Dublin, Dundee, Humberside

Immigrant Crusades Enlist Few Blacks

That's the cover headline of today's print edition of the LA Times

When was the last time you heard the LA Times refer to African Americans as "Blacks?" -on an above the fold headline no less. Maybe it's an issue of space. Maybe they defied their own conventions because there isn't enough room for "African Americans" on the front page of the Times but there's room for "Blacks."

I don't happen to think "Black" is a pejorative term, but given their usage, that's not what the Times seems to think. They don't generally use that term. They typically use the term "African American." When they use "Blacks," they're deliberately not using "African Americans." When they use "Blacks," it seems jarring. What an odd choice for them to make. What an odd decision for an editor, to say- "We're going with 'Blacks'- We don't use that to refer to people anywhere else in our paper- but let's make it the front page."

How curious. It certainly has the potential to be an emotionally charged headline. At least one could argue, that someone might want to charge emotions by using the anomalous (at least for The Times) term "Blacks" rather than "African Americans."

Immigrants Enlist Few Blacks. Latinos enlist few Blacks. Latinos Cannot Reach Out to Blacks in Struggle. Few Blacks Want to Join in Fight. Remember The Blacks- Remember They Finished the Work of Getting Civil Rights for Everyone Already- They Don't Support Mexicans. Our Civil Rights Conscience Does Not Endorse Mexicans.

What are we being told here? If the usual narrative is sold as "Blacks and Latinos Fight"- they fight in underfunded schools, they fight on the streets, they fight in overcrowded jails, if that's the story we always hear- how is this a news story? We've already been told over and over that these two groups hate and kill each other wherever and whenever they can. Wouldn't the "news" be "Blacks Join Immigrants in Struggle?" We can even keep the negative imagery of a crusade- "Blacks Join Immigrants in Crusade." Isn't the story that these supposedly hostile groups are not killing each other in the streets? Isn't the story that these groups that hate each other have found any common ground at all in this? Where's that story? It's certainly not on the front page. What a strange choice. The news- the plane crash, if you will- is, there are African Americans joining Latinos on this issue. That's what goes against the typical narrative. That's the story. But that's not what we're getting.

What reason would the plantation owners have for dividing the people they rule by ethnic or color lines... I'm sorry, what was I saying? I meant to say, "It's like the people are being taught to fight each other so they don't turn attention to their economic masters." Wait... no... where's that coming from? I meant to say, "What reason would the Times have for going this route?" It's like they're using Black people and immigrants as convenient foils.

But that couldn't be the case. That would imply media outlets are corporate entities with economic interests to protect, that there is a benefit to maintaining a large, unprotected labor pool, that it's easier to turn disenfranchised people on each other than to change what disenfranchises them, that words are carefully chosen for newspaper headlines.

I know it's absurd. I know I'm crazy for even suggesting that a headline is anything more than a series of letters in a particular order with spaces here and there.