Context: The Meaning of What We Say as Victim of Political Correctness!

A non-tenured, African American Spanish language teacher in the New York Public Schools was fired for using the word 'negro' in a class she was teaching. It seems that her students believed that she was using the term to denigrate them. The term once being used by Caucasians to describe African American individuals. It didn't matter, to either the students or the supposedly more educated school administration that the term is the Spanish word for the color black and that the class was going over the terms for the various colors used in the Spanish language.

The use of words in our society is important. They are the primary means, whether written or verbal, with which we communicate with each other. It has become fashionable and politically-correct in recent years to judge what people say without looking at the context, the setting and circumstances in which they are speaking. This is especially true if what is being said is 'unpopular' or deemed 'old fashioned' or 'offensive' by the media and so-called Progressives.

The most common form of this world policing is the attempt to ban the use in classical literature of terms which today have different meanings or connotations than the era in which they were written. The best example of this is the way people, most notably liberal parents, get all bent out of shape when their children get an assignment in school to read Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. Parents get all shocked and aghast when their children are forced to see the 'N' word(to save the readers of the Being Latino! website from suffering a heart attack or suffer the vapors I'll refrain from using the word here) used as part of the name of Huck's friend, Jim.

Similarly for these people there is also the use of the term 'wetback' by John Steinbeck in his work, Sweet Thursday, where it is used to describe the human cargo that one of the characters is engaged in smuggling into the United States. The term also has the history of being used as the code name for an operation by American immigration officials in the 1950s to repatriate thousands of illegal(read the more politically-correct term undocumented today) immigrants and, sadly, many US-born or naturalized Latinos as well.

There are also times when certain words sound similar to other words which are offensive to modern ears, and, whether through ignorance of the meaning of these words or an overzealous attempt to be progressive and sensitive, people get into trouble for using them. A example of this is the firing of a city government official in Washington DC which has a large African American population for using the word 'niggardly' in a public statement. It didn't matter that the word had nothing to do with the similarly sounding 'N' word nor that it was a perfectly valid use of the word in the context it was used.

In our daily communications with each other, we often use words or expressions which other people may not like. The one thing we cannot do is stop at the point of merely hearing the words. We need to look at the context they are used in. Too often in our hyper-politicized world when dealing with those whose views you may not like, it is too easy to focus more on the words used than the way they are used. The one thing we cannot do is fall prey to censorship of unpopular ideas, words, or thoughts. To quote that great fictional President Matthew Shepard(Michael Douglas in the film, The American President for you non-film buffs): “You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the 'land of the free'.”

IN MEMORIAM: Garnet JohnKay Wolf 'Shredder' Becker

By Being Latino Contributor, Jeffery Cassity Jeffery Cassity is a mostly socially-liberal, fiscally-conservative Anglo male who is involved in his local Hispanic community as the widower of a 1st generation Mexican-American woman and his active, some would say hyperactive, membership in the local Council of the League of Latin American Citizens(LULAC)

The Curious Case of the IRS v. Tio Taco

The current developing scandal out of the Cincinnati office of the Internal Revenue Service(IRS) in which right-wing groups, including several conservative Latino ones, were stripped down to their financial and organizational skivvies by zealous bureaucrats of the IRS brings to mind a similar attempt to use the governmental agency to go after 'enemies' of the policies of the Administration in power which occurred about 40 years ago. The only difference that seems to be emerging is that the staff of the current Chief Executive seems to purposely kept the existence of the witch hunt from the knowledge of the President instead of being directly done with the knowledge and approval of the Resident in Chief of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

What I want to address in my piece is not the scandal and abuse of power directly but the deafening silence from the Left when it comes to the seemingly unethical and illegal treatment experienced by the conservative Hispanic groups. The so-called Progressives, especially Latino groups such as MALDEF, La Raza, and LULAC, would be manning the barricades and running to the nearest press microphone if the groups suffering the questionable probing by the IRS were of a more liberal philosophy.

