Guest Column
- Race-Baiting Republicans at It Again
- May 30, 2005
By Robert Miranda
The Republican Party is seeking political leverage within the Latino community; the Grand Old Party (GOP) has Hispanics advising them about the politics in the Latino community. One of these Hispanics is Perfecto Rivera, a staunch Republican business man who is chairman of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Wisconsin. The GOP, also known as the Republican Party, has groups that advocate for their political agenda. Groups like the highly conservative Hispanic Heritage Council and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce have been working closely with Republicans for some time.
The GOP is working feverishly to win over Hispanic voters. One would think that because the Republican Party is seeking to make political inroads into the Latino community, any effort to attack Latino immigrants would be stymied by the influence and political networking of these so-called “Hispanics.”
But this does not appear to be the case. Indeed, an ad produced by the group “Coalition for America’s Families”, an anti-tax organization with Republican Party links, found a “Hispanic” actress to denounce illegal immigrants. With this new advertisement, it’s safe to say that the GOP has become a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” operating in our community.
The “Coalition for America’s Families” ad features a Hispanic legal immigrant, she is also an actress. She looks into the television camera and in her best broken English talks about how she is fed up with Governor Doyle raising fees and taxes so that illegals can attend college at lower tuition rates.
This Hispanic actress then looks into the camera and talks about how she followed the rules to become a citizen. She talks about how she worked hard to save money so that her child can be the first one in their family to attend college. She ends the commercial by saying that we shouldn’t be paying taxes to fund illegal aliens.
This race-baiting action orchestrated by this right-wing group is another example of the hypocrisy of the Republican Party. Hispanic Republicans on the other hand seem to be showing their loyalty to the GOP by attacking Latino immigrants. Are they doing this to show how patriotic they are?
Indeed, what better way to hide racist hate-mongering sentiments—put a brown faced woman with broken English on television to promote anti-immigrant sentiments—while at the same time demonstrating GOP willingness to embrace diversity by having her featured on the ad. The ultimate message from the GOP: “Yeah, we’ll embrace diversity as long as you do our racist dirty work for us.” Much to the delight of the Republican Party, the message will also attract right-wing anti-tax groups filled with rabid antiquated notions of immigrants and what should be done with them.
This racist campaign once again attacks people, who like many Europeans who arrived in this country illegally in the 1500s, 1600s, 1700s and 1800s, and 1900s simply want to live a decent way of life.
The Republican Party wants to promote race-baiting issues. They want Hispanics to attack Hispanics. They want people to turn on each other, and they call that patriotic. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, while the “Coalition for America’s Families” focuses on beating up on Governor Doyle for helping the undocumented afford some education, the Republican Party was busy defunding child care and job training in our state W2 program. And privatization is running amuck in Milwaukee Public Schools. A recent news report in Milwaukee exposed how tutoring companies contracting with MPS is fleecing valuable dollars from education. They even showed how one tutor is making over $390.00 an hour tutoring only four students.
But then again, it makes for better right-wing politics when attacking an ethnic community, nothing stirs up Wisconsin’s Republican voters more than racist propaganda.
-- Miranda is a national award-winning columnist, Latino community activist and columnist for the Milwaukee Spanish Journal.- http://wisopinion.com/index.iml?mdl=article.mdl&article=1981
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- BY THE MILWAUKEE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
- Passed by Membership, May 23, 2005
- Whereas, the Coalition for America’s Families has launched a TV ad on the issue of in-state tuition eligibility for undocumented residents; and
- Whereas, this ad refers repeatedly to “illegal aliens” with a racist tone; and
- Whereas, the ad incorrectly states that the cost of providing in-state tuition eligibility is $368 million; and
- Whereas, this ad serves to divide our community and attacks children based on their parents’ citizenship; and
- Whereas, in-state tuition eligibility for undocumented residents saves the state money by providing educational opportunity to qualified young people; therefore
- Be It Resolved, that the Democratic Party of Milwaukee County condemns the Coalition for America’s Families and the Republican Party for this television advertisement and demands its immediate removal from our public airwaves; and
- Be It Resolved, that the Democratic Party of Milwaukee County looks forward to seeing Republican condemnation of this ad as the race-baiting, divisive ad it is.
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