Source: Raw Story
Texas Tea Party candidate: Calling immigrants ‘wetbacks’ is as normal as breathing air
By Arturo Garcia
Monday, February 24, 2014 21:40 EST
Texas Tea Party Republican Chris Mapp’s bid to unseat Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) has garnered attention not for his policy views, but for his use and defense of the anti-Latino slur “wetbacks” during a meeting with one of the state’s biggest newspapers.
The Huffington Post reported that the 53-year-old businessman used the term during an interview earlier this month with the editorial board of the Dallas Morning News, saying that “ranchers should be allowed to shoot on sight anyone illegally crossing the border on to their land.” He also reportedly referred to President Barack Obama as a “socialist son of a b*tch.”
The Morning News noted Mapp’s remarks while endorsing Cornyn on Feb. 16, in part because of Cornyn’s support for immigration reform. Meanwhile, Mapp was listed among the rest of the other GOP contenders, who were described as “less informed, little known and generally offer extreme, vague or impractical ideas.”
Mapp subsequently defended the remark to the San Antonio Express-News, calling use of the slur “as normal as breathing air in South Texas.” He has faced criticism from not only state Democrats, but Cornyn and other state conservatives.
Read more:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/24/texas-tea-party-candidate-calling-immigrants-wetbacks-is-as-normal-as-breathing-air/
