O'Rourke Accused of Wrongly Appropriating "Beto" by Latino Journalist
The mainstream media has been tiptoeing around Robert Francis O’Rourke’s name for some time now, but it seems that the jig is up.
“Beto” is what O’Rourke refers to himself as, and there is an extremely specific reason why. As a politician living in El Paso, Texas, the Latino demographic is of the utmost importance for the democratic presidential candidate.
“Beto” is a Mexican nickname, short for “Roberto” and O’Rourke has certainly used this to his advantage in politics.
Now, a prominent Latino journalist is bashing “Beto” for the appropriation of the nickname, comparing the move to “stolen valor”.
In fact, in a USA Today column, Ruben Navarrette said that the “Beto backlash” among Latinos reminds him
“of the idea of stolen valor, the righteous outrage felt by combat veterans when others who didn’t see action claim medals they don’t deserve.”Navarrette said that numerous Latinos “— unlike the media, which is run by white liberals who are fascinated by other white liberals — refuse to go loco for Beto” because O’Rourke has not been with the community when it mattered on issues like immigration.
Navarrette continued…
“For instance, at a time when Latinos feel under siege by ethnocentrism and anti-immigrant demagoguery, where was O’Rourke on the explosive immigration issue during his three terms in the House of Representatives?” Navarrette asked.
And this wasn’t the first time that the journalist went after Robert Francis O’Rourke, either.
In a previous column last month addressing “cultural appropriation,” Navarrette noted that though O’Rourke, whom he dubbed “the Hamlet of West Texas,” has likely “never gone out and told a group of Mexican-Americans that he was a member of the tribe,” it seems like “he doesn’t mind if some Latinos jump to that conclusion and vote for him because of some misplaced sense of ethnic loyalty.”
He even noted that some Latinos actually think O’Rourke is one of them, quipping that “perhaps they can’t imagine that anyone would—in Donald Trump’s America—volunteer to be Latino if they weren’t born that way.”
O’Rourke is one of 16, (or maybe 17), democratic candidates running for the presidency in 2020.