On CNN Sunday, Univision’s Jorge Ramos used the word “racism” 14 times in a single segment ostensibly examining President Donald Trump’s pardoning of Joe Arpaio. He also used the word “racist” three times.
Ramos was countered by State Senator Steve Montenegro (R-AZ), who expressed support for Trump’s pardoning of Arpaio.
CNN invited Ramos on as an authority on the “Latino community,” with Jake Tapper asking Ramos to channel Hispanics’ views of Trump’s pardoning of Arpaio.
Ramos quickly deployed his racial identity tactics, accusing Montenegro of somehow betraying his heritage. Montenegro immigrated from El Salvador at the age of four:
RAMOS: I think Senator Montenegro is forgetting that he’s an immigrant from El Salvador and that Sheriff Joe Arpaio discriminated against many people just like you, Senator …
And I — your last name is in Spanish, Montenegro, not in English. And I find it really disturbing and sad when an immigrant like you decides to turn his back on other immigrants and forgets where he comes from.
Trump’s pardoning of Arpaio, said Ramos, amounted to a greenlighting of “racism”:
RAMOS: By pardoning Arpaio, President Trump is defending racism. … President Trump decided to be on the wrong side of history, and that is with racism and with discrimination. …
President Trump is making racism something normal. And by defending someone who has been accused of racist behavior, like Arpaio, he is telling everybody in the United States, you know, it is OK.
It is OK. Racism is OK in this country. And I’m really disturbed and concerned about that.
Tapper offered no challenge to any of Ramos’ assertions.
Watch the segment below.
Ramos regularly conflates lawful and unlawful immigration and immigrants.
CNN regularly frames “racism” as a widespread attitude across contemporary America, casting it as mostly a political pathology among Republicans, conservatives, and whites.
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