Video of man beating Mexican parking attendant triggers calls for authorities to tackle prejudice
Footage of Miguel Sacal punching and kicking Hugo Vega revives concern over race and class divide in Mexico

guardian.co.uk
Jo Tuckman in Mexico City
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 January 2012 14.20 EST

Wealthy Mexican man beats up parking attendant Link to this video A video of a businessman assaulting a car park employee has added to mounting pressure within Mexico to confront pervasive class-based and racist abuse.


The footage shows Miguel Sacal in the lobby of his apartment building in Mexico City repeatedly punching and kicking an employee, Hugo Vega, who does not defend himself. Subtitles, added to the soundless video, claim the attack was triggered by Vega's refusal to leave his duties at the counter to attend to a flat tyre on Sacal's Porsche.


At one point Vega's colleagues halt the violence. Sacal is seen standing over his crouching victim and, according to the subtitles, says "****ing Indians" before kicking him again.


The video has triggered indignation across social and mainstream media in Mexico and is the latest in a series of similar internet-fuelled furores over the perceived bigotry of Mexico's upper classes.


Last month the daughter of the favourite to win this year's presidential elections, former State of Mexico governor Enrique Peña Nieto, tweeted that her father's critics were "envious proles". She was responding to the mockery he had received after being unable to name books that influenced him.


The first video to expose such attitudes, as well as the passivity of many of those bullied, became a YouTube hit in August last year, entitled "Ladies of Polanco." It featured two obviously drunk women, one of whom was a former Big Brother contestant, slapping and insulting a policeman in the capital's wealthy Polanco district.


"You shit-faced ****ing salaried worker," one of them calls the officer. The policeman seeks to avoid the conflict and then lets his aggressors drive off unhindered.


The social and political historian Lorenzo Meyer said such behaviour evokes cultural traits established in the colonial period to justify the domination of a few thousand Europeans over an indigenous population of millions. "The 1910 Revolution tried to overcome and transform this, and it did in part," Meyer said.

"But there is still a minority who think of themselves as automatically superior while others have internalised their inferiority."


Up until now the progressive elite had led the chorus of outrage over the videos and tweets, but this week's video suggests this could be changing as the victim himself appears associated with its release.


Vega has said he did not defend himself during the attack, which took place in July, for fear of losing his job. Now he says he is pursuing a legal case of assault in the hope of getting the necessary compensation to fix his two front teeth, which were broken in the attack. He also sees himself as an example to other victims whose fear of the rich and powerful ensures they usually remain silent.


"The important thing is that it should not be acceptable that people who have money feel that they can trample over everybody else," he told Milenio TV. "I have a salary, I am not a businessman, but we are all human beings."

Video of man beating Mexican parking attendant triggers calls for authorities to tackle prejudice | World news | The Guardian