To the terminal cultural insecurity of young syndicated columnist Ruben Navarette, God’s surname is not Rodriguez or Gonzalez. If only we could convince Mr. Navarette.
A stout, unyielding defender of all matters Latino, Hispanico, Chicano, whichever is this week’s hot, politically proper designation, Mr. Navarette professes to be a conservative. But that is a mask until someone from his extremely modest achieving culture gets his tongue caught in an airplane propeller.
Doesn’t matter if it’s a good guy or a 4-star criminal — if he sounds Latin, Mr. Navarette instantly converts himself into a human shield, not to mention a fool.
He Can’t Afford to Falter so Often
Even though he has been writing a syndicated column for nine years and is carried twice weekly in 175 newspapers — monumental accomplishments these days — he has hardly accumulated enough intellectual capital that he can afford to turn into a foot-stomping, culturally unsophisticated brat every time a slug with a Latin name steps into the gutter.
Mr. Navarette balloons himself into a dolt of mammoth proportions whenever he defends, drum-roll, please, My People.
All essayists are permitted to do this on occasion for Our People.
But Mr. Navarette defends illegal aliens, and he wailed like a mentally defective infant last summer over the Arizona anti-illegal immigrant legislation. He howled when Lou Dobbs said English should be the national language.
If he can’t control his pent-up emotions better, he may someday blow his syndication gig, which, doubtless, would be deserved.
Deep Thinking Not His Strength
My Culture Right or Wrong is the mantra of the 43-year-old Fresno native. He proudly bears a Latino chip on each shoulder, carrying the script, in Spanish of course, “We Are Victims of You-All.”
Predictably garbed in blinders on those occasions when he feels compelled to blunder into the weeds defending My People in all causes, Mr. Navarette is a prisoner of his undisciplined passion.
In his latest My Culture-Not Your’s diatribe, he summoned all of the irrational internal emotions welling within — emotions that most of us manage to control — as he defended Rick Sanchez, the buffoonish, chronically culturally angry, baby-faced brat sacked by dreadful CNN last week for slamming Jews in general and his bosses, including the Jew who hired him.
Trying not to be specific and thereby offend Jewish readers, Mr. Navarette said CNN grossly mistreated Mr. Sanchez.
At his cowardly best, Mr. Navarette skirted precise language while strenuously but thinly defending Mr. Sanchez through the juvenile concept of repetition.
When he misbehaves so flagrantly childishly, it is difficult to take him seriously on subsequent occasions when he is thinking more soberly.
