“Anglo” Is The Correct Label For Polish-Americans! - UPDATED, 10th July

Rebuking newspaper editors for various slurs is a valuable effort because it does make them confront their bias. Here is our response to the Publisher and the Editorial Page Editor of the San Jose Mercury News when they validated an op-ed piece labeling us with the Spanish-language term “Anglo.” This is offered to Majority Rights posters as a possible sample for such rebukes.

Note there is no crying game, no claim of hurt feelings. No passive-aggressive stuff here. No begging, no weeping. But it will have an impact over time because the argument will always appear on the Internet when the editors’ names are searched.

And rebuking the media masters about their hate speech is better than chattering about it among ourselves.

Stan

From:    .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
To:      .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (Stephen E. Wright, Editorial Page Editor)
CC:      .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (George Riggs, Publisher)
Sent:    Tuesday, July 04, 2006 2:38 PM
Subj:    “Anglo” Is The Correct Label For Polish-Americans

Speaking of taboos and name-calling, the San Jose Mercury News has made it official. “Anglo” is the correct label for Polish-Americans!

The paper printed a piece on June 16 by a Mexican-origin writer that used the Spanish-language label “Anglo” to refer to Polish-Americans, Irish-Americans, German-Americans, Italian-Americans, and French-Americans.

Obviously, the English-language label “Anglo” applies to any Anglo-Saxon who chooses to use it, but it is absurd and contemptuous to slap the Spanish-language label “Anglo” on most Americans.

I wrote to the publisher to find out if he approved such a label for Polish-Americans, and Editorial Page Editor Stephen E. Wright replied two days later stating that the “usage” was not “bigoted or derogatory.”

Most left-wing racialists would agree with Editor Wright, but let’s take a closer look at the four kinds of bigotry that blind Wright.

(1) While respect for a Mexican-origin writer’s choice for his own group’s name is decently principled, why should the Mercury News embrace that writer’s bigoted choice of an unwanted name for others?

2) Using a Spanish-language label for Polish-Americans is a direct slap at respect for diversity. What is Editor Wright’s motive in smothering our diversity?

3) Pasting the unwanted “Anglo” label on Polish-Americans is a demonstration of supremacy. A claim to supremacy is always an element in claiming the right to name the other.

4) What happened to inclusion? I can’t imagine a more thorough exclusion from public discourse and social recognition than to see Polish-Americans disappeared as “Anglos.”

So we have both the Mexican-origin writer and Editor Wright busily naming others with an unwanted term, smothering our diversity, embracing a claim to supremacy, and excluding national-origin groups! That’s a pretty good day’s work for scribblers.

But the Mercury News does protest labels when the shoe is on the other foot. In May 2005, it ran several articles & essays that strongly denounced the terms “illegals” and “illegal aliens” as bigoted and derogatory, but that was when Mexican immigrants were seen as harmed.

And a few months ago, the Mercury News ran an over-the-fold editorial denouncing the terms “you people,” “those people,” and “these people” as bigoted and derogatory, but that was when Chinese-Americans in Cupertino were seen as harmed.

Left-wing racialists are fully in the saddle at the Mercury News. Shame on them for promoting unwanted and derogatory labels in our community.

Stanley Womack
ResistingDefamation.org

——- Original Message——-
From: Stanley Womack
To: George Riggs ; Stephen E. Wright
Sent: Monday, July 10, 2006 7:54 AM
Subject: What Is This “non-Latino white youth”?

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/15004541.htm

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/15004541.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Dear Mr. Riggs & Mr. Wright:

We strongly protest your endorsement of the bigoted, unwanted, and derogatory term “non-Latino white youth” in the op-ed piece entitled, “Time to confront the poor health of Latino youth,” by Professor Glenn Flores in the San Jose Mercury News today, July 10, 2006, page 17A.

We have no objection when Professor Flores refers to his own demographic slice as “Latino” or “Latina,” but when he goes outside that boundary and grants himself the supremacist right to name others, your printing this nasty piece of bigoted naming reflects badly on the integrity and honesty of the entire San Jose Mercury News.

You cannot defend this usage by referring to the bizarre labeling inside the US Census Bureau because that label is unknown to that agency. Even if it were somehow validated by a US agency, you display your bigotry against young European Americans by endorsing a term which you refuse to use in other contexts, for example, “non-Latino black youth,” “non-Latino Asian youth,” or “non-Latino Jewish youth.”

What is this animus you pursue so vigorously against young European Americans? Can you kick the habit of this bigoted behavior?

Stanley Womack
ResistingDefamation.org

Posted by Guest Blogger on Friday, July 7, 2006 at 07:17 PM in Activism
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