Even the New York Times gets it…. Sort of. In reporting on Bobby Jindal’s extraordinary victory — garnering 53 percent in a field of 11 gubernatorial candidates — in Lousiana yesterday, Adam Nossiter wrote:
Mr. Jindal, with his decisive victory on Saturday, appears to have overcome a significant racial hurdle that blocked him in 2003, according to analysts: race-based opposition in the deeply conservative northern and eastern parishes of Louisiana that once supported the Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
Wow, what a turn-around! In just four years, all those racist, conservative white Lousianans decided they weren’t as prejudiced against dark-skinned people as the New York Times thought they were.
By contrast, The Washington Post, finding little of interest in the fact that a culturally conservative, Southern state like Louisiana could elect the dark-complected Jindal, an ethnic Indian, buried the story on page A-8. The Post article stressed Jindal’s reputation for competence and wonkery.
Why bring this up on Bacon’s Rebellion, a blog about Virginia? Because it’s a recurring theme in the comments sections that the cultural conservatives opposed to uncontrolled illegal immigration into Virginia must be motivated by xenophobia and/or “prejudice against brown-skinned people.”
Let us hope that Bobby Jindal’s impressive victory will encourage defenders of illegal immigration to reconsider this offensive meme.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.