I believe there are two reasons we are hearing, in the words of Simon and Garfunkel, 'the sounds of silence' from these progressive Latinos: [1] the concept of Tio Taco (i.e. the Latino version of the African American Uncle Tom) and [2] hypocrisy of the Left when it comes to tolerating any views but their own.

For many Latinos, especially those who have enjoyed the benefits of a college education, look at any of their fellow Latinos who believe in the basic values of the larger society as traitors to 'la raza'. They view Latinos who believe in the promise and potential of free enterprise as people who are poor, deluded individuals who have sold out to the 'gringo' in order to be welcomed by the larger society at the expense of their membership in the Latino community. Examples of this would be: Alberto Gonzales, US Attorney General(the first Latino to hold that office)under President George W. Bush and Marco Rubio, Republican Senator from Florida, and Ted Cruz, Senator from Texas. They are vilified by the enlightened Progressive Latinos and rest of the Left. Their achievements are minimized and mocked while others like Sonia Sotomayor are honored for their achievements because they hold the 'right' political views.

This attitude also a symptom of the hypocrisy of Progressive Latinos. This attitude reflects that it is okay to hold any political view or speak out for your beliefs as long as those beliefs reflect those of the so-called Progressives. If a Latino holds a view that is anathema to what a 'real Latino' should hold, you can bet that Progressive Latinos will rush to NOT defend your rights or speak out for your fair and equitable treatment.

It is hard to see what the greater scandal here is: the seemingly unlawful treatment of conservative Latino groups by the IRS or the unfair abandonment of these groups by a hypocritical Latino Left.

By Being Latino Contributor, Jeffery Cassity Jeffery Cassity is a mostly socially-liberal, fiscally-conservative Anglo male who is involved in his local Hispanic community as the widower of a 1st generation Mexican-American woman and his active, some would say hyperactive, membership in the local Council of the League of Latin American Citizens(LULAC)

Language Accomodation on the Job: When is Enough, Enough?

A dozen Spanish-speaking custodial workers at the Auraria Higher Education Center in Denver have filed formal grievances with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission(EEOC) against their employer claiming that the school is practicing national origin discrimination because their employer has failed to communicate with them in their native language resulting in unfair working conditions.

Workers who first language is not English often have problems on the job communicating with their supervisors. Over the past few decades, state and federal regulations and laws have been created to deal with these issues. The standard which has developed in EEOC cases is that communications dealing directly with work assignments, safety issues and operational procedures must be done in the worker's primary language.

The issue at Auraria Higher Education Center resulted from what the employees feel is the lack of primary language communication from their employer on issues involving layoffs, transfers and resulting pay losses. The group of custodial workers felt that the Center should provide details of these layoffs in written form in Spanish like other similar institutions in Colorado and not merely rely on translators from the Human Resources Department at the institution.

The group of workers prior to filing their federal action did take the Center to arbitration at the state level. The decision there was that the Center had fulfilled its obligations in the particular circumstance. The group disagreed with this decision and retained counsel to file the federal case.

While it would certainly be respectful of these employees for the Center to be more willing to provide information in all circumstances to them in the primary language, it is not their legal obligation to do so. The standard is 'reasonable accommodation' not 'if this were a perfect world'. Employers must as matter of respect and good conscience and moral responsibility provide employees whose primary language is not English with information that directly affects the health and safety of those employees in their primary language. Common sense dictates this. In other circumstances, the availability of translators should suffice. This standard is the same one used by law in school districts across the country in communications between districts and the parents of their students whose first language is not English.

The situation at Auraria Higher Education Center seems to me to be more of an attorney attempting to use the dozen custodial employees to line his own pocket than in representing his clients' interests.

By Being Latino Contributor, Jeffery Cassity Jeffery Cassity is a mostly socially-liberal, fiscally-conservative Anglo male who is involved in his local Hispanic community as the widower of a 1st generation Mexican-American woman and his active, some would say hyperactive, membership in the local Council of the League of Latin American Citizens(LULAC)

The LIBRE Initiative: Hope for Economic Prosperity?!

