In a segment on last night’s episode of Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor, producer and contributor Jesse Watters meant to gauge New York City taxi drivers’ thoughts on immigration reform.
Instead, he mocked their accents and language skills, portraying immigrants as bumbling and unintelligent.Media Matters highlighted the segment, which host Bill O’Reilly introduced by explaining: “Many immigrants, both legal and illegal, drive taxi cabs. So we sent Watters out to check out that situation.” What followed were short, on-the-spot interviews with various taxi drivers on the streets of New York City.Watters made snide, stereotypical remarks about the taxi drivers’ countries of origin. He also ridiculed their English-speaking skills, poking fun at one driver for confusing the pronunciation of “terrorist” with “tourist”.The interviews were contrasted with clips from movies like Austin Powers, Dumb and Dumber, and Borat!, in which the characters spoke in funny accents and broken English. And in one instance, Watters asked an interviewee: “Let me see your papers. I’m kidding around, I believe you.”
ah the holly jolly bigots on parade, this reminds me when he went to dinner with Rev. Al in Harlem at Sylvia's, and all the things he had told his folks in the past as to what Blacks think and are doing kinda quietly blew up in his face. when he said he expected to hear where's my mf'n tea from customers
he wonders why it's because it's his nature to be bigoted and it is everybody he encounters is wrong.
Watters also seemed shocked when one cab driver told him he had a master's degree in Political Science. But this is actually a common occurrence. A recent documentary chronicled the stories of immigrant cab drivers who gave up professional careers in their home countries for taxi driving, which is one of the more stable and easily attainable source of employment for immigrants without employment credentials. Additionally, the Migration Policy Institute reported that there are 1.6 million college-educated immigrants in the U.S. who are underemployed or unemployed, often taking jobs such as taxi-driving because of the immense bureaucratic barriers for immigrants seeking work.
gee Bill, who knew? certainly not you or Watters, and yet you still wonder why it exist.
