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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review June 1, 2007 / 15 Sivan, 5767

Latino Fear and Loathing, Part II

By Linda Chavez


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | It seems I've touched a raw nerve among my fellow conservatives. My column last week argued that "Some people just don't like Mexicans — or anyone else from south of the border," and that this sentiment was playing a pervasive and destructive role in the current immigration debate. I estimated the number of such persons in the general population at about 10 percent, a figure I extrapolated from several studies and polls of racial attitudes taken in the last 20 years, which generally show that about one-in-10 Americans harbors some animus based on race.


Ten percent is not a very alarming number (Americans are among the least intolerant groups in all international studies of the issue), even though I think the group includes a disturbing number of influential voices on the right, who even if they don't personally share these views seem perfectly comfortable in the company of those who do. Those in positions of influence, whether elected leaders or talk show hosts, have a special responsibility not to inflame racial passions and animosities.


So how is it that some of my fellow conservatives have demonstrated that I am wrong to think a small group of them might not want Mexicans to come to America — even legally?


On Townhall.com, these delightful bon mots appeared (I've preserved the original spelling and punctuation):

  • "Mexicans are pigs"

  • "They can be referred to as: Human Locusts. "

  • " Latino girls are baby factories. They fornicate like animals with no regard for the welfare of the child. Babies having babies while the boy goes out and screws someone else. Most latinos are liars. True again. Look at the corruption at all levels of the mexican government and it carries on to all the people."

  • "Quickly, the fact is that we're being invaded by an inferior culture. Every person of low quality we import plants a family-tree that bears low-quality fruit. The rotten fruit of that tree will rot our own fruit."

  • "We don't want spanish speaking little retards befouling our great country. REMEMBER SAN HACINTO1"

  • "And YES ,Illegals are lazy, disease infested, freeloading moochers. The fact they criminally enter the country automatically qualifies them as lazy freeloaders."

  • "Get a clue Chavez...we dont want wetbacks mooching our system and NO we dont need them. They are simply slave labor.nothing more."

  • "most Mexicans, especially men, are lazy good for nothing drunks who only care about sacking as many mujeres that they can."


I could go on; there are more than 300 posts on Townhall and hundreds more on less mainstream sites, but you get the point. It's hard to imagine that anyone could get away with posting such foul comments about blacks, or Jews, or gay people on a mainstream website.


But because I've exposed the nasty underbelly of the anti-immigrant crowd — and let's be clear here, this debate is about more than illegal immigration — I'm called a racist, as in this post: "Linda Chavez has revealed herself to be a racist who demonizes color-blind conservatives as racist. Special rights for Latino criminal invaders and mindless labeling to intimidate fair-minded Americans - that is what Linda stands for now."


There are hundreds of similar posts, usually alleging that my views on immigration are linked to my ancestry and inviting me to go back to Mexico — from whence the last member of my family trekked north in 1701.


I want more secure borders and an end to illegal immigration — but the only way that will ever happen is to adopt a market-based legal immigration system that allows sufficient numbers of workers to come here to fill jobs Americans shun. I've spent my entire professional career fighting against racial, ethnic and gender preferences; against bilingual education and multiculturalism; and for making English the official language of the country, for which I have suffered significant abuse, even physical attack. But I absolutely reject the view that our immigration policy should ever be premised on a racial or ethnic test, or that members of one group are somehow unfit to become Americans.


Most conservatives claim to be color-blind, but remaining silent in the face of such naked bigotry evokes Edmund Burke's dictum: "It is necessary only for the good man to do nothing for evil to triumph." It's time for those who truly are color-blind to disavow those in our ranks who are not.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


JWR contributor Linda Chavez is President of the Center for Equal Opportunity. Her latest book is "Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.)

Linda Chavez Archives


© 2006, Creators Syndicate

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