A campaign called the "Wave of Hate" was officially launched by NCLA (National Council of La Raza) President and CEO, Janet Murguia during a press briefing on January 31, 2008. The campaign is intended to "educate Americans about the rise of hate speech against Latinos and the corresponding rise of hate crimes and violence we are experiencing." An "anti-hate" website called "wecanstopthehate(dot)org" was launched in conjunction with the campaign which will include a series of videos to "help put this current generation of hate speech into context." This venture was developed in collaboration with other leading Hispanic advocacy groups such as the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Southern Poverty Law Center, Anti-Defamation League, Media Matters, and MALDEF,

In an effort to understand what, specifically, Ms. Murguia believes to be the origins of this hate, I decided to indulge my obsession with acquiring truthful information by accepting Ms. Murguia's challenge to "help put this current generation of hate speech into context." To begin this quest for truth, I chose to first examine and review Ms. Murguia's speech from the official transcript listed on the NCLA website.

After spending a substantial amount of time analyzing the content of Ms. Murguia's speech, I arrived at the following conclusion:

The context of Ms. Murguia's speech, paradoxically, proliferates racial discrimination. The text has been deliberately contrived to provoke and sustain a pervading theme of prejudice by manipulating the interpretation into an intentional perception of racism among Latinos, specifically targeted against white American citizens. For example, the frequent and deliberate misuse and intermingling of the terms "legal" and "illegal" when referring to immigrants, consequently denying any distinction between the two terms, therefore implying the identical meaning for both terms.

I then decided to review the content of two other speeches by Ms. Murguia also listed on their website and discovered that the context displayed the same pattern and produced the same results.

In conclusion, I find this flagrant attempt to manipulate interpretations and perceptions within the context of racial hatred thoroughly reprehensible. Ironically, I now realize that the origin of the hate Ms. Murguia speaks of so frequently actually originates within her own culture.

Ms. Murguia's speeches can be reviewed on the NCLA website:

http://www.nclr.org/content/viewpoints/detail/50389/)

http://www.nclr.org/content/viewpoints/detail/50213/

http://www.nclr.org/content/browse/view ... ?topic=498