When a news story recently surfaced reporting on how El Paso mayoral candidate Renard Johnson had personally terminated a Mexican American employee for “raising alarms about possible discrimination” in violation of Title VII, I wasn’t really surprised. It kind of fits a pattern of ambivalence on the part of Johnson to issues of relevance to El Paso’s Mexican American community.
It has become abundantly clear, for example, that Johnson is indifferent or, at the very least, oblivious to the “bad blood” that exists between the Mexican American community and Trump. Heck, even Trump himself has tacitly acknowledged the active state of hostility that exists between him and the Mexican American community.
But the hostility that exists between Trump and Mexican Americans doesn’t seem to trouble Johnson at all. He has been more than willing, for example, to collaborate with steadfast Trump allies like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott even if it means subordinating the interests of El Paso’s Mexican American community.
I am not exactly sure what Johnson did to ingratiate himself with the governor, but Johnson was apparently on such good terms with Abbott that he was placed on the search committee that would ultimately facilitate the appointment of Heather Wilson to the presidency of the University of Texas at El Paso.
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It didn’t bother Johnson in the least that Wilson had been loyally serving in the Trump Administration prior to her appointment as president of UTEP. He also didn’t seem to mind that the recommendations provided by twenty-eight prominent Mexican American community leaders were dismissed by the search committee and, ultimately, by the Regents of the University of Texas at El Paso as well.
It’s important to keep in mind that Johnson, as a member of the search committee, was in a uniquely privileged position to oppose Wilson’s selection and side with elements of El Paso’s Mexican American community who categorically opposed Wilson’s appointment. He chose instead to side with the likes of Dee Margo, Woody Hunt, and Paul Foster, all high-profile supporters of the Republican Party in general and Trump in particular.
He doesn’t seem to want to talk about it much now, but in the immediate aftermath of Wilson’s appointment, Johnson spoke glowingly about her, and there’s absolutely nothing on the record that I am aware of to indicate that his position on Wilson has changed in any way.
Needless to say, this position puts him at variance with a number of local organizations including the El Paso County Democratic Party and the UTEP College Democrats who called for Wilson’s resignation in May of 2024. Perhaps most importantly, however, his position on Wilson puts him at variance with elements of the Mexican American community who view her appointment as an enduring and unacceptable slight to their political sensibilities.
Of course, this is something that Johnson just doesn’t seem to understand which frankly makes him wrong for El Paso in my opinion.
What El Paso needs is to elect someone who is going to align with the political interests of the Mexican Americans of El Paso, and that means electing someone who is going to stand up to people like Wilson, Abbott, and Trump, not someone who will bend the knee and do their bidding.
About the Author
The Perimeter is a column written by Aldo Mena, an El Paso News opinion columnist and founding writer at Fronterizo.news.
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