Race Forward’s Drop the I-Word campaign is part of a larger body of work dedicated to ending the mass criminalization of communities of color. To learn more visit www.MassFreedom.org.

Immigrant and refugee rights are increasingly under attack by U.S. institutions, while racially derogatory and dehumanizing language used in the media and political discourse has paved the way for a rise in hate crimes against immigrants. We need to strongly reject efforts to criminalize immigrants hold our media accountable for dropping the i-word.

Looking Back: Race Forward's Drop the I-Word Campaign

Why It Matters Now

• Right now, immigrant families are facing a period of heightened persecution and crisis as President Trump continues to stoke the anti-immigrant sentiment that gained him popularity during the 2016 Election. We need to strongly reject efforts to criminalize immigrants.
• In the first ten days following the election, there were almost 900 reports of harassment and intimidation from across the nation.
• Anti-immigrant harassment accounted for 32% of of the 867 hate incidents collected by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
• Words make a difference: in the week after the election, over 2,500 educators described specific incidents of bigotry and harassment in schools that could be directly traced to election rhetoric.

Which Outlets Have Dropped the I-Word?

Race Forward looked at how often the i-word has been used in immigrant-focused coverage by The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Associated Press since 2013. We learned: 

• Since officially dropping the i-word in 2013, The Associated Press has consistently been the best performer of these four major national outlets. 
• While The Washington Post has steadily improved its coverage each year, it has also consistently been the worst offender of the four outlets studied.
  
• Although The New York Times never officially pledged to drop the i-word, it has the second best record of the four outlets studies. However, some of the publication's leading immigration reporters continue to use the term. 

(see our full findings here)

And the i-word continues to be used with great frequency on the leading cable TV news networks. According to a Media Matters for America study, in the first half of 2017 the anti-immigrant slur was used on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News prime-time shows a total of 1,296 times. 

• MSNBC hosts and contributors used the i-word 87 times.
• CNN hosts and contributors used it 102 times.
• Fox News hosts and contributors used it 1,107 times, making the network the worst offender of all three networks by far.
• and when the slur was used, it was rarely challenged by hosts and contributors.

Drop the I-Word Resources:

• Three Reasons Why We Should Drop the I-Word 
• 2017: Why It Matters Now
• Journalist Reference Guide  
   

Support our efforts to Drop the I-Word on Twitter by sharing and retweeting here! 

More Resources

• Read our "Moving the Race Conversation" report which includes a case study of the 2010 Drop the I-Word campaign
• Check out Colorlines' Drop the I-Word blog archive, featuring "I Am" stories from immigration activists and their allies
  
  

Sign up for updates from Mass Freedom: Race Forward’s anti-criminalization initiative, here.

For Drop the I-Word news and updates:
Follow RaceForward on Twitter and Facebook
Contact: [email protected]


En español: Guía de Acciones