Forget the Irish!

Leave it to the Arizona Republic, the newspaper that celebrated St. Patrick's Day by publishing the vile canard that Irish immigrants pushed Blacks off America's ladder of social mobility, as if an Irish minority made the Constitution's 13th and 14th Amendments necessary to end slavery. Covering the Al Smith Dinner, Linda Valdez provides the progressive America's regulation list of outsiders and leaves out the subject of the story and the quintessential outsider, Al Smith. He got trounced when he ran for President because he was Irish and Catholic, an alter boy at my great-grandfather's church. Italians got left off the Valdez list, too. They were once so outside that Valdez doesn't know they were outside. They were so outside that Smith wouldn't even tell people he was part Italian. The moral of this story for our Latino community is that if you want to stop being outsiders and have the quintessential insider dinner in America named after you: VOTE. Don't blame people like Helen Purcell for stopping you, she's a decent public servant who's devoted herself to the community: all of it. Get out and vote. Don't let anyone stop you, especially your own apathy. One of the most important offices on the fast track to the inside is the US Senate. It's a very powerful job, in part because the Senators have a lot of say about who gets to be a federal judge. You'll be amazed at how friendly big shot CEOs and lawyers become when the Senator's name is Carmona. Most of the big shots aren't any brighter than a pet dog. They'll sit and beg for whoever has the bone.

Note:  years after The Republic defamed Irish Americans, neither The Republic nor the canard's author Clarence Page have apologized for the politically incorrect remarks.