuted the most because they, more than anyone, can show the world how the emperor has no clothes.”

Paul Hennessey, if you’re wondering, isn’t one of the greats, no matter how persecuted he feels. As Arellano states in his piece for OC Weekly, Hennessey’s point would have been much better made (although no less controversial) if he had put a piñata of Trump at the top of the wall and asked people to “topple it” as they took their triumphant place at the summit. Would the wall still have been criticized? Absolutely. But at least then the cries of “it was satire! It was meant to start a dialogue!” would not ring so hollow.