Racist politicization of a pandemic

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) on Tuesday in a telephone town hall with constituents said he was concerned that Hispanics make up a high percentage of COVID-19 cases in his state, and then attributed this to Hispanics not wearing masks and not socially distancing as much as the rest of the population.

"Just wear the mask out of respect. And I will tell you, I'm not a scientist and I'm not a statistician, but one of the concerns that we've had more recently is that the Hispanic population now constitutes about 44 percent of the positive cases," said Tillis, according to a recording of the town hall.

"And we do have some concerns that in the Hispanic population we've seen less consistent adherence to social distancing and wearing a mask," added Tillis, who faces a competitive reelection race this fall that will help determine the next Senate majority.

[...]

But Hispanics, Blacks and Asian Americans have collectively been more likely than whites to wear masks and consider it important that members of their communities wear masks, according to research by the Pew Research Center.

In a June survey, Pew found that 89 percent of Asian Americans reported wearing a mask in stores some of the time, as did 87 percent of Hispanics, 86 percent of Black respondents, and 78 percent of whites.

A separate Pew survey later in June showed 63 percent of Hispanics think people should wear masks whenever in public or near others, compared to 61 percent of Black respondents and 41 percent of white respondents.

That's despite the fact that Black, Asian and Hispanic respondents were more likely than white respondents to say they were wary of wearing masks for fear of seeming suspicious to others.

[...]

Nationwide, Hispanics have been disproportionately affected by the virus, in large part because Hispanics are more likely to work in industries such as construction, health care and food supply.

  The Hill

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Super Bowl half-time show

Probably Michael, most men, old people, and pearl-clutching "Christians" were too focused on the dancing derrieres, eh?

Here's another chance:

A madman and his mindless supporters

Trump in New Mexico...



WTF?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

They can't even pay a native Spanish speaker?

Using Google to translate English text into Spanish is a trick used by high school students to avoid doing their Spanish homework — not something you’d expect to see from candidates for the highest office in the land.

Yet several Democratic White House hopefuls appear to be doing precisely that. They’re posting passages in Spanish on their websites that bear striking similarities to the output from Google’s translation service, appearing to perform only minor cleanup before publishing the copy on their sites.

  Politico

That's inexcusable. It would be better not to have a Spanish version.

The website of Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, posted shortly after her Feb. 20 announcement, addresses her mother using a masculine adjective. Sen. Kamala Harris at one point wrote that she had “wasted” her life defending American democracy. And Julián Castro’s website extolls the possibility of building an “América” that works for everyone, seemingly not realizing that he’s making promises about the entire American continent.

Pathetic. And surely Julián Castro should have access to a native speaker.

The Spanish-language sites represent an effort by the Democratic candidates to court the burgeoning Latino electorate, estimated at 27 million by Voto Latino, a group that works to register Latino voters. But good intentions aside, the errors risk producing the opposite effect, prompting Spanish speakers to question how seriously the candidates are taking them if they can’t even get basic English-to-Spanish translation right.

Bingo.

Three candidates, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang and John Delaney, earned failing grades for not having Spanish websites at all, while Beto O’Rourke’s and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ websites were incomplete.

Better than being wrong.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Escalating Gestapo techniques

Hispanic U.S. citizens, some of whom were in the U.S. military, are not being allowed to renew their passports. This is reportedly happening to “hundreds, even thousands” of Latinos, according to a report in the Washington Post. They’re getting letters from the State Department saying it does not believe they are citizens. The government claims their citizenships are fraudulent. “I’ve had probably 20 people who have been sent to the detention center—U.S. citizens,” Jaime Diez, an attorney in Brownsville, told The Washington Post.

The Washington Post also reports on ICE officials coming to citizens' homes and taking their passports away. This is an escalation from a few months ago, when Americans were detained by ICE officials just for speaking Spanish to one another.

[...]

Fraud in these cases is exceedingly rare. The last time the government tried to strip people of their citizenship was, according to Columbia Professor Mae Ngai, during The Red Scare of the 1950s.

