Thread: Extremist Latino rhetoric flares in the background

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/16255307.htm

Extremist Latino rhetoric flares in the background
By MARK CROMER
Special to McClatchy-Tribune

Michael Richard's frenzied meltdown onstage at the Laugh Factory.

Black firefighter Tennie Pierce's charges of endemic racism in the Los Angeles Fire Department.

NYPD unloading 50 rounds into three unarmed black men.

Ten black teens and preteens on trial for hate crimes in Long Beach, Calif., after a savage attack on three white women.

We might just be closing in on Christmas, but I'd say: Get ready for a long, hot 2007 if the current climate prevails.

Race relations in America have taken center stage, and once again the fault lines have been highlighted as a predominantly black-and-white affair.

That old paradigm might provide a comfortably familiar dynamic for activists, elected officials and the media to play off, but it conceals the new reality -- and the danger -- of the deepening racial polarization on America's streets.

And some of the most stridently racial rhetoric these days is not being heard from blacks or whites but rather from Latinos.

From street activists to students to professionals, Latinos are stoking ethnic anger as they pander to crowds with blatant stereotypes and use racially charged language to motivate their supporters -- and they are doing so with virtual impunity.

At an October protest in Escondido, Calif., organizer Fernando Suarez de Solar of a group called Aztec Warriors for Peace whipped a crowd of illegal immigrants into a frenzy outside City Hall after the council passed an ordinance that requires landlords to verify the legal residency of their tenants.

"Do not allow yourselves to be intimidated by any blue-eyed 'whitey' that comes to your house and asks you for 'papers,'" de Solar shouted in Spanish. Moments later, when he was giving me an English translation of what he had just told the crowd, he forgot to include the reference to "blue-eyed whitey," perhaps in deference to my green eyes.

Two teenage girls standing in the crowd casually dismissed Anglos as little more than a race of lazy bigots who have stolen everything they have acquired.

"Like, white people shouldn't be trying to do that, like trying to take all of the Mexicans [away]. That's why they have everything," said 16-year-old Norma Sanchez.

Her friend Jeanette Rivera, 17, quickly interjected "Without us, [whites] are nothing."

The uncomfortable truth of just how many immigrant and native Latinos perceive Anglo-Americans through a hard prism of negative racial and cultural stereotypes has not been explored much in the media, though it is brazenly on display at rallies that draw swarms of television, radio and print reporters.

It is clear that many Latino activists feel the coast is clear and experience little trepidation about making outrageous and divisive claims calculated to further racially polarize their base of supporters for pure political gain.

In September, activist Emma Lozano stood on a stage in Los Angeles at a rally marking the convening of the National Latino Congress and proclaimed that the aging population -- Anglos -- is able to survive only as a result of the exploitation of illegal immigrant labor.

"It is because of the undocumented that the [white] people who are retiring today are able to retire. Because of the work, the sweat, the exploitation of the undocumented worker," Lozano shouted at the crowd. "They are getting their hearing aids, their crutches and their pacemakers because of our work."

Like the two teens in Escondido, Lozano merely gave a louder voice to the view now pervasive among Latinos: Anglo-Americans do not enjoy the fruits that spring from a heritage of their parents' hard labor, a legacy of toil and sweat that stretches from John Steinbeck's fields in California's Central Valley to the coal mines of West Virginia. Rather, they are the sole inheritors of pillaged loot, beneficiaries of historical crimes against Latinos.

Analogies to slavery are tossed freely about by immigrant activists, with "white privilege" now the new code phrase for white plantation owner.

"What is happening now in America is the dehumanization and modern slavery of all the immigrants," Jorge Luis Macias told students at Mount San Antonio College in Walnut, Calif., in September. Macias is an assignment editor at the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion.

At the same forum, Angelica Salas from the Coalition of Immigrant Rights Los Angeles told students that illegal immigrants were akin to runaway slaves. "So at present we do have an immigration law that many immigrants have to violate when they come to this country," Salas said. "Slavery was a law."

And those comments pale next to the anti-Anglo venom easily found in but a few keystrokes on the Web, percolating forth from a wellspring of Latino and Mexican nationalist movements that depict Anglos as more akin to the Dutch Afrikaners of South Africa's apartheid regime than Americans.

As the media convulse with the very real stresses and strains between blacks and whites in America, a virulent strain of Latino ethnocentrism is growing in the vacuum. Unless it is confronted honestly, it will set the stage for even greater racial upheaval.

Anglo-Americans -- and particularly the working middle class -- are feeling more denigrated and under siege than perhaps at any time in recent history. And it is the strident debate about illegal immigration that is fueling this sense of isolation.

Pundits might chastise Anglos for their defensiveness and mockingly dismiss their angst about what is clearly a double standard in the public use of race-based appeals, but they will ignore this simmering anger at their peril.

What happens when Kramer's name is Juan? Right now, nothing much at all.

If that doesn't change soon, we'll all be in for a very long, hot 2007 indeed.


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Mark Cromer is a writer for Californians for Population Stabilization. 1129 State St., Suite 3D, Santa Barbara, Calif. 93101 Mrcromer@aol.com

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Everyone should e-mail this reporter and thank him for being honest, even if it is toned down. This is exactly some of the things the Watchdog aka Brock mentioned on Hannity and Clones the other day. I'm sure Mark Cromer will be receiving his share of unplesant mail because he told the truth. Please give him a pat on the back and thank him for taking on a difficult and dirty task.

Dixie

Great article. I noticed that the author is "special" to the McClatchy news papers. I'll be this article never sees the light of day at the left wing Charlotte Observer, a McClatchy rag.

I find it interesting that these Hispanic Supremists see caucasions as an aging race. That is absurd. We may not breed like bunny rabbits, but there are huge numbers of young white folks coming along and no matter how screwed up the colleges and universities try to make them, they are not going to take kindly to being characterized as "lazy" or "privileged."

This sort of rhetoric is what you expect from Nazis or the Klan. It is born of ignorance, fear and desperation. It is not the way to earn the good will of the people who have their hands on the power in this country. It is a nihilistic view that will come back to bite these people in the backsides in a big way.

Originally Posted by BullRun

This sort of rhetoric is what you expect from Nazis or the Klan. It is born of ignorance, fear and desperation. It is not the way to earn the good will of the people who have their hands on the power in this country. It is a nihilistic view that will come back to bite these people in the backsides in a big way.

You are right about that. The more these people spew their venom the more Americans who might be somewhat on the fence about the immigration issue come firmly down on the anti-illegal side. I know it had that effect on me.

There are those who will rush to proclaim that these people are on the fringes. My question is how are they so certain that this kind of thinking is on the fringe? Really, how can they be so sure of that? Did they take a poll or something?

I think at the very least we should all start to examine and discuss this issue openly. Especially as our government contemplates offering amnesty to MILLIONS of people, a certain percentage of whom might hold these views. This country has had enough racial strife without importing a whole new group of people who hold racist views.

Great article, Dixie, and I will be sure to email the author.

I've been sharing it!

Dixie

Don't you know that minorities cannot be racist? That's what they claim.

The majority had damned well better shake off political correctness and recognize real enemies where they exist. An invading army is an invading army, whether they are wearing military uniforms or not. They are recognized by the flags under which they march and by the hatred they espouse for citizens of the nation they invade.