Friday, September 19, 2008

Answer me this one question:

Read Rush Limabugh's op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal. Play close attention to the quotes of his that he claims that the Obama campaign has taken out of context in a Spanish-language ad:

"Stupid and unskilled Mexicans" and "You shut your mouth or you get out!"

Then read the extended quotes that Limbaugh [himself!] provides to place these statements in context:

"If you are unskilled and uneducated, your job is going south. Skilled workers, educated people are going to do fine 'cause those are the kinds of jobs Nafta is going to create. If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people, I'm serious, let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do -- let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work."

and

"And another thing: You don't have the right to protest. You're allowed no demonstrations, no foreign flag waving, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our president or his policies. You're a foreigner: shut your mouth or get out! And if you come here illegally, you're going to jail."


Question: Are these quotes more inflammatory in or out of context?

(Follow up question: How are we to evaluate Limbaugh's claim that "There was no racial connotation to [these remarks] and no one thought there was at the time"? Is it fair to ask Limbaugh for substantiation of this claim? Who exactly does he mean by "no one"? No one in his studio? No one listening to his show? No one in 1993? No one anywhere, ever?)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Obama isn't without his own generalizations about the races:

http://pledgednotbound.com/racialist.htm


.

Gavin said...

I don't believe that I've ever claimed that Obama has never made a generalization about race.