May 23, 2003

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A Reader Mourns An American Programmer Who Lost His Job –And Took His Life

Today’s Letter: Howard Sutherland Spots An Ethnic Power Grab In The Media

From: Howard Sutherland

There was a very interesting full-page advertisement on page B3B of the May 21 Wall Street Journal. Published by something calling itself the National Hispanic Policy Institute [no website], and signed by New York state senator Efrain Gonzalez, Jr., [e-mail him], it was entitled simply "An Open Letter to Karl Rove."

The NHPI knows whom to call in the Bush administration.

After saluting Rove's pandering to Hispanics ("As staunch supporters of President Bush, we have been heartened by your public statements about reaching out to the country's Hispanic-American community"), the NHPI asks whether Rove's statements "reflect a true concern by the Bush White House for the vital interests of our community or are they only political rhetoric?"

This pressure group's immediate concern, it turns out, is not amnesty for illegal aliens, the matricula consular, in-state tuition for illegal aliens, or even Cinco de Mayo piñata parties on the White House lawn.

It is ethnic control of Spanish-language media in the United States.

The ad asks the administration to intervene with the Federal Communications Commission to block the proposed merger of Clear Channel and HBC, which would effect a merger of Clear Channel and Univision, the two largest Spanish-language broadcasters in the ever-less-United States.

NHPI's complaint is not left-wing antitrust-mongering. It is that the heads of the merging companies (Lowry Mays and Jerry Perenchio) are "NON-Hispanic media tycoons" who have not given Hispanics senior jobs in their companies.

NHPI's letter raises the specter of Hispanic retaliation at the polls if the White House stands by and permits those NON-Hispanic media tycoons to "merge and dominate the nation's Spanish-language market and, in turn, Latino culture."

No melting-pot nonsense here.

The letter is interesting on a number of levels. Hispanic pressure groups know whom to call to get Bush's ear, and claim that they can punish Bush at the ballot box if he does not come to heel. And insisting that Spanish-language media be controlled by Latin Americans is pure ethnic power politics and favoritism - but acceptable in our double-standard society.