CNN has a journalistic obligation to dump Lou Dobbs and his campaign of hate against immigrants.
It is unthinkable that a major network would permit someone to build a career based on fear and hatred of human beings.Why the double standard when it comes to immigrants?
As Janet Murguia, the President and CEO of the National Council of La Raza pointed out yesterday in her Huffington Post blog, http://bit.ly/Mk0ez, Dobbs disgarded any sense of journalistic objectivity or integrity (assuming he had any to begin with) when he openly participated in an anti-immigrant rally in Washington, DC sponsored by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an organization designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a hate group. According to SPLC:
·FAIR was founded by John Tanton, who also operates a racist publishing company and has compared immigrants to “bacteria.”
·FAIR has employed members of white supremacist groups in key positions.
·FAIR has promoted racist conspiracy theories.
·FAIR has accepted more than $1 million from the Pioneer Fund, a foundation devoted to eugenics and to proving a connection between race and IQ.
·FAIR president Dan Stein once suggested that Asians and Hispanics were engaged in “competitive breeding.”
Of course Dobbs’ recent display of hate mongering is just his most recent in a long line of abuse including, as Murguia points out in her blog,
·His regular use of guests representing hate groups, vigilantes, and nativists as experts on immigration
·His relentless repetition of stories on immigrants and crime that project an impression far from reality
·His association of immigrants as carriers of disease that has been both inaccurate and pejorative
Enough is enough.
If CNN is serious about responsible broadcast journalism it must put an end to Lou Dobbs’ hateful tirade once and for all.
The only thing that will get Lou Dobbs off the air is the threat of an advertiser boycott, of the same kind that removed Don Imus from TV (at least for a while) for only one offensive racial comment, for which he promptly apologized. This is in contrast to Dobbs' ongoing career of hate, of which he is so proud.
I cannot understand why Latinos, Asians and other minority immigrants, as well as their supporters, remain so passive in the face of this outrage. Nor can I understand why liberal comentators such as MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, who cannot be accused of being timid on other issues, seem to be shying away from the issue of immigrant rights.
This is not to mention our president and Homeland Security chief, whose current obsession with "enforcement only" is straight out of the Lou Dobbs playbook. What is needed are more calls to CNN and the White House – a few million of them.
AILA and AILF should also rethink their strategy of trying to counter lies and hate only with facts. This will not work any better than it did in the early stages of the health care reform debate. It was only when the pro-reform side started calling reform opponents out on their lies and lunacy that the tide started to turn back in favor of changing the system.
Immigration supporters have the most powerful argument of all on their side, namely that America is a nation of immigrants, not racists and bigots. We need to make this heard much more loudly and clearly than we are doing now. Nor can immigrants themselves, whatever their status or lack of it, continue to sit on the sidelines and wait to see the final score come in. The result will not be in their favor unless they speak out.
Roger Algase
Attorney at Law
New York NY