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Archive for the ‘race’ Category

Ricky Ricardo Evoked at Sotomayor Hearing

6:48 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Controversia| Politics| race · 1 Comment

16 Jul 2009

From my sickbed yesterday I was able to catch some of the Sotomayor hearing (thanks, C-span!) and it didn’t disappoint. I mean it did disappoint if you were looking for a hearing that didn’t include unfounded accusations of “bias”, but in terms of WTF moments, it really performed. But one moment that has me baffled was this: a pop culture reference made by Senator Tom Coburn (R). Coburn quoted I Love Lucy character Ricky Ricardo while questioning Sotomayor. Have a look:

Was this racist? Did he evoke the quote because Sotomayor is Latina? Or is it just the Senator’s “silly” style? Without being too much of a conspiracy theorist, I’d err on the side of yes, this was yet another potshot at Sotomayor’s Latino heritage. Consider the source.

BTW, today’s hearings start at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time, and you can catch them online at C-SPAN.

Via / HuffPost

Interview with Hate Crime Survivor Robert Cantu

11:28 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration| Violence| race · Comments Off

25 Jun 2009

Voto Latino conducted an interview with anti-immigrant hate crime survivor, Robert Cantu.

Cases like this one, and countless others are why I worry about the direction immigration reform is headed. Immigration has been colored as brown. So the equation usually breaks down a little something like this : immigrant=latino=mexican. Now math was never my strong point but I’m pretty sure that’s not right. So how do we make sure that the current moves for justice in immigration and against hate crimes are aligned, linked and honest about the ways race and ethnicity are viewed in this country?

Racist Right Doesn’t Know How to Spell

6:15 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Controversia| Funny| Politics| language| race · Comments Off

23 Jun 2009

…in English. From Think Progress, this is hilarious.

buchanan

These fools were at a “conferenece” (!) arguing for English Only, spelling the word “conference” como el culo and using Sonia Sotomayor as the central figure for their ignorant rhetoric:

PAT BUCHANAN: Judge Sotomayor is up there at school in New York, she gets a scholarship to Princeton, she’s graduated with all these big honors and awards they said she never won. What’s she doing there in the summer? They said her adviser told her to read children’s classics so she can learn English better. How do you graduate number one in Princeton if you’re in the summer and you’re reading Rumpelstiltskin and Snow White? [laughter] [...]

Yeah…”so she can learn English better”… What tense are we speaking in? Nice grammar on you, too, Pat!

That’s a segue into a delusional rant about how Obama is out to make everyone speak Spanish:

PETER BRIMELOW: I really do recommend the language issue because you know that polls better than immigration and affirmative action. Eighty-five percent of Americans say they would favor official language policy. The wonderful thing about this issue if you look at what’s going to actually happen here is you’re going to find that the Obama administration is going to gradually institute institutional bilingualism in the country. It’s going to be required to speak Spanish in key positions, the police force and so on. This is a direct attack on the American working class because they are not going to be bilingual.

Right. Because Obama himself speaks Spanish so well.

WHAT. THE. F***?!

This is what we call in Spanish patadas de ahogado. The Republicans are giving up the ghost.

Via / Think Progress and Hispanic Tips (Thanks Tomás)

This morning in my inbox I received another email telling me, and whoever else was on this advocacy org’s coveted mailing list, that I should be vigilant about the rising tide of hate crimes and yet again the point of reference was the Holocaust Museum shooting.

Do I really need a reminder? Do I need to hear the frenzied 911 call of a mother after seeing her husband and daughter shot and killed? I know that audio is going around some blogs and media sites and I have refused to listen for my own personal sanity as a Latina mother but also as a statement against the exploitation of the pain of Latinas for the sake of “the story”

Would Hate Crimes legislation made a difference? Would it have prevented a Latino young man from having a noose placed around his neck and dragged around a parking lot in Ohio? Maybe if the young man would have died his lie would have been worth more than the paltry sentence his horror was met with.

MOUNT VERNON, Ohio – A central Ohio teenager accused of putting a noose around a Hispanic boy’s neck and dragging him in a parking lot has been sentenced to 10 days in jail.

The 18-year-old was sentenced Wednesday in juvenile court in Mount Vernon, a city of 15,000 residents an hour’s drive northeast of Columbus. He dropped his original plea of not guilty and pleaded no contest to ethnic intimidation.

A charge of aggravated menacing was dropped.

Read more…

I think I have had to write this over and over many times, every time there is a hate crime against a Latino pero it is worthy of repeating.

Defining what makes a hate crime is a political act. The reason I write this is that I am reading many media reports and blogs that keep referring to the shooting at the Holocaust Museum as a hate crime but not that many referring to the murders of Brisenia Flores and her father as a hate crime.

On a legislative level, states each have their own hate crime statutes that aren’t consistent with each other so what may be a hate crime in one state may not be in another. Often the definition of a hate crime is hinged on the use of an epithet or slur, not the history of the community where it happened. This is why some advocates have been pushing for Federal hate crimes legislation, that would create one standard that would be followed across state lines and these moves make people feel good, offer a sense of protection, except they are only good once there is a victim.

