LatinaLista — When a couple of people who belong to a particular group do something bad, do we demonize the whole group?
When Bill Clinton had his affair with Lewinsky, did people condemn the entire Democrat Party?
When Tom DeLay, Scooter Libby (and the list goes on) ran afoul with their ethics, was the whole Republican Party scorned?
When a police department has a few “bad” cops, is law enforcement everywhere seen as overridingly corrupt?
When a medical doctor’s license is revoked is that a reflection on the whole profession?
A sensible person would say no to all of these examples, but when it comes to undocumented immigrants sense goes out the window.
It was only a matter of time before conservative extremists pounced on the sad fact that one in the party responsible for the executions of three Newark, New Jersey college friends with bright futures, was an undocumented immigrant.
Peruvian national Jose Carranza should have been behind bars. There’s no argument there. He committed this heinous crime while out on bail for raping a child no less. And there’s evidence that he may have sexually assaulted two of the three victims before they were killed.
If guilty of these acts, he should get the death penalty.
One of his accomplices, who is described by the police as a “principal player” in the deaths, is also an immigrant. But according to local news sources, this man Rodolfo Godinez, originally from Nicaragua, is a legal permanent resident.
However, it doesn’t erase the fact that both men are immigrants.
They are bad men who have made it clear that they can’t live by the rules of society — ANY society.
But for the acts of these two men and other immigrants, undocumented or otherwise, for whom murder, rape and thievery is a way of life, conservative extremists like Michelle Malkin and Newt Gingrich want us all to believe that every undocumented immigrant are the same as these miscreants.
Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich, who is considering a run for the presidency, said that young Americans in our cities are being “massacred” by illegal immigrants.
He went on to say that it’s the “war here at home” against illegal immigrants that is deadlier than the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Is he talking about the war against the sheer multitude of undocumented immigrants who are here or is he referring to those small number of undocumented immigrants for whom it doesn’t matter what country they’re in, they’re going to kill and rape innocent people?
I think it’s obvious Gingrich is finding it easier to lump everyone together.
He’s not alone.
Michelle Malkin is guilty of the same, and that’s sad as she’s forgotten her journalistic training to see things, if not objectively, at least truthfully.
She so wants people to believe that all undocumented immigrants are the same that she has created a web site designed specifically to build upon the fear that she and Gingrich and other extreme conservatives are manufacturing.
Called Deport Them Now!, the web site is obviously a shameless and repulsive attempt to further an agenda by hooking onto the coattails of a sad event.
From the tone on the site and the wording,
How many more criminal alien rapists, kidnappers, and murderers will be let loose before politicians finally act?
it’s evident Malkin is nothing more than an opportunist who doesn’t care who or what she exploits to get her name and agenda out there.
If she and Gingrich and the other extreme conservatives are worried about a serious Latino invasion happening, they need to get some “serious” perspective and start taking responsibility for the power of their words.
Because any people can stand to be insulted and dehumanized for only so long.
Comment(7)
Jose
Do we look at Barry Bonds and say “Baseball is steroid-fueled?”
Do we look at Thomas Jefferson and say “All white Americans are slave-owning hypocrites?”
Do we look at Lorena Bobbitt and think that all men should wear a cup or protective gear before we go to sleep?
I like this post, really I do …
Frank
Depends on what is meant by demonizing. All illegal aliens have broken our immigration laws but not all commit other crimes after being here. Maybe one should elaborate on the word demonizing.
yave begnet
If guilty of these acts, he should get the death penalty.
No one should get the death penalty. It’s medieval and we are shamed every time we kill in the name of the collective good.
Newt Gingrich, who is considering a run for the presidency, said that young Americans in our cities are being “massacred” by illegal immigrants.
When it’s just regular black-on-black violence plaguing Newark or Baltimore, Newt doesn’t make a peep. Black people are invisible to Newt, you see.
Newt and Michelle are gearing up for a long time in the wilderness. They may not know it yet, but they will soon. They’re desperate for anything to give them traction with the base and allow them to differentiate “conservatives” from Bush. Immigration is really all they have left. What they don’t know is that this, like everything else the crazy base tried for the past several years, is likely to backfire at some point in the not so distant future.
adriana
To answer your big question, I think that that answer is “No.” I could ask the same question with regards to Mormons, as I recently did some research on Mitt Romney and his record with Latinos and other people of color. I hope that other Mormons are more tolerant.
You are right, common sense gets thrown out the window when it comes to the immigration debate. It is always the few bad apples who make the stories much more dramatic than they really are.
Remember w/ hurricane Katrina all of the reports of violence in the Superdome? Then when they interviewed people there, for the most part, the vast majority of hurricane victims were behaving in an orderly manner, just trying to make the best of a terrible situation.
Frank
The same thing applies to those on the other side of the issue of illegal immigration. The majority of Americans opposed to illegal immigration get demonized for the radical acts of a few. The majority of Americans opposed to illegal immigration are not members of the KKK but you would think so listening to the pro-illegals.
Frank
The bottom line though is that they are here illegally regardless of whether or not they commit other crimes after they get here. The act of violating our immigration laws is what most Americans are angry about. Painting an ugly picture of them or a rosy picture of them otherwise, is irrelevant.
Horace
This is similar to a boy getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar and then whining that the rules of the house are unfair and then resorting to a temper tantrum to get his way. It’s not fair because I say so, says the boy, with no better argument than that. The rest of the family tells the boy that if you can’t abide by the rules of the house, don’t respond by setting it afire, as the friends of the cookie thief have advocated. Let’s not make a revolution on behalf of foreigners and obey the immigration laws that are on the books. They were meant to regulate all who would come here, in spite of the contention of those who would hold them in contempt by asserting that they were written to keep Hispanics out.
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