The publishing last month by the Urban Institute of its latest report, Less Than Equal: Racial Disparities in Wealth Distribution and an email sent out by Daniel Garza, Jr. of the LIBRE Initiative welcoming the report and its conclusions. This prompted me to go and look on the Being Latino! website to see what it had to say about what economic opportunity and freedom should mean to Latinos. As anyone who reads the website faithfully can tell you, it told a sad tale that can be summarized as 'blame big business and white fat-cat businessmen for continuing to marginalize Latinos and other minority groups.

Going back to an article published last year, an unnamed contributor took Mr. Garza to task for being naive enough to trust in the mechanics of what he or she saw as an unfair system that merely promises equal opportunity but not necessarily equal result. The writer also chided Mr. Garza for being against government regulation to make sure that a fair field of play exists for everyone. The writer, whomever he or she is, should either (A)read and reviewed the LIBRE Initiative's website and/or (B)presented those positions honestly.

We should all read the newly released report from a non-partisan think tank originally envisioned by President Lyndon Johnson of the Great Society fame and the intellectual cream of the golden age of JFK's Camel ot and look hard at its conclusion: “...it raises the question of whether social welfare policies paytoo little attention to wealth building and mobility relative to consumption and income.

Because Hispanics and blacks are disproportionately low income, their wealth building is strongly affected by policies aimed at low-income families. Right now, safety net policies emphasize consumption: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, for example, try to ensure that families haveenough food to eat and other basic necessities.
Many safety net programs even discouragesaving: families can become ineligible if they have a few thousand dollars in savings. Wealth-building policies, on the other hand, are delivered as tax subsidies for homeownership and retirement. Since families of color are less likely to be able to use these subsidies, they benefit little or not at all .”

That is right, gentle reader! Your eyes are not deceiving you. The reforms that Mr. Garza and the LIBRE Initiative are calling for regarding federal spending policy and federal regulations are exactly those suggested by the Urban Institute, a child of the liberal Great Society movement. Those so-called liberals and progressives who even today are calling for more federal regulation of business and the creation of a larger federal nanny state are actually the ones who are leading the charge to continue to trap millions and millions of poor Americans, many of them Latinos, in a never-ending cycle of poverty and increased gap in wealth accumulation.

By Being Latino Contributor, Jeffery Cassity Jeffery Cassity is a mostly socially-liberal, fiscally-conservative Anglo male who is involved in his local Hispanic community as the widower of a 1st generation Mexican-American woman and his active, some would say hyperactive, membership in the local Council of the League of Latin American Citizens(LULAC).

Final Decision on Deferred Action Lawsuit Deferred

The Obama Administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals which was announced by the Department of Homeland Security in June 2012 will probably not survive its first year of existence.

 

US District Court Judge Reed O'Connor ruled on April 23^rd in the US Court for the Northern District of Texas in Dallas in a lawsuit brought by federal immigration agents that “the court finds that DHS does not have discretion to refuse to initiate removal proceedings when the requirements for deportation under a federal statute are met”.

Judge O'Connor stayed any order for implementation of his ruling until at least May 6^th when the parties to the lawsuit {Crane v. Napolitano, 3:12-CV-03247, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas (Dallas)}further briefs on granting a temporary restraining order against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and the Obama Administration are due.

The Deferrred Action for Childhood Arrivals(DACA) is a program developed by the Obama Administration to do an end-run the inability of Congress to pass DREAM Act legislation which would allow the undocumented, foreign born children of undocumented parents to obtain a path citizenship. DACA requirements include: that they were under the age of 31 as of June 15,2012; they came to the United States prior to the 16^th birthday; they were physically present in the US on June 15, 2012 and at the time of making their request to USCIS; they entered the US without documents prior to June 15, 2012 or their lawful immigration status expired prior to that date; they must be currently enrolled in school or have a high school diploma or GED or an honorable discharge from the US Armed Forces including the Coast Guard; and have no felony convictions, significant misdemeanor conviction or more than two minor misdemeanors as well as not posing a threat to national security or public safety.