U.S. Reps. Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY), Steve Israel (D-NY) and José E. Serrano (D-NY) announced the introduction of the National Hate Crimes Hotline Act of 2009.

“Far too many victims silently bear the burden of the crimes committed against them, which is why we are taking steps to provide a place for them to be heard. A National Hate Crimes Hotline would allow New Yorkers and victims across the country to safely report to the police and find vital assistance. In addition, accurate reporting will improve local responsiveness, increase prevention efforts and help bring an end to these heinous acts,” said Rep. Velázquez.

Read more…

Obama Appoints the Most Latinos in History

5:33 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Obama| Politics| race| society · 2 Comments

15 Jun 2009

402px-president_clintons_latino_appointeesMainstream media really knows how to blow up a relatively insignificant piece of data. Case in point: the newswires are all a-flutter with “news” that Obama is the U.S. president that has appointed the most Latinos ever to his administration. How many? A whopping 11% for posts requiring Senate confirmation:

The Houston Chronicle reported Sunday that Obama has tapped significant numbers of Latinos from California and Texas to serve in his administration.

Brent Wilkes, national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said he credits California’s large Latino population, its quality educational system and its concentration of “more progressive Latinos” for its high number of Obama administration picks.

While this is nothing to wince at, it’s not anything to marvel over either. Obama is being compared to former President George W. Bush with 5.5% and former President Bill Clinton with a paltry 4.5%.

These appointments are welcomed, but let us not forget that Latinos now account for 17% of the U.S. population, and that is only counting those residents recognized by the U.S. Census.

Don’t be fooled. This type of “news” is helping along the Right’s suggestions that Obama is, to use their term, a “reverse racist” gone wild, when in reality all he is doing is making meager attempts to diversify his administration.

Via / UPI

60arivacainvasionjpegWhen Brisenia Flores and her father Raul were shot to death by Shawna Forde and Gunny Bush, two anti-immigrant activists with ties to the Minutemen, they weren’t asked for their papers. The goal wasn’t to observe, document and report as Jim Gilchrist, the leader of the Minuteman Project, has said in trying to distance himself from his associates charged with two counts of first-degree murder, one count of first-degree burglary and one count of aggravated assault. The goal was to use violence against a family viewed as expendable to help further their cause of using violence against those viewed as expendable.
Read more…

If the title of this post sounds ridiculous, wait to you see what it refers to.
320spoto

The above is an editorial cartoon circulated by Creators’ Syndicate that appeared in The Oklahoman’s Tuesday editions. It depicts President Obama’s Supreme Court Justice nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, as passive, docile human piñata, hanging from a tree while a cartoon Obama in a Mexican sombrero invites GOP elephants to take a hit.

The image is so racist and sexist in multiple ways that even some members of the GOP were offended enough to demand an apology.

“This grotesque insult requires a formal editorial apology from both Creators’ Syndicate and The Oklahoman,” said Jose Niño, a former President of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce who, besides co-Chairing the conservative Hispanic Alliance for Prosperity Institute, has been a major fundraiser for the campaigns of President George W. Bush, Senator John McCain and other Republican candidates and conservative causes.

Read more…

The attacks on Obama’s Supreme Court Nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, haven’t let up.

Newt Gingrich, everyone’s favorite oppressed white man, took a step back from the assertion that Sotomayor claiming her identity equals racism.

Then we have Pat Buchanan talking about Sotomayor and that Puerto Rican group (cuz you know there is only ONE Puerto Rican group).

Read more…

Latino Gang Suspected in California Hate Crime

10:50 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Los Angeles| crime| race| society · Comments Off

4 Jun 2009

1A family in Pasadena, California thought they were moving into the home of their dreams. African-Americans who had no qualms about moving into an all-Latino neighborhood called Duarte, the Davy family they thought both the home and the area had everything they were looking for. That is, until their house was destroyed from top to bottom in an allegedly racially-motivated attack. The Los Angeles Times reports:

Davy never thought about the fact that they would be the only black family on the mostly Latino block — until someone reminded her in a way that still makes her eyes tear and her stomach twist.

On May 8, Davy opened the door to her home and was greeted by a barrage of spray-painted racial epithets. The hardwood floors, the mirrors, the televisions, the dressers — the vandals had turned the entire place into a canvas for that six-letter word used for decades to scare and scar African Americans.

Shaken, she immediately left and called police. And aside from one trip back to pick up some clothes, Davy has refused to return to a scene authorities believe was created by members of a local Latino gang.

“As far as hate crimes go, it’s probably one of the worst ones I’ve seen in my career,” said Sgt. Tony Haynes of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Duarte station. “They trashed the furniture and tossed drawers — there was pretty much no room left untouched.”

Chanisse discovered this terrifying scene upon coming home from picking up her daughter from day care. Since then, the Davys have been living in a hotel and are afraid to return to their home.

The LA Times reports that interracial shootings have happened in the past in Duarte, but no one in the community seems to have been prepared for something of this magnitude.

Earlier this week, Latino and Black victims of hate crimes in Pasadena, including Chanisse Davy, came together to demand an end to the violence.

Via / LA Times


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