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California seeking 'relief' from mainstream media bias

The Chronicle covered the San Bernardino anti-immigration measure, although the story reads more like a loving profile of one of the measure's proponents, City Councilman Chas Kelley.

It's curious that the Mayor, or the other three council members who oppose the measure didn't get any ink, let alone glowing treatment as a local town hero. But worse than that is the reporter's bizarre acceptance of Kelley's opinion that, for example, people speaking a language other than English in a supermarket is a "problem" that the city must address.

But he soon was confronted with more troubling issues, like rising crime, a decaying downtown, and greater use of Spanish in shops and stores where Kelley was used to hearing his native tongue.

"All these things add up to a frustration level," he says.

After wrestling with the issue, and his conscience, he concluded that in a world that sometimes feels like it is spinning out of control, eliminating illegal immigrants would be one way of slowing things down. He has not wavered in that view.

Note to Kelley: even if you do "eliminate" illegal immigrants, your community's problems will not be solved. Problems in communities like those in San Bernardino -- extreme amounts of poverty, joblessness, poor urban planning that has caused environmental and commuting nightmares -- are not caused by one group of people. They are deep problems that can only be solved by the diverse community coming together and coming up with real solutions.

One would hope that an elected leader of the city would feel more empowered to solve the city's problems. Instead, he is choosing to lash out and scapegoat an entire class of people, who he is identifying in racist terms by invoking things like "Mexican flags" to describe them.

But in California's mainstream media, this mentality does not cause any critical thinking. It results in a charming profile. Unbelievable.

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