Recently I wrote of “Witch Hunt Politics.” And Joe Biden pilloried for a head kiss. Now, “Latinx Humanists Call for Action after Tom Brokaw’s Racist Comments” is a headline in Free Mind, published by the American Humanist Association.
First, “Latinx” is apparently a new politically correct gender-neutral replacement for “Latina” or “Latino.” I recall how first you were supposed to say not “colored people” but “Negro.” Then “black,” then “African-American,” then “people of color” (a strange throwback to “colored people”). It’s hard to stay correct. But isn’t that precisely the point? To wrongfoot as many people as possible.
That’s it — called “racist” and “unacceptable.” One advocate is quoted saying it reflects “ignorance of the struggles and accomplishments of the Latinx community.” The article goes on, “Brokaw’s inaccurate comments come despite the fact that for generations there have been aggressive efforts by both educators and parents to ensure more and more of the next generation are English speakers . . . Brokaw’s comments are indicative of xenophobia at play when immigration is only seen as valuable if immigrants ‘assimilate’ and speak English. English is no more American than other languages.”
Wait, what? How does this gibe? First they condemn Brokaw for urging that all Hispanic kids learn English. Then they indignantly insist they’re already doing that. Then they deplore the idea of it.
And Brokaw nowhere implied that immigration is only “valuable” if people assimilate. To the contrary, his comment bespeaks supportiveness for immigrants. This “xenophobia” charge says more about the mind of the article’s (unnamed) author than Brokaw’s.
The piece ends by quoting a Latinx advocate that Brokaw’s apology (itself never quoted in the article!) “was shallow and failed to acknowledge the inappropriate content and inherent racism of his remarks . . . his statements were factually incorrect and unsupported by data.”
It is indeed the attack on Brokaw that is factually incorrect. Throwing around words like “racism” and “xenophobia” like this is disgraceful. It’s the culture of Taking Offense, torturing someone’s words to somehow squeeze from them something to exploit for high dudgeon. Political correctness run amok. Many on the left talk universalism and brotherhood yet quickly demonize people for any deviation from their purity code. It’s really the age-old “us-against-them” syndrome; a tool for people to indulge in sanctimonious smugness, demonizing as many others as possible, to make the virtue zone they imagine themselves inhabiting as rarefied and exclusive as possible.
David Brooks’s latest column laments our era of “culture war, class warfare and identity politics;” of “call-out culture” and “tribal grandstanding.” That exactly characterizes this Free Mind article.
It’s especially absurdist to gin up such a contorted attack on a person like Brokaw when Nazis march with torches chanting “Jews will not replace us” and the president sees “very fine people on both sides.” Absurdist to tear down a decent man like Biden for gestures of support and encouragement to women when Pussygrabber sits with impunity in the White House.
I call myself a humanist. Free Mind’s article is a travesty of those rationalist values. When even a humanist publication betrays them like this, the country has gone nuts.
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