Posted on 05/13/2008 12:34:30 PM PDT by Bodhi1
The National Council of La Raza is literally means the National Council of the Race. It started in Phoenix in 1968 as the Southwest Council of the Race, funded by Ford Foundation, the National Council of Churches, and the United Auto Workers. In 1973, it went national, moved to Washington, D.C. and renamed itself the National Council of La Raza.
At first, the organization focused solely on the advancement of Mexicans in America, but in 1975 it expanded its focus to include other Latinos. By 1979, it became policy. At this time, the NCLR was almost completely federally funded. The Reagan administration slashed social funding, resulting in the Council to narrow its focus to national issues, with its work done mainly in D.C. The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act gave the states more influence over the distribution of welfare funds. The NCLR responded with its Field Advocacy Program. This helped NCLR to have input in state and local levels.
Today, The National Council of La Raza calls itself “the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States.” According to the “About” page on The Race’s website, NCLR “works to improve opportunities for Hispanic Americans.” That is very vague, and leads me to wonder how exactly they go about doing this. What policies do they advocate?
(Excerpt) Read more at allamericanblogger.com ...
I’m no fan of the NCLR and disagree with many of it’s policies, but how exactly are they different than say the NAACP?
The author makes this statement;
“NCLR also has ties to Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, or Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan (MEChA), a radical, nationalist group that Michelle Malkin describes as “a racist, anti-American separatist hate group, and actually shares much in common with such groups as Aryan Nations, and the White Aryan Resistance, another California-based organization.”
Note the use of the term Aztlan in the title of the group. Aztlan is “the legendary ancestral home of the Nahua peoples, one of the main cultural groups in Mesoamerica. ‘Azteca’ is the Nahuatl word for “people from Aztlan.” A MEChA document says “Aztlan was the legendary homeland of the Aztecas … It became synonymous with the vast territories of the Southwest, brutally stolen from a Mexican people marginalized and betrayed by the hostile custodians of the Manifest Destiny.”
Then he goes on for half the article about MeCHa...but he never tells us exactly how or where the NCLr has “ties” to MeCHA. I looked for them and all I could find was one small payment to help support a hispanic conference that MeCHA attended back in 2003. Sine then nothing. On their website the NCLE disavows anything having to do with the Aztlan movement, calling it ridiculous.
Now, that may not be true, it could be a smokescreen, but someone needs to do some research and show us some facts before they make an accusation like that an then disappear.
I don’t like that McCain is cozing up to these people, I disagree with much of what they promote, but I don’t see much difference between McCain reaching out to the NAACP or an Asian-American group than with the NCLR.
As far as race specific groups go, they are pretty mainstream (for lefties) and no where near as militant as others like MeCHA or La Raza Unida.
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/02/04/john-mccain-la-razas-voice-in-washington/
You don’t have a problem with a group calling itself `The Race’ that is also quick to call anyone outside their group “racists” . . . gee, I don’t know what to say Bob.
Hi Bob !
They are pretty milquetoast as these things go, its just that “La raza” thing, plus the MeCha links, which do exist among the people involved, a lot of these were members in college, albeit these are old associations.
Its really just a Mexican-American organization, not “Hispanic”. Now, there are more Mexican-rooted “hispanics” than any other kind, but still.
“La raza” as a term and a concept has some pretty stinky roots in Mexican proto-fascism, predating all the ancestors of NCLR. It really is the sort of thing that would be embarassing in a “white” organization.
They have done such a great job....started a border fence, daily raids of their people, hahahahaha
IMO Michelle is jumping the shark on this issue.
BTW - Where was your outrage when Carl Rove attended a NCLR meeting on 2006? How about Sam Brownback?
I’m not outraged at all.
Just commenting on the troubles of the NCLR.
If only those dingbats would just change their name.
Mexican-Americans need a Cosby-type to push a pin into those absurd balloons.
To answer your question I’m no more outraged over “la raza” than I am “NAA...colored people”. I think people are getting their panties in a wad over nothing and some that are are inciting outrage for the sake of stirring the pot (I’m a little disappointed in Michelle, but she has been moving this way for some time).
I’ve asked about this to hispanic friends in the past and they say it has a historical connotation when the poor people and peasants in Mexico were fighting their Spanish origin “overlords”. To them it means the common people, the salt of the earth, that kind of thing and was meant to separate them from the rich wealthy landowners who abused and exploited them.
It’ use is going to raise some hackles in the US but I doubt they are going to change it now. Best just to move on to more fertile areas of disagreement.
BTW - Hispanic, Mexican, Spanish, mixed Indian, mestizo, etc. is not a race anyway.
Thats not the origin (”when the poor people and peasants in Mexico were fighting their Spanish origin “overlords”).
That is in a way some of the root of the Mexican problem. The Mexicans who led the fighting against the white (Spanish) overlord were for the most part white, and the Mexicans who were fighting against the nationalists were often indians. A similar pattern held across most of the Latin American liberation struggles, with echoes down to the Mexican revolution of 1911 (where Zapatas Indian villagers, among others, revolted because they wanted to enforce Spanish-era indian priveleges).
So Mexico was born without a national identity and, critically, without a national philosophy, like the US. So the place was broken up with ethnic and regional warfare periodically.
The “la raza” term was invented by a very prominent Mexican professor in the 1940’s as part of his theory of racial superiority and the development of a new, improved race. The Mexican regime of the day picked up on it and used it in their propaganda to create a Mexican ethnic identity. Thats precisely what the Nazi regime did in the 1930’s.
Mexican-American activists picked it up twenty years later, and unfortunately very much in the original sense, i.e., Mexican racial superiority, ethnnic exclusivity, and irredentism, which to be fair was just part of the macho posturing revolutionary chic of the times. See Tom Wolfe on the subject.
Mecha (fuse) with its war-club and bomb was full of this over-the-top sophomoric macho idiocy. As far as violent symbology went, the Chicanos had the stuff that was furthest out there, which was not matched by the rather tame reality. The Panthers et. al. were far more serious.
Who knows what “la raza” means now. You will get all sorts of opinions I’m sure, but its unlikely they are very well informed. The real problem with it is that it is very awkward and counterproductive in US society, its a childish leftover from a childish time, designed (by sophomores, literally) to get a rise out of people.
The FBI used to investigate subversive organizations. Guess that’s not PC these days though.
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