Latino Rebels' Race Demagoguery On Full Display

April 28th, 2018 6:27 PM

Willingly or not, the American taxpayer (via National Public Radio) is now, at least in part or indirectly, funding racial demagoguery after Futuro Media's recent acquisition of Latino Rebels.

From the press release:

The organization, founded by award-winning journalist María Hinojosa, has expanded its network of media properties for people of color with Latino Rebels, a pioneering digital news outlet founded by Julio Ricardo Varela that reaches millions through its website, radio programming, and podcasts. With the acquisition, Futuro cements its position as a leader in the Hispanic media space, with a portfolio that also includes Latino USA, NPR’s only English-language national Latino news and cultural weekly radio program.

Hinojosa hosts the weekly show Latino USA for NPR. The last time we covered Latino Rebels was a little over a year ago, when founder Julito Varela came on Univision to go to bat for NPR, and was quoted as calling NPR the place where he could “share his work with the rest of the country.” Back then, we noted that:

Acevedo ended his laughably one-sided report with an interview of Varela, and a lamentation that federally-funded public broadcasting is the only means on which Mr. Varela can "share his work with the rest of the country". I would posit that there is such a place, and it is called the free marketplace of ideas. Nothing personal against Mr. Varela, but OMB Director Mick Mulvaney is right in that we shouldn't ask "single moms and coal workers" to fund something that the marketplace can't sustain on its own outside of a few select liberal enclaves, whether left, right, or center.

Fast forward to 2018, and a choice example of the attitudes that Mr. Varela and his Rebels formerly struggled to share:

 

The above Twitter rant reflects Latino Rebels’ apparent aim to serve as digital enforcer of Latino ethnopolitical orthodoxy

This simplistic reduction of Caribbean-descended Hispanics who voted for Donald Trump to Mexican-haters is astounding. After issuing disclaimers of “but not everyone” and “the rise of evangelicals”, the Rebels return to form by issuing a blanket adjudication of Trump support to “self-hate”, “anti-blackness”, and “wanting to be accepted by white people”. 

The professional Latino left seems blind to the fact that there are many Hispanics that deemed Hillary Clinton to be an exceptionally awful candidate for any number of reasons, none of which have anything to do with hatred of others within the cohort but are an individual exercise of conscience. It wasn't just evangelicals, either. Trump won over Hispanics that were: opposed to the awful Cuba deal, economic populists who found more in common with Trump's "America First" approach, pro-lifers appalled by Clinton's radical views on abortion, and moderates and restrictionists on immigration. 

In the light of the most recent furor over remarks by Kanye West, it is important to note that being Hispanic also doesn't obligate you to vote for Democrats (or for anyone, really). There is nothing particularly rebellious about trying to enforce the opposite.