November 12, 2009

The Weekly Diaspora: Deporting Dobbs

Posted by Nezua at 11:17AM

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(From The Media Consortium)

After 30 years, commentator Lou Dobbs -- infamous for his tirades against undocumented immigrants -- has left CNN, as TPM reports. Dobbs employed disturbing, dangerous and dated language to slur immigrants, often equating them with disease and infection. There is a connection between this type of demagoguery and violence.

Clearly, the organizing efforts of groups like Basta Dobbs have borne fruit, as even Dobbs admits. GRITtv recently covered the "way the mainstream media equates 'Latino' with 'immigrant'" and Latino organizing efforts to correct this perspective.

"Over the past six months, it's become increasingly clear that strong winds of change have begun buffeting this country, and affecting all of us," Dobbs said in his last live broadcast for CNN. Other commentators belonging to the old school of racist separatism ought take note. It's a new day in the U.S.

Much like the ideological frames that Dobbs was fond of, our current immigration policies wrongly mark some citizens as harmful so that others can "benefit." This week, ABM Industries in Minneapolis worked with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to execute a silent raid similar to September's raid on American Apparel. In the case of ABM, 1,250 janitors were fired in an economy where massive job loss further harms struggling communities.

Read more.