Hispanics can be their own worst enemy

!

Forget about Lou Dobbs.

Sometimes, Hispanics can be their own worst enemy. Consider the upcoming national convention for the National Council of La Raza(NCLR). Its leadership is rightly crowing over Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama appearing before their membership in July to signify the importance of the Hispanic vote.

But NCLR is setting an incredibly poor example for a civil rights organization in taking sponsorship money from alcohol-related businesses Miller Brewing Co. and Coors.

Allowing beer companies to have a prominent place at a convention advocating a better life and treatment for Hispanics is like Mothers Against Drunk Driving inviting the maker of Jack Daniels to set up a booth at the next MADD gathering.

Here in Nashville, the local sheriff used two incidents of drunk driving offenses by Hispanic drivers to mass the political support to bring the heinous 287(g) deportation program to Davidson County. The incidents resulted in the traffic deaths of native Tennesseans in the other cars.

So in the past year, more than 3,000 undocumented workers have been deported by the initial action of local authorities. And the anti-immigrant crowd is crowing. Families have been devastated. Children live in fear that the fathers they kiss goodbye in the morning will not return that evening, or for months of evenings, or years.

Hispanics here are arrested for simple traffic offenses of driving with a broken headlight or ordinary offenses like fishing without a license. When the undocumented workers cannot produce needed ID with picture -- since Tennessee revoked its law allowing driver's licenses to undocumented workers -- police arrest the Hispanics and book them.

That's the law for anyone who police do not believe will show up in court to pay for a traffic or other offense. The police are not at fault here; it's the local sheriff who then takes the name and fingerprints of offenders to see if they're legally in this country.

When he discovers they're not here legally, he calls La Migra and keeps the undocumented workers until the Feds can come and take these heads of households to detention places unknown. As Father Joseph Patrick Breen of St. Edward Catholic Church says: "We would not treat animals this way."

Every time the TV news has a story about a DUI arrest after a crash, I say a silent prayer that it not be a Latino, particularly an undocumented worker. Who knows how much further the sheriff will go in his mistreatment of Hispanics?

The sheriff initially sold the program as a way to deport undocumented workers with a criminal background. But in the past year, the great majority of people arrested and deported did not have a criminal record. And now the sheriff denies he ever mentioned that only undocumented workers with a criminal background would be deported. And my former employer, The Tennessean, will not come out editorially against the program. Cowardice is everywhere when it comes to the inhumanity aimed at Hispanics.

Go to http://www.latinopoliticsblog.com/ to read more from the brave Latina blogger who pointed out La Raza's wrongheadedness to me. In political writing, I've come to find that the Latinas are the most courageous in speaking the truth. There are other most worthy blogs to read like http://www.latinalista.net/ and http://immigrationmexicanamerican.blogspot.com/. These writers remind me of my marvelous mother, who loved politics and speaking her mind. She got me into political writing, and we used to talk daily about local and national politics.

Criticizing La Raza is not politically correct amid the Hispanic advocacy crowd. We're told to keep things quiet, to support each other, not tear one another down. Besides, Hispanic organizations need all the sponsoring money they can get to push a progressive agenda.

Sorry, my colleagues, but we don't need the money of beer makers just like African-Americans don't need another liquor store in their neighborhoods. For the past 45 days, I've raised $135,520 to help keep open our new Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Nashville. That's some solid cash, and I didn't have to go to any beer company.

Besides, our parents and grandparents taught us better by example. We should never sacrifice what's right for what's expedient. NCLR should sober up and not take the beer company money, just as Sen. Obama is rejecting the lobbyist money.

For the rest of us, quit worrying about Lou Dobbs. Let's first focus on ourselves. And let us not be afraid to speak the truth, even to the National Council of La Raza.