So Phil was bouncing around the ‘net, trying to find Sonnet Technology’s website (which is right here, by the way). On one attempt, he made the guess of www.sonnet.com. Turns out that that’s actually the home of Sonnet Networking — “Your neighbors on the ‘net.”
Well, as long as you aren’t Mexican, at least.
Quite frankly, I was more than a little taken aback by this. There’s a certain almost surreal incongruency in the combination of banner ads promoting wireless networking and DSL-based broadband and the blatant racism plastered across the top of the page. 
There’s even a handy “Invasion Map” showing how much of the southwest has become overrun by Mexicans (this map appears to have been taken from La Voz de Aztlan, an independent Mexican-American news and opinion site based out of Los Angeles, which in turn seems to lean fairly anti-semetic…).
In the left-hand sidebar of the page, underneath links to Disney and Google is a link simply titled “Defending Citizenship” that goes into more detail about this “invasion”.
In the schools of Mexico, students are taught that the southwestern USA belongs to Mexico, an area called Aztlan, and that one day Mexico will reconquer it. For political reasons, the Mexican government encourages Mexicans to invade our country, relieving Mexico of its poor, and generating a stream of $14.5 billion into Mexico every year. This is money that should be spent in local businesses, but instead becomes Mexico’s second largest source of foreign income. And so the invasion continues, and their vision of reconquista becomes real.
According to the 2000 U.S. Census Bureau, 96.8 percent of the population in East Los Angeles, Calif., was Hispanic/Mexican. Stockton, Calif. was recently featured in a Wall Street Journal story about the exploding Mexican illegal alien problem. A dead crack-mama Mexican with 9 children on welfare and father on workers comp disability was on the front page of the Modesto Bee just before Christmas. This problem is on our doorstep today.
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p>It’s hard for me to come up with any other description for this than “disgusting.” Bad enough that there are people who feel this way, but to make such hateful views a large part of a corporate website?
Is this even legal? Wouldn’t anti-discrimination laws prohibit things like this? If nothing else, I’d think that the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Laws would make this display illegal…at least, if I were of Hispanic descent, I know that I would think twice about applying for a job with a company promoting such beliefs on their public website. What do you really think the chances are of anyone from Mexico, Spain, Peru, Portugal, or any similar heritage getting hired by this company? How about their customers — do service requests called in by someone with a Spanish accent get resolved with the same politeness, speed, and efficiency as requests called in by someone without an accent?
Admittedly, it’s something of a Catch-22, but I’ve often found that the one thing I’m steadfastly intolerant of is intolerance. There is no justifiable excuse for any company to be so blatantly racist.
Should you be so moved, here’s the contact page for Sonnet Networking. I’ve rapidly reached the point where I’m out of anything more to say while remaining coherent.
CJ
Brandon
Tim Who?
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Dammit. Its 6am and I sitting here with my first cup of coffee. And now I’m PISSED OFF and angry. Thanks Michael…and a good morning to you too.
Where is that contact link…..I have some words for them…
I cannot claim to be surprised that a Southwestern based company is touting such propaganda. My family lives in southern California and I have been shocked by their statements about Mexican illegal immigrants. Californians have this idea that all Mexican immigrants come into the US for the “easy money.” They drive up California’s taxes by burdening the welfare system. There are a few huge problems with this logic. An illegal immigrant probably cannot apply for welfare without getting sent back across the boarder. They also don’t take jobs away from hard working Americans since they tend to take farming jobs with long hours and very, very low wages. Americans don’t want these jobs that take advantage of foreign workers, afraid of getting sent back to mexico for making waves.
But don’t try to have this conversation with any of my relations, because they know that their insanely high taxes are due to the Mexicans and not the riots and various natural disasters that befall California on a regular basis.
Don’t get me wrong, Mike: I entirely repudiate the content of this website. I think it’s abhorrent. However, you’re getting me nervous by asking whether this language is legal. Yes, I personally think this is crap. But it’s speech protected by the First Amendment. That’s why the ACLU used to (and perhaps still does) defend the right of neo-Nazis to march when they were denied permits based purely on their beliefs, as abhorrent as most people find said beliefs. Your and my views usually coincide about 300% most every time. And if a brave Latino or Latina applies to this guy and gets turned down, he or she’ll have a hell of a juicy discrimination suit. But until then, I think it’s got the right to be there, as disgusting as it is.
