What does head lice have to do with illegal immigration?!

[journalist3072]

So listening to Washington Journal this morning, some woman called in and was trying to make a connection between the headlice her grandchildren or children (don't remember which) were coming home from school with, and illegal immigration.

She said they never headlice before, and now they do.

There was clearly a racial overtone to her remarks, as if to say these darn illegal Hispanics are so nasty they're bringing headlice over hear.

Amazing.

[rodeodance]

1. Was that the woman that went off on a ranting RAGE?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. My kids got head lice from a white girl

but surely she got them from some dirty immigrant! :eyes:

these people make me :puke:

[liberal N proud]

3. My guess is that this uninformed moron thinks that all hispanics live in

filth.
Typical stereotyping that has plagued this nation since it's inception.

[rucky]

14. Same people who hire them as maids.

go figure.

[Haole Girl]

24. Good one!

And so true!

[CoffeeCat]

4. Anyone who dismisses this kind of news is not seeing what is happening...

Right-wing hate radio--which reaches tens of millions of listeners--is currently waging a hate war against Hispanics. They're not waging this hate war against illegal immigrants. It's against Hispanics.

What is happening, is a precursor to a Holocaust-type situation. If we didn't all ready have "detention camps" ready for "inmates" I wouldn't be so worried about this.

Everyone needs to tune into right-wing radio and listen. Yes, I know it's awful to listen to. However, people need to be aware that an ORGANIZED, HATE-FILLED CAMPAIGN AGAINST HISPANICS IS UNDERWAY. We all know that talk radio gets its marching orders from the WH.

The other day, I heard a woman blaming the mumps outbreak on Hispanics who are here illegally. All right wing radio hosts (Glen Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc) are speaking about Hispanics as if they are insects. They are objectifying these people and positioning them as less than human.

According to various articles, they've all ready begun rounding up Hispanics--and asking them for "their papers." Articles have been posted on DU, which document that government workers are going into malls, parks, other public places and rounding up Hispanic-looking people who don't have the proper papers.

This is not normal. This is not routine. Does anyone actually believe that these detention camps, the concerted hate-radio propaganda and these "round ups" are unrelated--or that this is all just an effort to "do something about illegal immigration?"

[Marie26]

6. Thank you

You are exactly right. And the thing that scares me the most is that, if they do start rounding up Hispanics, there are many who would cheer them on, even here at DU. The propaganda drumbeat is strong & steady & seeping into mainstream media. Did you see the whole dust-up about translating the "Star-Spangled Banner?" :wtf: Just what is going on here? Thank you for the insights about what the right-wing hate radio is spewing. I can't bear to listen to them; you're much more courageous! Please let us know if you hear the rhetoric escalating into any kind of call for violence.

[truth2power]

7. This is truly frightening, Sparkles...

I don't listen to hate radio. My stomach is already in knots most of the time anyway. Just can't do it. I commend you for being willing to make the sacrifice for the rest of us. Seriously!

However, aside from this being an example of basic racism, how would rounding up all the Hispanics benefit the RW extremists? I can see them wanting to round up the "libruls" because we ask inconvenient questions and refuse to go along with the program. But Hispanics? Who benefits? I don't get it. :shrug:

[AlphaCentauri]

12. They are teaching how to hate n/t

[Marie26]

5. Many right-wing

hate sites are claiming that those Hispanics spread infestations & disease, & might even start the next EPIDEMIC! OMG!! I should know, someone tried to post one here a while ago. There's clearly a racial overtone & it reminds me of the Nazi propaganda about Jews. Scary stuff.

[AlCzervik]

8. when i was in grammer school there was an outbreak of headlice

i'm 38 and grew a few miles outside of Boston--that caller has her head up her ass.

[jerry611]

9. She's using hispanics as a scape goat, but....

It does bring up a point that probably a great majority of immigrants here illegally do not have any immunizations.
When most of us were born, we were given a bunch of vaccinations at birth. This helped eliminate measles, mumps and rebella from the student population.

However, when a few students missed the vaccinations in the mid-west, all of a sudden we have a mumps outbreak spreading...
http://www.webmd.com/content/article/120/113902.htm

Universities in Florida are now requiring ANY student of any race that attends any university in the state to be tested for immunity to MMR.

[Warpy]

10. Oh, bullshit. Xenophobes blame everything on immigrants

and the fact thtat this woman didn't wash her kid's hair every night is what allowed head lice to fluorish. Chances are the kid caught them from an upper middle class kid who got them from from a kid in the neighborhood and on down the line. Head lice spread like wildfire, especially among kids.

