By Carlos Vélez
Veljia47@yahoo.com
Donald Trump’s vile words against Mexican and Latin Americans when he announced his candidacy for the Republican Party’s nomination drew cheers from the xenophobic right wing of his party and silence or approval from Latino elected officials.
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people,” said the xenophobic and racist Trump on June 16 as he spoke to a crowd of mostly paid actors who posed as supporters.
Wearing his clown carrot-colored hairdo the failed casino mogul’s incendiary words drew the ire and disgust of the commercial sector almost immediately and led by Univision and NBC Universal, the dump Trump movement began. It was followed by Macy’s, NASCAR and other corporations. Even New York City is reacting to Trump’s revolting words.
“We are reviewing Trump contracts with the City,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. “Donald Trump’s remarks were disgusting and offensive, and this hateful language has no place in our city.”
But, sadly, as swift as the condemnation by the private sector of the sleazy speech was, the reaction to it by most of the Latino elected officials was amazingly sluggish.
It took Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio almost three weeks to respond to Trump’s incendiary words. And then, Cruz saluted Trump and Rubio’s respond was very mild. Cruz said that Trump “speaks the truth” and didn’t need to apologize. He kept defending Trump over the weekend, saying on Fox News that he thinks Trump is “terrific” and, on “Meet the Press,” that he “salute[s] Donald Trump for focusing on the need to address illegal immigration.” The suggestion that immigrants are rapists? “He has a colorful way of speaking.”
And Rubio was not as gregarious as Cruz and his few words of condemnation were, “Trump’s comments are not just offensive and inaccurate, but also divisive,” Rubio said. Rubio’s statement is so weak that it makes you wonder if he really means it.
And there is Senator Bob Menendez who hasn’t said a word and New York’s Representatives Nydia Velázquez and José Serrano who are just as mum on the subject as Menendez. Silence is their answer to Trump’s nauseating remarks.
The silence or lack of condemnation from these five Latino elected officials is no coincidence. All five happen to be of Cuban or Puerto Rican descent and party affiliation has nothing to do with it.
Three are Democrats and two are Republican who think alike when dealing with immigrants, legal or illegal. Their silence on Trump’s remarks after more than three weeks only cements the belief that these elected officials share Trump’s assertions that all Mexican and Latin American undocumented immigrants are rapists, drug dealers, thieves, in other words, criminals.
“To paint with that broad a brush that Donald Trump did … he’s going to have to defend those remarks. I never will,” Perry said.
