Rush Limbaugh appeared on Fox News this week and insulted Los Angeles’ Hispanic mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Limbaugh said the first time he saw Mayor Villaraigosa he thought the Latino was a “Shoe Shine Boy.” He was shocked to learn this Latino held such a high office and was, in fact, the Mayor of Los Angeles. Limbaugh repeated the same comment yesterday on his show.
I guess we should not be surprised by any outrageous, sexist or racist statements Limbaugh makes. As a reminder, some of Rush´s famous quotes include:
Barack Obama a “Magic Negro.”
“I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark
.
- We’re not sexists, we’re chauvinists — we’re male chauvinist pigs, and we’re happy to be because we think that’s what men were destined to be. We think that’s what women want.
Limbaugh has made numerous outrageous remarks. These media zealots! They make a mockery of all Journalists.
Today, Penn Jillette was on Morning Joe. He joked and called Hillary the B word. Why are misogynistic insults ok? Why are racist terms ok? Have we degenerated to such low levels of communication that we view them all as ok? Are Sad Times Ahead?
Interesting comments on Immigration talk with a Mexican American Blog
Mario Solis-Marich is a radio talk show host who also had an excellent rejoinder to Limbaugh’s racist rants.
I say this so that you can understand that my reaction to Rush Limbaugh’s comment that he mistook Mayor Villaraigosa as a “shoeshine guy” is not a knee-jerk reaction based on partisanship. It is a reaction as an American of Latino decent that quite frankly is tired of the media’s Latino rules.
As a member of the largest minority ethnic group and a member of the media, I am continually puzzled and outraged by the idea that anyone can say anything about Latinos without fearing any consequence. While it would be out outrageous for anybody to have said a similar thing about an elected official of almost any other ethnicity, Rush will certainly not receive any heat at all for supposedly “mistaking” the Latino Mayor of the nation’s second largest city as a shoeshine guy.
There will be no national debate about whether he should step down as there was when Imus referred to a women’s basketball team in a derogatory fashion. There will be no national outrage like there was following the racist vocal vomiting of “comedian” Michael Richards. There will be no slam down and painful lame excuses like those offered by Mel Gibson after his anti-Semitic comments. The rules for Latinos are different.
Rush, Lou Dobbs, and a host of shock jocks are well aware of this different set of rules. Dobbs & Rush inc. can freely accuse Latinos of spreading Leprosy and TB, of raping children, and even planning the violent overthrow of the US, without any proof whatsoever.
While the silence around these comments is consistent, media heads are wrong to believe that they bring no negative impact. Someday, CNN will understand that most Latinos laugh when we hear the slogan ” the most trusted name in news”. Radio advertisers will eventually come to the realization that there is a correlation between radio market share loss, the growth of Latino populations in certain and important markets, and anti-Latino hate speech dominating the airwaves.
And as always, you can read the rest of Mario’s excellent discourse at Nuestra Voice. That’s “OUR VOICE” in Spanish for those of you without a brain, which is the majority who idolize Limbaugh and the rest of the right wing looney toons.
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