This stupid cow should have had the riot act read to her. My guess is that she didn't.

[msongs]

11. actually head lice do NOT like dirty hair

they prefer clean environments and hair that is regularly washed :-)

Msongs
www.msongs.com
batik & digital art
mugs and shirts

[Warpy]

13. No, but washing every day does tend to get rid of them

before the life cycle progresses enough to result in a real infestation.

Keeping dirty hair won't prevent 'em. I know. I'm a nurse who has taken care of a lot of homeless alcoholics.

I managed to get through life thus far without galloping dandruff. My mother instilled a phobia about sharing brushes and combs by the time I was three, and that was certainly a help. I'm old enough to remember shaved heads and schoolyard taunts. Thank goodness for medicated shampoo.

[salin]

15. I heard a worse call this a.m., per Darfour

caller said: "They are black people, so why should we care?". At least the WJ folks hung up on the caller.

:puke:

[journalist3072]

17. Have mercy. Father forgive them

Did someone really say that? It seems like we are taking steps backward, not forward, when it comes to race relations.

[salin]

23. Yes they did. I agree, and I think it is strides, rather than steps,

that we are taking backwards.

[NNN0LHI]

16. CNN & Lou Dobbs have been saying that Mexicans are disease ridden for years

http://biz.yahoo.com/pz/060426/98033.html?printer=1

Hispanic Leaders Call for Censure of CNN Host Lou Dobbs

<snip>Beyond the inflammatory words and phrases, Mr. Dobbs continually uses
inaccuracies and incomplete information. During one show he states
"people are flooding across the border carrying dangerous diseases."
Dangerous diseases! This is irresponsible. On another show he claimed
that illegal immigrants were "clogging up the federal prisons" but by
the end of the show his own reporter, Bill Tucker, stated that there
was "no way of telling whether they are illegal or not." Finally, his
numbers keep growing. On each show he uses different figures for the
number of undocumented people in this country. He has used eight
million, ten million, twelve million, and then reported that Bear
Stearns says that there are twenty million in the country.



The Nazis did the same thing to the Jews before deporting them. Yet we still have people who post their undying love for Dobbs around here.

:scared:

[Igel]

22. Dobbs, like others, misgeneralize.

http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/tb.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5310a2.htm

The fact is that most illegal immigrants tend to be from countries with higher rates of certain diseases than are prevalent in the US. They don't leave the bacteria at the border. Legal immigrants typically are better controlled, with required immunizations and being barred if they're sick when they're to immigrate, but also account for some disease.

TB is a case in point. While the incidence of TB has consistently declined since the '80s, the decline slowed in the '90s. "Minorities" (not typically black, leaving Asian and Latino) have higher incidence of TB than whites and blacks, with "immigrants" having higher concentrations than native-born. But since TB is communicable, and illegal immigrants tend to group ... None of this entails that headlice or polio are streaming across the border in their human hosts.

Fortunately, places like the CDC are "irresponsible" in trying to monitor TB among various groups in order to keep us from being "responsibly" infected, and to treat those that are "responsibly" infected. Perhaps the Latino activist that was quoted places a higher value on "truthy PR" in an attempt to dismiss an overgeneralization than he does on the merely "true PR" that would reduce the generalization to a discussion of facts, some not to his liking. The over-generalization is irresponsible; so is the Latino activist. I'm not going to split hairs as to which is more irresponsible.

What really hurts is that TB is increasingly drug-resistant.

[justice1]

18. Has anyone else started scratching their head while reading this?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. Simple solution for her: Rename them "Freedom Fleas".

Or, "Patriot Pests". "Liberty Lice"?

Then wrap one of those American Flag bandanas around her grandkids heads and sing "God Bless 'Murka". Although, in her case a tradtional white sheet and pointy hat would be more appropos.

[Ms. Clio]

20. This is a long and ugly theme in U.S. immigration history

A belief that "outsiders" are bringing in dangerous diseases. Remember that immigrants had to undergo a health screening for things like TB and insanity at Ellis island -- a nasty procedure, sometimes, too, they used buttonhooks to turn up the immigrants' eyelids to check for trachoma. Ouch.

[RebelOne]

21. I got head lice when I was a child.

And I was in an all-white boarding school on Miami Beach long before there were many Hispanics there. Needless to say, my mother took me out of that place.