While I am sure that for the most part MSM treatment of the immigration issue reflects deliberate repression, two situations have appeared this week suggesting that dumb ignorance really does play a role.
The first was the astonishment over Romney’s use of the “self-deportation” a.k.a. “attrition through enforcement” as noted by James Fulford: Roy Beck On "Self-Deportation" And The Dumbfounded Media
The second appeared on Wednesday: Geraldo Rivera: Latino Solidarity on Immigration? Not in Bushwick Fox News Latino January 25,2012
José from Brooklyn stunned me with his call to the radio show. “Puerto Ricans are citizens, what do we care about immigration,” he asked disdainfully
I had been on one of my broadcast rants about the need to have compassionate, comprehensive immigration reform when I took his call. Expecting a Kumbaya moment from a supportive brother calling the show from the hood, instead his remarks stopped me short. I stuttered something about all Latinos being brothers.
But he cut me off saying, “not out here in Bushwick,” referring to the heavily Puerto Rican and Dominican Brooklyn neighborhood, which has experienced an influx of Mexican and South American immigrants in recent years, many of them undocumented.
Of course the relative coolness of Hispanics as a whole on immigration issues (as opposed to rent-seeking Hispanic political consultants) is well documented – for instance by the Pew Center in the 2010 election. Doesn’t Rivera read?
If he were a real as opposed to a faux Hispanic – or if he deigned to talk to the Latino workers whose services he like all New Yorkers no doubt regularly uses – Rivera would know this. As I know from personal experience, they are highly articulate about the pressure on their incomes, local public services and living conditions caused by those who have come after them – particularly from different South American countries.
Instead Rivera tries to blame his caller’s attitude on anti-immigrant propaganda. Incredible – except from the point of view of keeping his MSM job.
