Today's Racist Trend: #StopMexicanGirls2014

The hashtag #StopMexicanGirls2014 is currently trending on Twitter, and scrolling through some of the top Tweets, it’s not immediately clear what the significance of the hashtag actually is. But what is clear is that it’s offensive and racist. A similar hashtag popped up last year in the form of #StopBlackGirls2013. It was promptly slammed for being one of the worst internet trends of the year, inspiring another hashtag, “#OpenSeasonOnBlackGirlsIsOver.”

So what is #StopMexicanGirls2014? In the same way that #StopBlackGirls2013 functioned as a collection of bigoted images comparing Black women to animals and mocking “ratchet” behavior, #StopMexicanGirls2014 is now the hashtag to use when making inappropriate, tasteless jokes about stereotypical “Mexican” behavior.