The foreign press, it seems, has taken a keen interest in chronicling Miami's Cuban vote this election.
Sky News, the British 24 hour news station, is the latest to pay a visit to Versailles, and devotes most of a piece titled "Prejudice Rife In Sunshine State" to a demonstration there by Vigilia Mambisa. Clearly the writer isn't trying to be subtle with his message, but hey, neither were the demonstrators:
He and others at the event repeatedly linked Mr Obama with fundamentalist Islam - a charge that has been levelled against him since the primaries, despite the fact he has been a practising Christian for decades - and accused him of being a closet Communist...
...Another demonstrator outside the Versailles restaurant, a focal point for the Cuban American community, waved a placard at passing motorists with a crudely-drawn picture of Mr Obama wearing what looked like a beard, robes and turban below the word "Evil".
In the video above a man says that "it's insane to have a Muslim descendant running this country" because the United States is primarily a Juedo-Christian nation. Never mind the fact that if this man lived in other parts of the country he'd find people discriminating against him using a similar line of thought, that the United States is primarily a Euro-Caucasian nation. He also has no problem as acting as mouth piece for his entire ethnicity, and says that all Cuban-American families are voting for McCain out of "fear" that Obama is a North American Socialist who associaties with radical terrorists. As I've been reminded time and time again by friend, emailers and commenters, it's simply not true that all Cuban-Americas think this.
The fact is that, as anyone who thinks this Sky piece is an inaccurate portrayal of all Cuban-Americans should know, it's pretty easy to cut and edit and mix some facts around to paint a somewhat distorted picture. It's happening to both candidates, but it's even worse when people repeat it as fact. Like this guy who thinks Obama is a Muslim descendant, unfit for the presidency.