Hispanic Group Asks Cable TV to Stop 'Hate Speech'

SOURCE:

AJC - Atlanta Jounal

By EUNICE MOSCOSO
Cox News Service
Friday, February 01, 2008

WASHINGTON — A Hispanic civil rights organization on Thursday called on the nation's largest cable news channels to stop "parroting hate speech" and "demonizing the Hispanic community."

Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), said that a rise in such rhetoric surrounding the issue of immigration has contributed to an increase in crimes against U.S. Hispanics.

"This strain of hate has found a new home. This hate is open. It's ugly and it demonizes all Latinos in the emerging debate on immigration," she said at a press conference.

NCLR said that the nation's three top cable news networks — CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC — regularly invite anti-immigrant extremists to their shows and do not identify the groups they are with or the fact that some are affiliated with white supremacist organizations or vigilante groups.

She said it would be like inviting former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke to discuss affirmative action policy.

In addition, Murguia said that talk show hosts and commentators — including CNN's Lou Dobbs, MSNBC contributor Patrick Buchanan, and Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, often repeat the "hate speech" arguments against illegal immigrants.

Several myths are propagated on these shows, including that illegal immigrants are "invading" the United States, that they bring disease and crime, and that Mexicans want to reclaim the Southwest United States as part of their homeland, Murguia said. In addition, they use word such as "swarm" or "massive horde" when referring to illegal immigrants in an effort to dehumanize them, she said.

The group cited some examples, including:

— Glenn Beck of CNN's Headline News proposing on his radio show — as a joke — to have a factory that takes the bodies of Mexican illegal immigrants and turns them into a fuel called "Mexinol."

— Buchanan saying that the United States is experiencing "a wholesale invasion, the greatest invasion in human history coming across your Southern border, changing the composition and the character of your country."

— On CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, someone identified as a medical lawyer saying that U.S. cases of leprosy have spiked because of illegal immigration — with 7,000 cases in the past three years. In reality, there have been 7,000 cases in the past 30 years and the peak year was 1983. After being questioned on the report, Dobbs said that he regretted using the source.

NCLR has started a campaign to combat such rhetoric on immigration and sent letters to the three cable news networks asking for meetings. Officials at CNN agreed to an exchange and Murguia will appear on Lou Dobbs Tonight Monday. Fox News Channel and MSNBC have not yet responded to the NCLR request.

The group will also ask presidential hopefuls to sign a pledge to reject hate speech.

In addition, NCLR launched a Web site — www.wecanstopthehate.org — which will post clips and quotes from news and radio shows and identify the guests on the shows and their ties to extremist groups.

The Web site also includes a map of hate crimes against Hispanics in the United States.

In its most recent report on hate crimes, the FBI said that such violence against Latinos increased 10 percent from 2005 to 2006.

Spokespersons for Lou Dobbs Tonight and The Glenn Beck Program said they had no comment on the NCLR charges. MSNBC and Fox News Channel did not immediately return calls for comment.

Murguia said that Hispanic groups will eventually go after the television show advertisers if the situation doesn't change.

"If we're not going to get to the networks, we're going to get to the sponsors," she said.

On the Web:

National Council of La Raza:

Lou Dobbs Tonight: www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight

Hate speech in the media A threat to the internal security of the U.S.

By: Aurora Grajeda

Published in the Printed Edition of September 4-17, 2008 of the bilingual newspaper El Tecolote - (Versión en Español)

As hate speech spirals, a local group of community activists are organizing a demonstration in San Francisco against shock jock Michael Savage. The group, Hispanic / Latino Anti-Defamation Coalition SF, plans to rally in front of the building which houses radio station KNEW-AM where Savage transmits his nationally-syndicated program.

On his program, people hear Savage call for troops on the street "to protect us from the scourge of illegal immigrants who are running rampant across America, killing our police for sport, raping, murdering like a scythe across America while the liberal psychos are telling us they come here to work." Or that autism is a "fraud, a racket, that in 99 percent of cases is a brat who hasn’t been told to cut their act out" and to stop being ‘morons‘, a way where minority children get welfare and extra help in school, and who also tells fasting immigrant students "to starve to death, then we won’t have a problem."

These kind of statements act as fuel for people who are already angry, resentful and violent. Take, for instance, Jim David Adkisson, who entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, opened fire with a 12-gauge shotgun, killed two people and wounded six others during the presentation of a children's musical. In his car, police found a four-page letter in which he expressed his hatred of the "liberal movement’, and wrote he targeted the church "because of its liberal teachings" and his belief that "all liberals should be killed" because they were "ruining the country."

Inside Adkisson’s home, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage; "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity; and the book, "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly. These three continuously demonize liberals, immigrants and others.

On Glenn Beck’s nationally syndicated radio show, The Glenn Beck Program, he read an "ad" produced and posted by subscribers to his website, for a refinery that turns Mexicans into fuel (Mexinol).

Neil Boortz suggests giving nuclear waste to illegal Mexican immigrants to take back to Mexico and tell them "it’ll warm tortillas", plus they will be easy to spot because of the "glow" if they try to return.

Savage warns politicians about illegal immigrant "vermin."

Shock jocks insist their rants are not hurting anyone and that they are not inciting hate attacks. Meanwhile disenfranchised groups continue to be targeted. Take, for instance, the savage beating of Luis Eduardo Ramirez Zavala by a group of four young white males in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania on July 12.

An eyewitness to the beating who happens to be a retired police officer, heard the youths telling Ramirez’s friends to "get out of Shenandoah or the same thing would happen" to them.
"We saw a bunch of kids walking away and screaming things like "‘Go back to Mexico.’ We called the police," said Arielle Garcia, 17, a friend of Ramirez who was at the scene; Luis Eduardo died about 30 hours later.

Legislation and programs designed to provide basic human rights and services regardless of legal status are being curtailed or dismantled, while punitive anti-immigrant legislation is being enacted in localities in all the states and a number of hate groups and the violence leveled against minorities is on the rise. Human rights organizations are under attack, demonized for allegedly helping ‘criminals’

All of the above, plus immensely more, is made possible by the poisoning of the minds of millions of Americans, who are bombarded daily with outrageously false and inflammatory claims, designed to prejudice public opinion against groups and entire communities without allowing the opportunity to present opposing views and facts, which would refute the propaganda full of lies, misinformation and disinformation.

Aurora Grajeda is a community activist, member of the ‘Hispanic / Latino Anti-Defamation Coalition SF" currently organizing a demonstration in front the broadcasting booth of KNEW on Sept. 23, 4 to 6 pm, at 340 Townsend ST in San Francisco, whence Michael Savage transmits his program, to focus on the consequences of Hate Speech. and to demand that a more balanced view on the issues is presented in the Media so a much needed comprehensive debate in the public opinion arena takes place.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.

By Reverend Martin Niemüller. For his opposition to the Nazis, Niemüller was arrested in 1937, convicted of treason, and spent eight years in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps.

Anti-Hate Speech Demonstration Flyer "Hispanic Dignity Train" SJ to SF
Demonstracion contra El Lenguage de Odio Volante "Tren de La Dignidad Hispana" SJ to SF
Anti-Hate Speech Demonstration Flyer, San Francisco

Hate speech in the media A threat to the internal security of the U.S. (Post with Audio Clips of HateMongers)