Javier Gonzales
Update, 10:25 a.m.
In response to this posting, Democratic Party spokesman James Hallinan sent this clarification:
“Chairman Gonzales believes any state employee who sent or forwarded this racist email should no longer work for the State of New Mexico.”
Original post:
The state Democratic Party is calling on GOP gubernatorial candidate Susana Martinez to fire a prosecutor who forwarded an e-mail joke about killing a Mexican and an Arab, but it hasn’t called for the firing of the employee of another state agency who sent the e-mail to that prosecutor.
“The people of New Mexico must trust their law enforcement officials, not fear them. The racial slurs in this joke about our Hispanic and Middle Eastern communities are absolutely unacceptable and not conducive to making people feel safe,” Democratic Party Chairman Javier Gonzales said in a news release. “Hate breeds hate, and I urge Ms. Martinez to take immediate action and terminate all state employees in her office who sent this violent and hateful email.”
Gonzales made no mention of the employee of the state Administrative Office of the District Attorneys who sent the e-mail to the prosecutor in Martinez’s office.
The e-mail, which you can read here courtesy of Democracy for New Mexico, is undoubtedly inappropriate and offensive. It starts with a Mexican and an Arab in a bar drinking beers (nonalcoholic for the Arab because he’s a Muslim). Both shoot their glasses, with the Mexican describing how cheap glasses are in Mexico and the Arab saying there’s so much sand to make glass where he’s from that he, like the Mexican, never has to drink from the same glass twice.
Then a New Mexico girl shoots the Mexican and Arab and says, “In New Mexico, we have so many illegal aliens we don’t have to drink with the same ones twice.” The e-mail ends with the line, “God bless New Mexico and that particular New Mexican girl.”
Martinez hasn’t commented on the issue, but the chief deputy district attorney in her office, Susan Reidel, told The Associated Press and New Mexico Independent that the prosecutor who forwarded the e-mail from her government account, Lisa Kuykendall, had been reprimanded.
Reidel wouldn’t go into detail with The Independent about what the reprimand entailed, calling it a personnel matter.
Martinez was unaware of the e-mail until contacted about it by the news service, Reidel was quoted by the AP as saying. She took disciplinary action after seeing a copy.
The news service quoted the deputy director of the Administrative Office of the DAs as saying his agency is reviewing the situation to decide what steps to take.