Judge O'Connor indicated in his ruling that DHS has to prove in the additional filings he requested that it has the prosecutorial discretion as it claims in its initial brief because the Court's ruling is that the Department does not have such discretion based on current federal immigration statute. Unless the Department is able to convince the Judge otherwise at the scheduled May 6^th hearing, it is likely that the plaintiffs will receive their temporary injunction which will prevent DHS from accepting any new DACA claims or processing existing ones as well as forcing DHS to continue deportation hearings against those individuals it has suspended proceedings against since DACA went into effect.

If Judge O'Connor does issue the injunction in this case and the Obama Administration refuses to abide by it while it is under appeal, the Administration faces the possibility that the fragile framework for comprehensive immigration reform will collapse like a house of cards. The tentative moves that have been seen in the Congress will cease.

I will be keeping a close eye on what happens in Judge O'Connor's courtroom and report back to Being Latino readers!

By Being Latino Contributor, Jeffery Cassity    Jeffery Cassity is a mostly socially-liberal, fiscally-conservative Anglo male who is involved in his local Hispanic community as the widower of a 1st generation Mexican-American woman and his active, some would say hyperactive, membership in the local Council of the League of Latin American Citizens(LULAC).

EQUALITY: DOES IT MEAN OPPORTUNITY OR OUTCOME?

An item posted on Facebook caused me to take a step back and think about a question, two questions actually, which has been in the back of my mind for a long time: the classic Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s, 1960s and into the 1970s was concerned with creating equal opportunity for all Americans regardless of race and color. Martin Luther King's “I Have a Dream” speech talks to the proposition that “my four little children will someday live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”. The particular posting on Facebook talked about a study which showed the 'inequality' of income along the various subway lines of New York City and how that 'inequality' was growing, creating an unfair and wrong situation in the eyes of the person posting the item.

The questions for me were these: for equality to exist in America for Latinos, does the outcome for them as a group require that the group outcome be one of affluence for all or is the traditional idea of equal opportunity alone enough? and if the goal is equal affluence not just opportunity, how would this be achieved?

Raising these questions set off a minor firestorm of personally aimed attacks by several Facebook acquaintances which ranged from claims that I was naive and uninformed to suggestions that I have hatred for the poor and/or minority groups for raising such questions. There was even a question of why I write for Being Latino! if I would ask the questions I asked. They wanted to portray me as a conservative white-boy who is ignorant and probably racist.

It was easy enough for me to counter these critics. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and am extremely well-read in History and Economics; my late wife was a 1^st generation Mexican-American; and I am an active member and past local Council President of the League of Latin American Citizens(LULAC). I have an excellent track record in advocating for my local Latino community and have been honored for my work with LULAC.

What interested me was that no one attempted to answer my questions on how a more equitable income situation could be reached short of setting government-mandated minimum and maximum income and wealth levels along with confiscation of any 'excess' for redistribution to those who don't have what is deemed an equitable level.

I know that it is easier to curse the evils of the capitalist system than it is to offer ideas for reform, and it is easier to go after those that ask uncomfortable questions than to answer them; but, one would hope that those who deem themselves progressive would be able to offer thoughtful ideas and not act like the evil, uncaring people that they supposedly oppose and they would accuse me of being.

The attitudes I encountered reflect the 'something for nothing' expectations of so-called progressives of today and not the original goal and expectations of the early leaders and members of the Civil Rights Movement, men and women who were looking for an equal playing field of opportunity not some pseudo-socialist handouts or mooching off the work of others. In corrupting the honor and goals of those who came before them, they dishonor the memory of the efforts of their forebears and do a disservice to those in the present they claim to want to help.

By Being Latino Contributor, Jeffery Cassity Jeffery Cassity is a mostly socially-liberal, fiscally-conservative Anglo male who is involved in his local Hispanic community as the widower of a 1st generation Mexican-American woman and his active, some would say hyperactive, membership in the local Council of the League of Latin American Citizens(LULAC).