This is an interesting story.
By Roberto Lovato
July 3, 2008
I was in Washington cafe yesterday when hecklers from Code Pink interrupted Sen. John McCain no less than 3 times during a major speech to Latino voters and elected officials. Shortly after the event, several protesters marched triumphantly into the coffee shop I was sitting in on “P” Street after they stole the media thunder of the event organizers, the Nation Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO). NALEO was trying to highlight Latino voting power and unprecedented participation in this year’s elections.
Despite NALEO’s attempts to let the media know that it was the white women and not members of their organization, many of the mainstream media basically reported as if Latinos had dissed the GOP candidate. While many, if not most, of us do, in fact, find McCain and other warmongers more than worthy of attack for their seemingly infinite ability and desire to send other, mostly poor people’s children to kill and die in war, we should prioritize accuracy and fairness.
Yet, while I find Code White…..I mean Code Pink as problematic as other “progressive” organizations when it comes to issues of race and inclusion, I must say that watching and listening to the middle class white women-and not the working and middle class Latinos in the audience-yell in garbled Spanish, “Ya basta con la matanza” (Stop the Killing) as they denounced the war and its supporters inspired a rather odd mix of bother and shame; It reminded me of something I’ve been wanting to talk about for some time: How NONE of the national Latino organizations in the U.S. have come out against the war. NONE.
Though I have longtime friends and colleagues at most of them, it saddens me to report that, to date, none of the major Latino organizations-NALEO, LULAC, National Council of La Raza (NCLR), MALDEF, Southwest Voter Registration (leaders of SVREP have, however, taken positions) have come out against the Iraq war.
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