04/08/2007
In the media pattern that follows a widely publicized immigrant crime or terrorist arrest, the protocol of editorial elites dictates that attention must to paid to the perp’s community members and their sensitive feelings concerning the dreaded — although largely imaginary — backlash against immigrants.This being America, where citizens are largely fair and law-abiding, generalized retaliation almost never happens against the ethnic group du jour. But in Virginia Beach where two teenaged girls were recently killed by a drunk illegal alien, the media rushed to interview numerous Hispanics about their fears of mistreatment from the terrible Americans.
Because one Hispanic person is accused of causing a tragic accident, Monica Restrepo said, she now frets that many will be judged and be the brunt of insults."We're very worried about what’s going to happen to all of us in the community," said Restrepo, who owns the decade-old La Tapatia, believed to be one of the first Latin American grocery stores in the city.
Restrepo and other local Hispanics this week expressed their sympathy for the families of two Virginia Beach girls killed in a car crash March 30. But they also couldn’t mask their concern over a possible backlash against both legal and illegal immigrants. [ Hispanics wary of fallout from deadly crash in Virginia Beach, Virginian Pilot 4/7/07]
Complaints continue at length even though there is not a single instance cited of rude epithets or insults, much less any physical affronts.
Even so, liberal media practice requires the recitation of the fears of immigrants, who are clearly willing participants, against their American neighbors — which is very insulting when you think about it.
But immigrant fear-of-backlash stories are formulaic and easy to write, so we will surely see more of them.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.