The National Council of La Raza, along with other civil rights organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, MALDEF, NAACP, and the Urban League among others, spoke out on Monday about the recent rise in racially motivated violence, most notably the killing of Marcello Lucero in Suffolk County, NY.

I’m glad that NCLR is teaming up with other ethnic rights organizations, as part of a larger strategy to combat hate crimes against our people and the hateful immigration rhetoric that has helped fuel the violence. A blogger colleague of mine, XP, has also suggested that the Latino issue organizations team up with other civil rights groups to build winning coalitions. Seneca, the D.C. contributor on this blog, has recommended that Latino issue organizations would be wise to come together with other issue organizations that have common goals, especially those with more name recognition and respect within the Washington establishment. I’m happy to see this cooperation. This is definitely a step in the right direction. You can read more about this here, and listen to the press briefing in the video clip below. And thank you NCLR for utilizing technology to allow the New Media to report this. We were just wondering when we would have more video clips available to share with the blogsphere a week ago.