Words strong enough to kill

Seven teenagers were arrested on November 13th in Long Island for fatally stabbing Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorian immigrant. An article written on November 14th, in the NY Times criticizes Steve Levy, the Suffolk County executive, for the harsh words he spoke of immigrants a few days prior. There was not blame or talk about the teens that killed Lucero, but only the level of guilt that Levy should be feeling from his words. It’s interesting that this media source chose to not even address that the ones doing the prejudice killing are so young; merely kids. T

The article convinces its readers that Lucero has no level of guilt. The NY Times writer said that Levy believed, “that the killing would have been a one-day story anywhere but his home turf…Mr. Levy needs to realize that distortions cut both ways.” He thinks because of what he said, he’s getting too much attention in his community. However, what about the power of the media? Why wasn’t the fact brought up that his bigotries may have easily helped persuade the teenagers into the hate crime? After reading this article completely, I wanted to know more about what exactly Steve Levy said about immigration and why this reporter feels that Levy is learning that words have consequences.

Also from the NY Times, I found an article specifically about Levy and his talk on immigration. There was a positive feel to the article at first, but soon it began to portray him quite badly. A specific prejudice that Levy enacted about immigration was him labeling Mexicans women’s children “anchor babies” because they would go over the border so their child could be born free in America. That day, he also said a local hospital was shutting down their maternity ward because there were too many “anchor babies.” This proved to be a complete lie.

While Levy is the Suffolk County executive, he will not allow the existence of hiring sites, outreach organizations, or further negotiations for immigrants. Therefore, there will be no change in the current situation of immigrants in Long Island. After realizing this in the second reading, I can see now that the first writer would say Levy has to learn the hard way about his words. Or isn’t he? Even though something as tragic as teenagers killing because of prejudices beliefs, it doesn’t seem likely that Levy is remorseful.