Slurs have no place in public documents
March 24, 2008
Laws kicked up a fuss when he put together the water board agenda, listing discussion of “holding pen for wetbacks” on it. He was referring to a proposed detention center. State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin, whose district includes Mustang Ridge, and Austin City Council Member Mike Martinez called a news conference to denounce the display of bigotry and call for Laws to resign.
Written by Editorial, Austin American-Statesman
Charles Laws, 75, says he has been using the derogatory term “wetback” all his life and that he didn’t mean anything by it when he put the slur in an official document. Sorry, he says.
Laws is mayor pro-tem of Mustang Ridge, a community of about 900 people southeast of Austin, and perhaps more importantly, he is general manager of the Creedmoor-Maha Water Supply Co. that holds contracts worth $157,819 a year with the City of Austin.
Laws kicked up a fuss when he put together the water board agenda, listing discussion of “holding pen for wetbacks” on it. He was referring to a proposed detention center. State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin, whose district includes Mustang Ridge, and Austin City Council Member Mike Martinez called a news conference to denounce the display of bigotry and call for Laws to resign.
Laws says he’s not going to quit and that will pretty much be the end of that, unless the offended public officials figure out how to apply more official pressure to an independently elected official.
What’s the big deal?
For starters, the term is offensive. Furthermore, people who toss it around apply it promiscuously to all Latinos, regardless of their citizenship or immigration status. To dismiss using offensive language in “what’s the big deal?” terms reveals an ignorance ill-befitting anybody, but especially an elected official who is sworn to represent all constituents.
No one expects to alter private thought, but expressing private thought in a public document is another matter. We all know more than one way to say Mexican American, African American and even white when referring to people. We would expect a public official to use words that will convey the least offense.
“Wetback” is a term of disrespect, but its indiscriminate use is encouraged by the ongoing, hyperbolic debate over illegal immigration. Politicians and talk show hosts looking for a fall guy instead of a solution encourage that kind of loose talk and give it a coat of acceptability. Use of the term is not acceptable and has no place on a public document, regardless of whether Laws has used it for all of his long life.
We trust that Laws is not too old to learn from this experience and will behave accordingly in the future.
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