Ain't this interesting. The head of La Raza lectures Kansas City on intolerence via a letter to the Mayor.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please, Mr. Mayor, repudiate intolerance

By JANET MURGUIA

Special to The Star
http://www.kansascity.com/273/story/276838.html

I was born less than five miles from where the Kansas City Convention Center now sits. My mother still lives in the neighborhood where I grew up — Argentine — in Kansas City, Kan., and five of my brothers and sisters still live nearby.

Kansas City is my home. Nothing would make me happier or more proud than to showcase this great city, its vibrant Hispanic community and the good work of the National Council of La Raza’s local affiliates to the more than 20,000 people who attend our conference every year. But I cannot in good conscience hold our conference in Kansas City when its top official’s actions condone hatemongering.

La Raza has strong views on the best way to achieve an orderly, fair, controlled immigration policy, as do many other individuals and organizations. And we have no problem with those who disagree with us.

But let me be very clear — our issue with Kansas City park board member Frances Semler’s participation in the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps is not a disagreement over immigration policy.

Joining the Minutemen because you have an issue with illegal immigration is like joining a white supremacist group because you have an issue with affirmative action. And if the mayor had appointed to any public post a supporter who also happened to be a member of a supremacist group, nobody would attribute objections to this as a disagreement over civil rights policy.

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps is an extremist group, in many cases espousing hate, vigilantism and sometimes violence. A member of such a group, no matter how upstanding in other ways, has no place representing Kansas City.

And don’t just take my word for it. This past spring, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the leading watchdog group in the country working to protect society’s most vulnerable members, designated 144 groups across the country as “nativist extremistâ€