[...]

Fans of Trump will claim these measures are just about sending people back to their homelands, and therefore, getting people who did not belong in America out. Well, what do you think the holocaust was about? Jews were not considered citizens.

Franz Rademacher, head of the German Foreign Office’s “Jewish desk” in the 1940s, claimed that the main goal was “All Jews Out of Europe.” Nazis proposed a lot of deportation solutions—most notably, transporting all Jews to Madagascar—before concluding that one way to get an unwanted population out was just to kill them.

[...]

The steps that lead up to genocide, besides stripping minorities of their citizenship, are about “othering” a population enough that the strife they experience is not seen as akin to anything we might experience. It’s what allows people like Tucker Carlson to see children in internment camps and say that anyone who is horrified is part of a “ruling class” who “cares more about foreigners than their own people.”

[...]

If you think it can’t get worse, remember that we’re already at a place where we’re drugging children.

[...]

I can’t tell you what actions you should take, because I don’t know what talents you have at your disposal. Do you have legal skills to help people who may be threatened by these new changes? Use them. Can you write about what’s going on? Write about it. Do you have a church or place or worship to help organize refuge for the persecuted? Do so. Do you have time to call your senators and congressmen? Call. Keep calling. Make them hear you.

  Harper's Bazaar

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Oh, For Crying Out Loud

Donald Trump will on Friday announce new restrictions on trade and travel to Cuba on Friday, but will not entirely reverse Barack Obama’s 2015 rapprochement with Havana.

Diplomatic relations will remain, and so will commercial flights, but travel to Cuba will be more tightly monitored and business will face restrictions aimed at ensuring that Cuban military and intelligence organisations do not benefit.

[...]

Trump will declare the new policy in Miami, at the heart of the Cuban exile community in Little Havana, fulfilling an election campaign promise.

  Guardian

So that's one. But it's benefiting the American Latin community, so there's that.

Officials briefing journalists about the new policy were asked why human rights concerns had led to punitive measures in Cuba’s case but were not playing a role in the administration’s policy to other notable human rights offenders, like the Philippines and Saudi Arabia. One official said the difference was that Trump had specifically promised to take action on Cuba to a rally of the Cuban diaspora last year in Florida, a state which Trump won.

Bingo. Sometimes they don't realize they're being honest.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Some, I Assume, Are Legal and Voting

The percentage of eligible Latino voters who turn out to cast ballots typically isn't as high as other demographics, but early voting data in three key battleground states suggest that could be changing in the 2016 race. So far, Latino voting in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina is significantly up from 2012, according to Catalist, a data company that works with progressive candidates and groups to receive detailed early vote return information this year.

[...]

[In Florida] At this point in 2008, 260,263 Latino voters, or 9.6% of the electorate, voted early. So far in 2016, that number has grown to 596,146, or 14.1% of all early ballots cast.

[...]

CNN looked at data from 2008 because it doesn't have comparable data from 2012.

[...]

In terms of raw numbers, Hispanic early turnout has increased 129% from 2008. Their turnout numbers increased at a faster rate than white and black voters.

[...]

[In Georgia] At this point in 2012, 12,933 Latinos, or 0.9% of early voters, cast early ballots. In 2016, that number has increased to more than double at 31,623 people, or 1.7% of all voters who cast their ballot early.

[...]

At this point in 2012, 12,933 Latinos, or 0.9% of early voters, cast early ballots. In 2016, that number has increased to more than double at 31,623 people, or 1.7% of all voters who cast their ballot early.

[...]

[In North Carolina] At this point in 2012, 21,474 Latinos voted early -- about 1.2% of the electorate. So far this year, 37,591 Latinos have voted, a slight increase to 1.8% of early voters.

The Latino vote in North Carolina has a relatively small influence in the state, but has increased in voter turnout this year nonetheless. Early voting among Hispanics has increased 75% so far from 2012.

  CNN

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.