A coffee shop on 24th Street in the Mission District was the site for one of 18 press conferences in cities with large Latino populations on Wednesday, all promoting a campaign get CNN to remove Lou Dobbs from its programming. Dobbs anchors a successful daily talk program.
Lou Dobbs is a sort of avuncular populist who sometimes speaks up for the economically disadvantaged -- as long as they are white. But he also has a long record of hateful and false attacks on Latinos, drawing a picture for his English-speaking audience of a brown horde of "illegals" overwhelming "their" country. For example, he has repeatedly maintained without any factual basic that one third of the US prison population consists of undocumented immigrants.
This month CNN is airing a "Latino in America" special, clearly hoping to attract a Latino audience. But at some point the network will have to make a choice between profiting from a host who spews racially-tinged hate and this growing market segment that it recognizes as essential to its future.
The campaign has produced this video [3:08] of some Dobbs low lights:
Enough indeed!
Local artist Favianna Rodriguez is a spokesperson for the campaign.
Immigrant advocates Ana Perez of CARECEN and Eric Quezada of Dolores Street Community Services also endorsed the campaign.
To get involved, send a text message with the word "Basta" to 30644 or visit BastaDobbs.com.
Yes -- CNN did attend the press conference.
2 comments:
I have never liked Lou Dobbs and turn him off the few times I have seen him on CNN. A racist is a racist whether the hate is directed at black, brown or red skin people.
There is a petition circulating to be sent to CNN to fire him. I signed it months ago, but don't know what has become of it.
That petition is the same as this campaign -- both from Presente.org. I would urge everyone to sign it.
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