Enough with the Racist Discourse
We can't accept attacks like Laura Ingraham's
Laura Ingraham and José Díaz-Balart. Crédito: Getty Images
The United States is a mixed, plural and diverse country. However, for many, the myth of a white Anglo-Saxon country still occupies the larger part of a xenophobic and racist discourse that does not reflect the reality of a nation created by the work, intelligence and effort of so many from so many places.
One example is radio commentator Laura Ingraham. Last week, she made fun of journalist José Díaz-Balart and of María Cruz-Ramírez, a Hispanic mother of three “dreamers” whom he was interviewing. Although we know Díaz-Balart as a newscaster for Telemundo, the segment was being made in English for MSNBC.
Ingraham, who is against immigration reform and calls it “amnesty” straight up, began by expressing surprise at the fact that Díaz-Balart has an “actual” TV show, laughed at the Cuban-American calling Ramírez’s three children “Dreamers;” called the English translation the journalist did of the immigrant’s words “painful,” and ended by criticizing Díaz-Balart for pronouncing María Cruz Ramírez’s name correctly in Spanish and not with an English accent ? a choice Ingraham found “irritating.”
Ingraham’s diatribe is xenophobic and ignorant. She despises a mother who is trying to help her children move forward in this country despite not speaking English, and it bothers her that someone may switch from one language to another in the same conversation. That is the way thousands of people understood it and, in the last few days, they turned #IamBilingual into a trending topic on Twitter. They did so in order to criticize the Connecticut radio host and in support of Díaz-Balart, the Florida-born Cuban-American who is the brother of two Republicans who made it to the U.S. Congress.
However, criticism in social media and other outlets did not go much further. Last Sunday, Ingraham participated in the political debate program “This Week” on ABC, where she collaborates. ABC is also a company that likes to brags about its diverse programming and which is allied with Univisión, sharing the Fusion network as well as hosts and collaborators.
Yesterday, Ingraham picked up the topic in her radio show saying that she is in favor of bilingualism. She said that the doors of her program are open for Díaz-Balart, but she did not apologize and continued with her anti-immigrant discourse. Maybe mocking the way 52 million Hispanics living in this country speak does not represent a problem at all. Would the same thing have happened if Ingraham had made fun of any other minority’s accent?
