Brownwood Immigrant Bashing Attitudes ? Listen to Brownwood's KXYL

Article Published: Sunday, April 17, 2005
Letter to the editor - Denver Post

The coverage of the so-called Minuteman Project on the Arizona border with Mexico reveals what is most likely at the heart of this so-called patriotic movement.

First, there is a picture of a shrieking Littleton woman standing beneath a Confederate flag. Then there's the comment by a man who drove his trailer from Houston to Arizona, and said he's moving out of his city: "When your KFC is now a taco joint, you know it's time to move out." A "volunteer" who intercepted an immigrant made his prey pose for a picture, holding the message, "Bryan Barton caught an illegal alien and all I got was this T-shirt." And finally, this from a Denver man who joined the party: "This isn't my typical vacation. But it gave me something worthwhile, instead of sitting on a beach drinking Coronas."

Would these self-appointed border police be so up in arms if the people they hunt were not brown of skin and Latino of origin? What is it that these hard-working, family-oriented immigrants truly threaten? Could it be the shaky notion of white superiority?

Arnold Grossman, Denver