More on the ''slur controversy"' in Austin, Texas, wherein the word ''wetback'' caused so much consternation and outrage.
David Paulin in an American Thinker piece tells us that the two hapless radio hosts have had their show canceled.
As usual, the groveling and self-abasement got them nowhere.
The radio personalities, who'd already apologized for their comments, had been on unpaid suspension for two weeks. They'll reportedly be reassigned.
According to the local newspaper, the liberal Austin American-Statesman, the use of the term "wetback" by the radio hosts had deeply offended local "Hispanic leaders" and members of the Austin-based U.S. Hispanic Contractors Association. The paper described "wetback" as an "ethnic slur."
Unfortunately for the radio hosts, the contractors' group and local Hispanic leaders," said there were not satisfied with their mere two-week suspension. Accordingly, the contractors' group threatened a boycott of the radio station's parent company. Emmis Austin Radio, its six local stations and their advertisers.
Interestingly, the radio hosts had not engaged in name calling. Their use of the term "wetback" was part of a wide-ranging discussion about illegal immigration and the terms used to describe people who cross the nation's borders illegally. At some points during the show, the two hosts even expressed sympathy for illegal immigrants. They even gently upbraided a listener for having, they said, made unfair assumptions about Spanish-speaking families standing in lines at local grocery stores. (She said she knew they were illegal immigrants.)''
Read Paulin's piece for the whole story; there are a couple of twists: the ''offended'' Hispanic leaders had been caught in their own controversies in the past -- but faced no consequences -- again, as usual.
The newspaper which has created so much brouhaha around this incident, the Austin 'American'-Statesman, has received a number of angry comments from the "non-Hispanic Whites", a couple of which are quoted in Paulin's article.
Austin has for some time been a very politically correct, liberal town, and as I said before, is a sanctuary city, as is so typical for University towns. But it seems that not all the readers of the 'American'-Statesmen have bowed the knee to PC; that's good to see. Still, I know that the town where I went to grade school will, sooner rather than later, be a de facto part of Mexico once again, barring a turning of the tide.
I agree with the opinion that this is in fact a win for the ''offended victims'' and a loss for free speech.
These little skirmishes matter; we lose our freedoms by degrees, and in that way the loss is unnoticed by so many people, until one day the cumulative effects are inescapable, and the oblivious citizens wake up and ask how we got this way.
