Kenders' Musings

Words have power.

They also serve to show the truth of a situation.

There are groups of people in this country that try to make people use words to distort the truth of a situation, in order to make things they way they want them to be, and to make people believe a lie.

The people that are doing this, in this instance, are the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

They have put out a call for the media to refrain from using certain phrases and words, in the hope of making you believe that the people sneaking into our country and stealing our resources are not criminals, but rather something else.....a citizen.

From this source we get some definitions of "citizen":

A native or naturalized member of a state or other political community

Citizenship is membership in a political community (originally a city but now usually a state), and carries with it rights to political participation; a person having such membership is a citizen.

A member of a political society who owes allegiance to the government and is entitled to its protection.


A citizen is a formal member of a political community, membership of which confers rights (such as the right of political participation) and responsibilities (adherence to the rule of law).

A person who has full rights privileges and protection of living in the United States.

The thousands of people that have been demonstrating in our streets want you to forget those definitions, and also to forget that laws are supposed to be enforced. The people that have been marching in the streets of The United States of America have been doing so while carrying the flags of other countries, thus showing their allegiance to those countries, and not the country that they are demanding recognize them as full citizens. This in and of itself shows that they have no allegiance to this country, and by the definition of citizen are not entitled to the protections of this country.

These people are demanding the rights of citizens while foregoing one of the most fundamental responsibilities of citizenship, adherence to the rule of law.

The National Association of Hispanic Journalists makes its own demands, asking the media to forego use of the word "illegal", stating that its use is "inaccurate" and further stating that use of the word "crosses the line by criminalizing the person, not the action they are purported to have committed."

So now they are saying that a person is not a criminal for breaking the law.

As one of my mentors used to say, "does that make sense?"

They point out that being here illegally is "a civil offense", but when did the laws change to make breaking a civil law not a crime?

A law is a law is a law, and if you break a law, you are a "law breaker", hence a "criminal".

They go on to say:

Furthermore, an estimated 40 percent of all undocumented people living in the U.S. are visa overstayers, meaning they did not illegally cross the U.S. border.

Once again, they are picking at small words, for the plain fact of the matter is once your visa expires you are not supposed to be here, and once again you have broken the law.

On to the word "alien":

While Webster's first definition of the term "alien" is in accordance with the government's interpretation, the dictionary also includes other, darker, meanings for the word, such as “a non-terrestrial being," "strange," "not belonging to one," "adverse," "hostile."

While criminal aliens certainly aren't "non terrestrial beings", and "strange" is all a matter of perspective, what we have seen in our streets the last week or two is certainly "adverse" and "hostile". All of these protests against our government doing what we expect it to do, enforce the law, are for the benefit, and with the aid of the people that are "not belonging to one", the "one" in this case being the United States of America.

This next bit is a pip:

At the 1994 Unity convention, the four minority journalism groups – NAHJ, Asian American Journalists Association, Native American Journalists Association and National Association of Black Journalists – issued the following statement on this term: "Except in direct quotations, do not use the phrase illegal alien or the word alien, in copy or in headlines, to refer to citizens of a foreign country who have come to the U.S. with no documents to show that they are legally entitled to visit, work or live here. Such terms are considered pejorative not only by those to whom they are applied but by many people of the same ethnic and national backgrounds who are in the U.S. legally."

In essence, these groups set a standard, over ten years ago, to lie to you, their readers. If someone is in this country without the proper and legal right to be here, what are they if they are not an "illegal alien?" Undocumented workers? If you do not have the proper documents that give you the legal right to work in this country, you are still an illegal alien, no matter what words are used to describe you.

I prefer "criminal alien".

It is a very honest and accurate description of the people that have snuck into our country and broken and ignored our laws and continue to do so.

They are criminals.

Not "illegal aliens", but NAHJ has a stance on the phrase "illegal alien":

The term criminalizes the person rather than the actual act of illegally entering or residing in the United States without federal documents. Terms such as illegal alien or illegal immigrant can often be used pejoratively in common parlance and can pack a powerful emotional wallop for those on the receiving end.

Again people, words have power, strong emotional power, but no matter what term you use to describe the people that have broken and ignored our laws, the fact remains that they are law breakers, i.e. criminals.

You can call a dog a cat but it is still gonna bark at you and refuse to purr.

Feel free to contact these people and tell them that their policy of lying has not gone unnoticed. That's what I plan to do.

The National Association of Hispanic Journalists
1000 National Press Building
529 14th St., NW
Washington, DC 20045-2001, USA
E-mail: nahj@nahj.org
Phone: 202.662.7145
Fax: 202.662.7144
1.888.346.NAHJ