Mike — believe me, no offense taken whatsoever. I think my questioning of the legality was rather poorly worded at something past 3am, though I tried (clumsily) to explain my thinking.
I completely agree that the sentiments, racist though they may be, are definitely protected speech, and any person has (and should have) the right to hold any beliefs they want and expound upon them ‘til the cows come home, no matter how much or how vehemently I disagree with them. My question is whether a company has those same rights — and by placing these pages on the home pages of the ISP, those views are being espoused by the company, not by any specific person.
There’s something of a controversy in legal circles right now as to the First Amendment rights of corporations — I’ve debated it a bit in the past, and a Google search for ‘first amendment corporations’ brings up some of the arguments surrounding the issue. Most of those links deal with the argument from more of an advertising standpoint, though (cigarette companies, telemarketers, etc.), debating whether or not the advertising statements and techniques are protected under the First Amendment.
I’m more curious as to whether anti-discrimination legislation — which I believe applies to every United States company, across the board — would cover this situation (which is what I was trying to get across in my initial post).
According to the Q&A page I linked to in my post…
Admittedly, without knowing more about the employment practices of the company or the size of the company, it’s hard to make any hard-and-fast judgements, but I can make some assumptions. Given that Sonnet Networking “is a provider of Internet access throughout Northern California and Northern Nevada”, I’d be very surprised if they had managed to hold their workforce to fifteen people or fewer, so I doubt that they’d be exempt from the regulations due to company size. As for the rest, I’d think there’s a fairly solid argument that even if the company complies by all EEO regulations, is willing to hire people of hispanic heritage and doesn’t treat them any differently than anyone else in the organization, the materials on the company website would probably still be prohibited as a “practice that has the effect of discriminating”. As I said originally, if I were of hispanic descent, I’d certainly have reservations about applying for a company that used its corporate website to promote such views (in all honesty, I’d have those reservations even without being of hispanic descent, simply because I wouldn’t want to work around that type of atmosphere, even if it didn’t affect me directly).
I don’t dispute the logic or argument being made against Sonnet Networking’s faintly disguised xenophobia, but it does seem they might have protected themselves with the legal issues of First Amendment freedoms and from the intrusions of Equal Employment Oppotunity issues by using the corporate site to rally against “illegal alien invasion.” It’s probably a fine point indeed, but the law revolves about the fine points. The corporate site seeks citizen input and signatures against an “illegal” activity - putting them on the side of law-abiding entities. It uses words like “invade” and “invasion” which are clearly trigger words for any American these days.
They further protect themselves by referencing a third-party organization and website and remove themselves as a single entity by referencing “California services.” We all know that Sonnet Networking would like to do this but they would be just another “California service” on the “no” list.
It’s a clever psychological trick - requesting participation in their xenophobic campaign - but skirting any legal issue by the turn-of-the-phrase while triggering a ready reaction by using inciting words like “invade.” They also begin the website with their slogan - “Your neighbors…”, implying oneness with the native Californian and Nevada audience.
Bad guys they are, indeed. But probably legal and probably effective with their target audience.
The very worst propaganda is that which cannot be shot down but which is powerfully motivating. I believe Sonnet Networking’s website qualifies for that level.
“Californians have this idea that all Mexican immigrants come into the US for the “easy money.”“
Um. Why else would anyone come to America? 100% of the people I know came for reasons of material comfort. Including me.
what do you expect? will you console the families of the hundresd of thousands that will die when some fanatic walks across our boarder and opens up a suitcase full of death? and for what? so some greedy scumbag contractors can build us more strip malls via illegal labor so we can buy junk from communist red china?
Mexican do not come here to feed off this government. Trust me we have no support in your government. The only reason why my people come is to escape from the bad conditions Mexico is in. Poverty here is nothing compared to what many families face in Mexico. Leaving is the only way for a father to look for a better future for his family. Would you go up to a man and tell him to go back to his country and let his family starve? Would you like to be in their shoes? I don’t think so. All i have heard in this country is its people complaining about how immigrant take their jobs away and do not pay taxes. First of all, most Americans will not preform hard jobs for little amount of money. Mexican who work in Industries, even if it mean illegally they still get taxes tooken off. More of what most other workers get. If it were not for Immigrants or Mexicans this country’s economy would not be what it is today. You wouldn’t be at your home today eating something or use a product that Mexican or Immigrant labor went into.
Continuing the Discussion