Hispanics also ‘hate Whitey?’

Earlier this week Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-Texas, accused the Republican Party of being “lily white,” and therefore incapable of making many inroads into the Hispanic community or, one would assume, any minority community. Rodriguez is, as you probably guessed, an Hispanic himself, so he obviously thought such an outrageous statement would be given credibility due to his own ethnicity, regardless of how many other Hispanics disagree with him.

Though his racist comments seemed directed only toward white Republicans and conservatives, every white ought to be offended by them – just as every Hispanic should be if a white politician said something like, “The Democratic Party is basically dirt-brown …”

Even as there are signs that black-white race relations are improving, a new kind of anti-white racism is now presenting itself. This one comes from the burgeoning Hispanic community, many of which have also learned that in order to win friends and influence people in all the right power circles, it pays to hate and blame whitey.

I, for one, am tired of laying down for this.

Rodriguez, and millions of his ethnic brothers and sisters, have become citizens of the greatest, most fair, wealthy and powerful nation in the history of the planet. They may not realize it but it is huge privilege – not a “right” – to be an American, regardless of whether you were born here or if you immigrated here and were made a citizen.

Being a federal politician does not excuse one from exercising the kind of respectful behavior towards others he thinks he is entitled to, regardless of his race, ethnicity, shoe size or where he buys his undershorts.

The white race is the dominant race in America, but only in terms of numbers. Because whites long ago insisted on supporting laws and constitutional amendments that guarantee equality, that makes this nation unique among nations dominated by other races that don’t treat whites (and other in-country minorities, as well as women) with similar equality.

In the Muslim-dominated Arab world, for example, non-Muslim and non-Arab peoples are routinely discriminated against, usually at the behest of the government and almost always with the support of the existing legal structure.

In the African world, minority whites are beaten, jailed, hunted and killed, while black-dominated governments sit idly by and either sanction such behavior or, at a minimum, look the other way as it occurs.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S. a number of rising Hispanic groups openly advocate revolution and war, to “re-take” parts of the country that, centuries ago, belonged to Mexico and other Hispanic cultures. If these were white groups, they’d be (incorrectly) labeled “militias” and arrested for insurrection.

Hispanics like Rodriguez are as much Americans as any whites who were born and raised here or who legally immigrated here – the distinctions end once the citizenship is guaranteed.

To sit back and use a racial epithet to describe one race of people, even as you complain yourself about racism against your own ethnicity, is some of the worst hypocrisy I’ve ever seen.

Rodriguez should be shunned and cast out by everyone, regardless of ethnicity or political party. This is the 21st century, and we’re supposed to be well-past this kind of nonsense by now.

To say we’re not is to say that all our racial equality efforts since the Civil War have been moot. I’m not prepared to write off that kind of endeavor just yet.

It’d be simpler to just write off Rodriguez and racists like him.