Thanks for bumping this, yes I remember writing those posts and feeling very embittered about the whole thing. (Still do, actually.) Thanks for replying
The Jets in the new one are supposed to be a range of Irish, Polish and Italian descendants. Spielberg was trying to get back to the Broadway vision more than the 1961 movie. What baffles me is that people still don't understand the message that the Jets are suffering oppression in a society they grew up in that is now being demolished or handed on a plate to newbies. So many are just focused on
those xenophobic white guys! 
Like... There's more to it than that. Riff is trying to hold on to the tiny bit of land he can still call home. He has no prospects in life. His friends are criminals like him. His parents are nowhere to be seen... Tony and Graziella are his only sources of comfort, yet neither one of them can fully be trusted in Riff's mind because Tony is 'changing' and Graziella is 'torn'. By going to war with the Sharks, in his mind he is reclaiming some sense of pride.
Is that xenophobic? Well yes, primarily based on the language he and the Jets use in their fights. But it's a two-way street. The Sharks call the Jets racist terms as well (one beginning with G, the other P) and yet it always gets overlooked because the Sharks are a minority race.
Honestly, I wish the Broadway writers had kept to the original vision of Jewish/Catholic tension
. Might have been less controversial, ironically.
It's just insane to me that so many people view the Sharks as victims. Let's remember that Bernardo is the modern day stand-in for TYBALT. The original psycho of Romeo & Juliet.
I think the ongoing sympathy for Bernardo is completely about sympathizing with Anita and her grief, rather than his own character outside of how she talks about him.
As for Valentina, well... She's a character created specifically for Rita. She's created to demonize the Jets in the store scene. Somebody needs to verbalize "rapists", right? ...
