So I’m sitting here being, like, all Hispanic and stuff, and have a question for U.S. Representative Louie Gohmert.
What does acting Hispanic look like?
I did have a breakfast taco today. Am I a terrorist suspect?
In case you missed it, this is what Gohmert, R-Texas, told C-Span during a discussion recently in which he seemed to conflate the Boston Marathon tragedy with immigration reform. Unfortunately, he was not alone in this conflation after suspects were identified in the bombing.
“We know al-Qaida has camps over with the drug cartels on the other side of the Mexican border. We know that people that are just now being trained to come in and act like Hispanic (sic) when they are radical Islamists.”
And this means that the nation has to protect itself and its borders, he said. From Hispanic acting people, apparently.
Do Chechens fit that description?
His comments prompted the GOP-backed Hispanic Leadership Network to respond: “Using a national tragedy to further his own anti-immigration reform agenda is not only shameful but also a blatant attempt to disingenuously twist public sentiment at a vulnerable time.”
And I’m guessing this rebuke fazed Gohmert about as much as all those that followed his comments about “terror babies.” You know, those babies born to mothers sent to the United States so their offspring can become automatic U.S. citizens and go home to train as terrorists. I wonder if they train in those border camps on how to act Hispanic.
By the way, Gohmert was once a state district judge. A judge. I’m having trouble wrapping my head around it.
Mr. Congressman, if I were training in that camp, would I have been instructed to call you Luis instead of Louie?
How about my car? Which stereotype would this border terror camp have had me adopt? Big dice hanging from my mirror?
My car isn’t a low rider. Would this have caused me to flunk out of How to Act Hispanic101? Oh, by the way, I don’t watch telenovelas. Is this disqualifying? Just what does acting Hispanic look like?
But maybe you meant that we should be on guard against people who look Hispanic?
OK, but those looks range from Cameron Diaz to Cantinflas.
(If you know who Cantinflas is, this knowledge would be very much like you acting Hispanic. So, maybe that knock on the door by Homeland Security is imminent.)
Gohmert sits on the House Judiciary Committee, which likely will weigh immigration reform. And believe it or not, he is vice chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security.
Will we now have hearings on “terror babies” and “acting Hispanic”? The better to encourage folks to pummel or arrest every Hispanic they come across.
How about acting like a goofball? Are there camps at the border between reality and bunk where people learn this, or is this self-taught?
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O. Ricardo Pimentel is a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News.
Editorial, Pages 76 on 04/28/2013