Nat'l Review's NORDLINGER uses "wetback" with irony - not racist like O'LOOFAH's?

[UTUSN]

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http://gawker.com/5926395/why-is-a-national-review-writer-calling-immigrants-wetbacks

[font size=5]Why Is a National Review Writer Calling Immigrants ‘Wetbacks’?[/font]

by Max READ

Everyone knows that conservative magazine National Review is not racist. Sure, it used to publish John "avoid concentrations of blacks" Derbyshire — but it's also treated race with sensitivity and restraint, as in this column about how President Obama isn't really black and this all-white symposium on black unemployment. So why is writer Jay Nordlinger using the ethnic slur "wetback" in his column today?

“Truth is, some conservatives lamented that he had indeed ‘grown’ in office. He had gone out of his way to accommodate liberals and moderates, and to accommodate the Kremlin. He was raising taxes, spending like crazy, welcoming wetbacks, pursuing arms control. One common cry from the right was, ‘None of this would be happening if Ronald Reagan were alive.’ "

Surely, he's not just using an offensive ethnic slur just for the sake of alliteration? Not according to one commenter: "It looks to me like Mr. Nordlinger used the w-word to be ironic," he (or she) explains. "Nothing offensive about it in this instance." Ohhhhhhh. It was ironic racism, which is always okay.

National Review was founded by a segregationist and has employed and provided a platform for racists for several decades, but Nordlinger was being ironic, in his use of a deeply offensive word to illustrate the thought process of some of his ideological comrades. Note how he uses similarly beyond-the-pale and exaggerated language in his list of Reagan's perceived failures. Never mind — totally cool.

(As another commenter on the column points out, National Review Online has a comment filter that blocks the word "wetback." It may want to introduce one for its writers, too.)



http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1147

[font size=5]O'Reilly's Racist Slurs -- in Context[/font]

By Peter Hart

In April 2003, Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly hosted a fundraiser for Best Friends, a charity benefiting inner-city schoolchildren. As reported in the Washington Post (4/15/03), O'Reilly was trying to fill the time before a singing group connected with the charity, called the Best Men, was set to perform, and quipped: "Does anyone know where the Best Men are? I hope they're not in the parking lot stealing our hubcaps."

According to the Post report, some of the conservatives in the audience were aghast at the seemingly racist crack. But if anyone was shocked by O'Reilly's apparent racism, they haven't been paying much attention.

Two months before O'Reilly's "hubcaps" remark, he used a racist slur on the air. Searching for a word to describe someone who assists immigrants crossing the border, O'Reilly came up with "wetback" (2/6/03). The incident was explained away by Fox officials as an unfortunate gaffe (New York Times, 2/10/03), but the Allentown, Pa. Morning Call (1/5/03) had O'Reilly using the same racist term in a speech earlier in the year: "O'Reilly criticized the Immigration and Naturalization Service for not doing its job and not keeping out 'the wetbacks.'" O'Reilly denied making the comment (Washington Post, 2/17/02), but the reporter stands by his account.

Though he calls his show a "no-spin zone," O'Reilly's response (CNBC, 4/26/03) to the "wetback" incident was a blatant, if feeble, exercise in spin--and an attempt to blame his guest: ....

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[Octafish]

1. A eugenecist by any other name is still a NAZI.

What comes out of their mouths spells out exactly what their souls are made of.

Thank you for the heads-up on these fascists, UTUSN.

For those new to the subject, Edwin Black's War Against the Weak.