Well, folks, would you believe it? This evening, once again, we’re left wondering how the story might’ve unfolded under different circumstances. Picture it: a Republican official applauds migrants as top-notch lifeguards due to their “remarkable swimming abilities”, as claimed by New York Mayor Eric Adams. Surely, such a generalized statement seems full of wild stereotyping and racial insensitivity, yet, unsurprisingly, the mainstream networks sidestepped the story.
In an act of unexpected defiance, NBC News Now alone decided to shine a light on the issue. Tom Llamas, on his show, reported on Mayor Adams’ controversial statement. Referring to immigrants as “excellent swimmers”, Adams proposed that they could be the much-needed answer to the city’s lifeguard shortage. The logic for this was left unclear, raising eyebrows and leading to some intense criticism of the mayor.
Condemnations weren’t just centered around the migrant remarks; they extended to Adams’ handling of the migrant influx, which has added an estimated 180,000 new individuals to New York since 2022. The city’s already strained shelter system is left grappling with these drastic demographic changes.
Llamas was scathing in his critique of Adams and questioned the basis of his migrants-as-“excellent swimmers” theory. He wondered if this assumption originated from the idea of them swimming across the Rio Grande or perhaps the Florida Strait. The lack of outrage over such a prejudiced statement was pointedly lamented by Llamas, who strongly criticized the City’s self-proclaimed “progressive” stand.
Of course, if a member of the GOP had dared utter such an audacious statement, we’d be drowning in a sea of media outrage by now. President Biden would likely be called upon to mutter some disjointed remark to simmer down the uproar. Tragically, the stark double standards in the coverage of such stories can’t be ignored.
In an astounding display of selective blindness, the “Latino advocate” networks like Univision and Telemundo didn’t pay any attention either, deviating from their usual practice of dedicating substantial air-time to stories of racial bias.
So, despite a glaring display of racial stereotyping that should have commanded more attention, the evening network newscasts gave it a miss. Instead, they persisted with their usual coverage. In doing so, they lent credibility to the belief that the mainstream media does not treat issues involving Republican and Democrat public figures in the same manner.
It’s a tough pill to swallow but, it seems, we live in a system where these stories are presented in remarkably different ways depending solely on the political party of the culprit. And once again, the double D standards were more than apparent in the coverage of this story, or lack thereof.
