The worst writer for The Fix at the Washington Post is Janell Ross.
Nobody would care about Mexicans speaking Spanish in America if they did it in private while displaying fluency in English in public. Unfortunately, many Mexican-Americans tend to be illiterate in two languages rather than fluent in either.
There is a dark period in American history. It’s one to which some Americans seem eager to return. It’s one when people were barred, shamed or even punished for speaking languages other than English. That was especially true outside the home.
Speaking a foreign language or limited English was very widely believed to be an indicator of suspect national loyalty, limited intelligence or ability. Speaking a foreign language simply was not regarded as a useful skill.
And there were a whole range of dominant but nonetheless inaccurate theories about the way that children and adults actually acquire a second or third language that claimed an English-only lifestyle was best. Schools, businesses and all sorts of institutions in the Southwest and West barred kids from speaking Spanish and encouraged their parents to do the same at home.
Even worse, Spanish-speaking in particular became a target of American cultural purists who subscribed to some seriously circular logic. These folks — the majority of America — truly believed that which was white was that which was American. And therefore, that which was culturally white should be emulated and, when necessary, enforced.
That sense of cultural and intellectual superiority also provided some of the justification for a everything from voter suppression to economic exclusion, school segregation and human rights abuses. Just in case you are not aware, like African Americans around the South and Southwest, Mexican-Americans in those regions were almost uniformly subject to poll taxes and civics tests designed to keep Latinos from voting.
And we all know how black people love speaking Spanish and other foreign languages. I wonder how many languages Janell speaks?
According to the Washington Post: “Janell Ross is a reporter for The Fix who writes about race, gender, immigration and inequality.”
The above Janell Ross rant is reporting?
According to the National Center for Education Statistics:
Performance in 2003
Prose: Whites had the highest scores followed by Asians/Pacific Islanders, Blacks, and Hispanics
Document: Whites and Asians/Pacific Islanders had the highest scores followed by Blacks and Hispanics
Quantitative: Whites had the highest scores followed by Asians/Pacific Islanders, and both Blacks and Hispanics
Changes between 1992 and 2003White Adults
Up 9 points in quantitative
Black Adults
Up 6 points in prose, 8 points in document, and 16 points in quantitative
Hispanic Adults
Down 18 points in prose and 14 points in document
Asian/Pacific Islander Adults
Up 16 points in prose
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about half of hispanics in America are basically illiterate in English, and the problem is getting worse. “Among Hispanics, the percentage with Below Basic prose literacy increased 9 percentage points between 1992 and 2003…” By contrast, only 7% of whites and 24% of blacks are this illiterate.
John Nolte writes June 12, 2015:
Janell Ross, who is identified by her employer, The Washington Post, as a straight news reporter, went on MSNBC to slime Jeb Bush with unsubstantiated innuendo. Ross’s objectively appalling and wildly inappropriate smear-by-rumor campaign was even too much for Alex Wagner, the openly left-wing MSNBC anchor hosting the hour:
ROSS: I guess I was surprised to hear that these things had been written in a book at a time when the Governor probably had his own issues that he was struggling with in his personal life; it seems like a strange time in your life to suggest that public shaming is a good way to address problems.
WAGNER: Explain. You’re intimating something now.
ROSS: I am and I’m trying to be as delicate as possible but in all honesty the Governor has some issues with his own family that some might argue are worthy of some public shaming.
WAGNER: To be fair, we don’t have– none of those have been corroborated. We have no reporting on that and NBC News cannot confirm any of that. You are a reporter for the Washington Post, if you have independent reporting on that…
Unless Ross is teasing a breaking story at the Washington Post, which does not seem likely, she isn’t just a Washington Post reporter working as a Democrat operative, she is a Washington Post reporter working as a sleazy Democrat operative seeking to damage a man and his family with nothing more than the kind of sleazy innuendo that even a MSNBC felt the need to disavow.
Republicans have long-believed the Washington Post is out to discredit and disqualify their candidates — and for good reason. Janell Ross (whose Twitter feed is a swamp of extreme-leftism), however, marks a new low in the Post’s sleazy and irresponsible jihad against the Right.
What Ross did is no different from Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) lying about Mitt Romney not paying his taxes. But this is the Washington Post engaging in these tactics.
