Amid swine flu outbreak, racism goes viral - Anti-immigrant hatred spreads on talk radio, Web sites

[Liberal_in_LA]

Source: MSNBC

“No contact anywhere with an illegal alien!” conservative talk show host Michael Savage advised his U.S. listeners this week on how to avoid the swine flu. “And that starts in the restaurants" where he said, you “don’t know if they wipe their behinds with their hands!”

And Thursday, Boston talk radio host Jay Severin was suspended after calling Mexican immigrants "criminalians" during a discussion of swine flu and saying that emergency rooms had become "essentially condos for Mexicans."

That’s tepid compared to some of the xenophobic reactions spreading like an emerging virus across the Internet. “This disgusting blight is because MEXICANS ARE PIGS!” an anonymous poster ranted on the “prison planet” forum, part of radio host and columnist Alex Jones’ Web site.

There is even talk of conspiracy. Savage speculated that terrorists are using Mexican immigrants as walking germ warfare weapons. “It would be easy,” he said, “to bring an altered virus into Mexico, put it in the general population, and have them march across the border.”

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“Our people are calling us and they are concerned,” said Florencia Velasco Fortner, chief executive officer of Dallas Consilio of Hispanic Organizations, an umbrella of affiliated service groups. “Even our staff members are starting to get a little discouraged. There was anti-immigrant sentiment prior to this and this adds fuel to the fire.”

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30467300/

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wow. I've been avoiding talk radio lately. Didn't realize it was getting this bad. :-(

[BlooInBloo]

1. (shrug) They own the obsolete medium.

[Faygo Kid]

2. Poor Michael Savage. No friends, except his dog.

He has no one in his life, despite his wealth.

A pathetic and lonely figure (hello, Rush).

[zazen]

3. jeez--and we knew it was coming. Can't have economic meltdown w/o a scapegoat.

And there just aren't enough identifiable Muslims around to persecute. You've got to have the scapegoated group in your lives regularly enough to exploit opportunities for "otherizing." Not every day, so you don't have to be too accountable, but not so rarely that you can rev up your hate.

The demagogues will love it. It's not the good ol' American financiers who've done this. It's those damned Mexicans, stealing our jobs and lowering working wages, messing up our schools, stealing our healthcare, getting DWIs (they do get a disproportionate number here, but I think that's cause they're targeted), battering their women, marrying 15-year-olds, and all of that funny labeling to our products.

The sad thing about our racial progress is that, humans being what they are, the white supremacists will simply transfer their hate from African Americans to Mexicans, and pat themselves on the back for how generous and non-discriminating they are to their Black brethren. Hell. Now they can be, with a much more vulnerable group to beat up.

[primavera]

5. You hit the nail on the head - n/t

[AllentownJake]

4. That's ok in Skukyll County PA its ok to beat Mexicans to death

You'll have a trial but the Jury will nullify.

[marshall]

6. It's not about race or ethnicity, it's about health care

WHO has realized that the same thing that is killing people so easily down in Mexico is easily controlled here. Doctors in Mexico have no supplies and are not equipped to handle this.

[Lyric]

7. "This is RTLM, Hutu power radio. Stay alert. Watch your neighbors."

[Butch350]

8. Hey why don't we just shoot-em as they cross the border...

better yet, let's round up the mexican population and put them in internment camps til this thing is over!

( BIG SARCASM ALERT )

[bullwinkle428]

9. Michael Savage is racist? What's next..."sun rises in east" in LBN forum?

:P

[UTUSN]

10. K&R #1 n/t