Just when you may have given up entirely on the Golden State, news comes about a newspaper in one of the deepest blue enclaves fighting political correctness.
A California newspaper will continue to use the term “illegals” to describe people who enter the U.S. without permission, despite an attack on its building by vandals believed to object to the term.The Santa Barbara News-Press’s front entrance was sprayed with the message “The border is illegal, not the people who cross it” in red paint, sometime either Wednesday night or early Thursday, according to the newspaper’s director of operations, Donald Katich. The attack came amid wider objections to a News-Press headline that used the word “illegals” alongside a story on California granting driver’s licenses to people in the country illegally…..In addition to the writing on the building, graffiti espousing a no-borders mentality was scribbled on the walkway through Storke Placita and the sidewalk near Santa Barbara City Hall. Police were braced for a protest in front of the paper later this week. Jan said hundreds could show up, and the Police Department is aware of the call for a protest.
Here’s the offending paper:
You may recall that another of California’s newspapers, the Los Angeles Times, jettisoned the phrases “illegal immigrant,” “illegal immigration” and even “undocumented immigrant.”
Here’s is some of the Times’s coverage the ensuing protests and counter-protests, which occurred on Jan. 19, the deadline the paper was given to publish a retraction.
The News-Press ran the headline “Illegals Line Up for Driver’s Licenses” on Jan. 3, prompting protests and a message painted in red on the wall of the newspaper’s offices. The paper used the term again last Friday in another front page story: “Driving Legal Opens Door to Illegals’ Past.”News-Press officials have stuck by their choice of language, saying that describing someone living in the country illegally as an “illegal” is accurate, and compared the vandalism on their offices to the deadly attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris.”We will not give in to the thugs who are attempting to use political correctness as a tool of censorship and a weapon to shut down this newspaper,” News-Press co-publisher Arthur von Wiesenberger wrote on the website of the Minuteman Project, which opposes illegal immigration….Using the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday as a backdrop for their positions framed as human rights and freedom of speech issues, one side argued that the headline was racist and the other argued that it was an accurate description of immigrants applying for driver’s licenses without having to prove citizenship. The licenses became available under a state law that took effect Jan. 1.
See, the Times even had to violate its own style guide to cover the story!
The Latino Rebel captures some images of Californians protesting….in support of the paper.
The following video captures the robust discussion the “open borders” believers had with those with an opposing view.
Language Warning
And they keep telling me Tea Party is dead! It is good to see one California publication not falling victim to self-appointed language police.
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