Message touting LULAC replaces one on billboard assailed as racist
A billboard touting the League of United Latin American Citizens has gone up along a stretch of Interstate 35 between San Marcos and New Braunfels, replacing a political message designed to provoke that had been condemned as racist.
Thecompany thatownsthe billboard gave the space to LULAC for free after it removed another sign on the same space saying, “UsedMexicans.”
Bearing the phrase, “Join the League. America United” next to LULAC’S red, white and blue shield, the billboard went up Thursday afternoon. It offers a web address and a phone number for text messages.
A national LULAC spokesman, David Cruz, said the group decided against putting up a confrontational message in response to the one it replaced.
“We could have taken a tit-fortat approach, but it would not have accomplished anything,” he said.
The previous advertisement’s cryptic but controversial message was removed Sept. 14 after it spurred complaints from passing motorists and civil rights leaders. LULAC said the company, Turner Outdooradvertising, haddonated the billboard space to the organization effective immediately “for placement of a positive message.”
A call to the New Braunfelsbased company was not returned Thursday.
New Braunfels City Manager Robert Camareno said in a statement posted to Facebook that local officialshadfielded complaints about the “Used-mexicans” sign, and while it wasn’t located within Newbraunfels’ city limits or its extraterritorial
jurisdiction, he called it offensive and “not representative of our community’s values.”
‘Used-mexicans’ billboard removed after blowup in New Braunfels | https://www.expressnews.com/ news/local/article/used-mexicans
Those who followed the website suffixes .org, .com and .info. attached to the phrase saw dictionary-style definitions of “used” as “deceptively led into a relationship to gain something of worth” and “no longer of value, depleted.” In bold letters, the sites define Mexicans as “people of heritage that are good at what they do.”
The man who put up the billboard,
Charles Abernathy, 55, of Houston, said in a previous interviewthemessagewas thathispanics have been used by the Democratic Party, are conservative at heart and ought to vote for President Donald Trump. He denied it was racist but said, “It’s meant to be inflammatory.” Abernathy didn’t return calls Thursday seeking comment on the LULAC replacement billboard.
Cruz, the LULAC spokesman, said the group decided to stress a message of unity rather than address the tone and substance of Abernathy’s billboard, which Rodolfo Rosales, a state director with the group, described as a “hate sign” that “reflects poorly on New Braunfels and its residents even though they had nothing to do
with it.”
“We really thought long and hard about it,” Cruz said. “There were a lot of different opinions and thoughts, but in the end we had one word in mind, and that’s the word that occupies a prominent position: united.
“And that was, to us, the most important message that we wanted the sign to convey— unity— and thenwe threwinamerica because we felt itwas an important distinction that we’re about uniting the country, not dividing the country,” he added.
“This is a time to come together,” LULAC State District Director Felix Moreno said, “not be divided.”