Don’t go off script Tom, the truth will come out.
On Sunday, during an appearance on “Meet the Press,” NBC News’ Tom Brokaw reiterated what he called his long-held belief that “Hispanics should work harder at assimilation.”
He was immediately assailed as a racist. That’s because the media printed just that one sound bite from the entire paragraph. Here’s the rest of it:
“That’s one of the things I’ve been saying for a long time. You know, they ought not to be just codified in their communities but make sure that all their kids are learning to speak English, and that they feel comfortable in the communities. And that’s going to take outreach on both sides, frankly.”
…going to take outreach on both sides. That means everyone has to work a little harder to make it work.
I’ve often wondered why the Hispanic community wasn’t a little angry at the big box retailers like Lowe’s or Home Depot for all of the bilingual signs in their stores. Why are these only in English and Spanish? Do they think that Hispanics won’t learn English? Do they think they can’t? Do they think they are too lazy to learn it? Are they just coddling them, as Brokaw suggests? Are there no Russian or Korean customers in these stores? Where are the signs in their languages?
In 2015 most Spanish speaking parents spoke Spanish at home to their children.
They study reveals that this ratio is lessening but by the time it diminishes to zero, there will be over 138 million Spanish speakers in the United States. Do you think they will all just abandon their native tongue? https://telelanguage.com/spanish-speakers-united-states-infographic/
Brokaw was simply saying what most of the complainers were already thinking. But because he said it, he gave them all a shot in the arm of their favorite drug—outrage.