The Seattle Times once more shows its anti-Latino bias

David Neiwert, author of a number of books on far-right extremism, has just published a new tome entitled And Hell Followed With Her: Crossing the Dark Side of the American Border, which chronicles the murder of a Mexican immigrant and his 9-year-old daughter by a gang of nativists led by Shawna Forde—a “star” of the “Minuteman” movement who learned the creed of race hatred in the state of Washington. Neiwert points out something that some of us have known for a long time—that the issue of illegal immigration provides a cover for many to act out on their racist inclinations, and sometimes those inclinations entertain violence. 

Of course, the media has done its best to poison the atmosphere, especially cable news and right-wing talk radio. One might expect print journalism to take the time to uncover facts rather than further excite the darkest recesses of the human mind, but this is seldom the case. Take the Seattle Times, for example. It is perhaps not surprising that the Times has a decidedly insensitive posture toward Latinos, as does the city in general; by last count the newspaper had exactly two people with Spanish surnames working in the vicinity of  its newsroom, and they are probably “white” in any case and clearly have no influence on how the Times—save perhaps a negative one—portrays Latinos on its pages. The Times certainly doesn’t deserve its reputation as a “progressive” newspaper in a “progressive” city; oh, it satisfies the narcissistic gender politics and victimology crowd, and recently ran outraged headline stories concerning the Justice Department’s investigation into why black students have a far higher school suspension rate than other demographics. But it habitually throws Latino-tinged red-meat to its right-wing and “populist” readers to satiate their need to find scapegoats.

The Seattle Times behavior is hardly the exception in print media. In a post last year, I mentioned a report sponsored by the Pew Foundation concerning the way Latinos—who make-up over 16 percent of the population—are reported in the media; it found that  “From Feb. 9 to Aug. 9, 2009, only a fraction of all news stories studied contained substantial references to Hispanics -- just 645 out of 34,452. And only a tiny number, 57 stories, focused directly on the lives of Hispanics in the U.S.” That tiny number could even be said to be “inflated,” because 40 percent of those stories were concerning Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. In general, most stories in regard to Latinos are in reference to Latin America, immigration and the drug war. The personal experiences of Latinos in this country are generally of little interest to the mainstream media.

However, one would expect a “liberal” newspaper in a “progressive” city to buck the tide? How many examples have I given that demonstrate that precisely the opposite is true? This is a city where certain groups jealously guard their “victim” status, and it certainly has no room for Latinos, no matter how much prejudice and discrimination is in evidence; I recall former P-I columnist Robert Jamieson writing of his “surprise” at the ugly, racist comments about Latinos he heard when he attended a community meeting concerning the placement of day labor center in a mostly black neighborhood. Jamieson was honestly reporting the situation; you won’t get that kind of honesty from the Times. Instead, you get the negative slant on a story that puts Latinos in worst possible light.

For example, illegal immigration stories always focus on “law-breaking,” the “theft” of jobs and the “cost” to taxpayers. Nothing about the motivations, struggles or desires of the “illegals”—which are no different from the European masses who arrived here, who before the 1924 immigration law needed only the price of ship fare and a stop at Ellis Island and an examination for communicable diseases to be declared “legal.”  Few in this country seems to have any understanding of the fact that there is a huge difference between crossing an ocean and  a river to come into this country—and that has been the reality for thousands of years before Caucasians ever came to this land. 

Not only that, but the U.S. and Mexico are so closely tied to each other economically that the U.S.’ discriminatory immigration policies makes no sense whatever. Of the one million H1-B visas issued each year, only a tiny fraction are issued to Latin American immigrant workers doing seasonal labor; it is as if U.S. policy makers are willing to allow just enough illegal immigrants in to fill the labor needs, while making the usual public show to satisfy the anti-immigrant crowd. The irony, of course, is that the vast majority of visas go to immigrant workers with high-level skills for which there is allegedly a shortage of natives with the requisite skills. Whether this is a critique of the state of education in this country, the shortage of college students earning  degrees in STEM fields, or employers merely wishing to hire transitory labor at the cheapest rate, the fact that xenophobes (in or outside the media) are focusing all their energy on people who have far less effect on the natives’ standard of living and opportunities demonstrates just how much race and racism is the factor that Neiwert charges it is in his new book. 

Immigration isn’t the only topic where the side of the story that deliberately puts Latinos in the worst light is usually the one highlighted. Drug violence in Mexico is typically used to show a country which is dangerous even to walk outside in the morning. Yet the reason why drug violence is at the state it is in is because of the competition to supply the U.S.’ insatiable appetite for illegal drugs.We also recently encountered a story concerning Boeing being criticized for “encouraging” its suppliers to purchase parts for the 787 from Mexico, which amounts to little more than nuts and bolts. Yet why is this so much worse that whole sections of the 787 being built in Europe and Asia? There’s been little more than whimper about that. 

And just the other day a story appeared in the Times concerning used lead acid batteries being shipped to Mexico for recycling. As usual, the accusation is that American jobs at U.S. recycling plants are being “stolen” by Mexico, because the country has the bad manners to have much more lax regulations than the U.S.; there is even a map provided showing the “illegal” route where these batteries are being shipped out of the country. And Mexicans are only too "happy" to have this “lucrative” traffic. 

The Times treated this story as if it was the latest “exposé” of devious, American-job killing dealings south of the border. But this story isn’t “new.” In December, 2011 the New York Times reported how many American auto parts and battery manufacturing companies were attempting to skirt tougher lead recycling regulations by shipping batteries to Mexico; some of these companies were actually building and running their own plants in that country. But the New York version of the Times didn’t stop there; there were, after all, real people in Mexico where these facilities were built. The Times reported that 

Mexican environmental officials acknowledge that they lack the money, manpower and technical capacity to police a fast-growing industry now operating in many parts of the country, often in dilapidated neighborhoods…But for much of the past decade, at the vast recycling compound of Industrial Mondelo here (30 miles north of Mexico City), batteries have been dismantled by men wielding hammers, and their lead melted in furnaces whose smokestacks vent to the air outside, where lead particles can settle everywhere from schoolyards to food carts. Officials of the plant, has been given more than a dozen citations and fines for lead emissions and improper storage of dangerous materials…The recycling factory has put a neighborhood of children at serious risk of lead exposure, said Marisa Jacott, director of Fronteras Comunes, an environmental group in Mexico City. Ms. Jacott wants to test young residents living near the plant but lacks the money to do so. The town’s elementary school is on the same block as the recycling plant, which recently moved the bulk of its operations to a larger facility elsewhere. Lead pollution remains in the ground for decades.

There was nothing in the Seattle Times story that even intimated what is happening to people and communities in Mexico—and nothing about how, as one observer put it, “We’re shipping hazardous waste to a neighbor ill equipped to process it and we’re doing it legally, turning our heads, and pretending it’s not a problem.”   The New York Times story, on the other hand, charged that while “American vigilance focuses on drugs and illegal immigrants, there is little effort to stanch the flow, with the Customs and Border Protection agency dealing ‘mostly with imports,’” according to an agency spokeswoman. In fact, while the U.S. border agents largely ignore the “export” of hazardous waste into Mexico, Mexican border agents have their hands full preventing this U.S. “immigration” problem. The New York version of the Times also accused U.S.-based “middlemen” of greed in the process, maximizing their profit margins by legally shipping—or illegally smuggling—lead to low-cost recycling plants in Mexico.

Thus there are two sides to every story, and the fact is that “other” side of story is often much more disturbing than the one media like cable news outlets and newspapers like the Seattle Times chooses to report. The only explanation for this is that bigotry against Latinos “sells” better than the more disturbing truth.