You Know How I Know You're Racist?
"In the 2004 election, gay marrieage was the issue the Republicans used to get the stupid people out to the voting booths. In 2008, it will be immigration. Brown is the new pink."
-Bill Maher, Friday night at the Ice House
As I said before, I think the immigration issue is a complex one. Illegal immigration does cause problems for America, and I don't assume that anyone calling for stronger border enforcement is necessarily a closet klansman, but you have to admit that there are a lot of racists who have latched onto this position. Pat Buchannan and Lou Dobbs barely conceal their racism as they go off on paranoid fantasies about immigrants bringing crime and leprosy to America, or an attempt by the Mexican government to repatriate the southwest. The biggest tip-off is when conservatives start talking about how immigration is "driving down the wages of America workers," or how congress has "sold out working people to corporate interests" that want a supply of cheap labor. Seriously, when have these people ever cared about driving down wages? They spend all their time complaining about unions and minimum wages, but when brown people are involved, suddenly they start talking like Noam Chomsky. And these libertarian conservatives, always quick to praise the invisible hand of the market, and to insist that there is absolutely nothing a government can do to control the market, think we can stop the flow of human traffic over the border between one of the world's richest countries and a very poor country? Yeah, no racism there.
Since I brought up the leprosy thing, I have to ask why Lou Dobbs isn't getting the same pariah treatment that Don Imus got. I don't have any particular sympathy for Imus, but I also don't really care what he says. He's a dumb shock jock. And here Dobbs is, making completely false statements, presenting them AS FACT, with the intention of stirring up racist hatred. Seems to me a much more important deal than the "nappy headed hos" comment.
-Bill Maher, Friday night at the Ice House
As I said before, I think the immigration issue is a complex one. Illegal immigration does cause problems for America, and I don't assume that anyone calling for stronger border enforcement is necessarily a closet klansman, but you have to admit that there are a lot of racists who have latched onto this position. Pat Buchannan and Lou Dobbs barely conceal their racism as they go off on paranoid fantasies about immigrants bringing crime and leprosy to America, or an attempt by the Mexican government to repatriate the southwest. The biggest tip-off is when conservatives start talking about how immigration is "driving down the wages of America workers," or how congress has "sold out working people to corporate interests" that want a supply of cheap labor. Seriously, when have these people ever cared about driving down wages? They spend all their time complaining about unions and minimum wages, but when brown people are involved, suddenly they start talking like Noam Chomsky. And these libertarian conservatives, always quick to praise the invisible hand of the market, and to insist that there is absolutely nothing a government can do to control the market, think we can stop the flow of human traffic over the border between one of the world's richest countries and a very poor country? Yeah, no racism there.
Since I brought up the leprosy thing, I have to ask why Lou Dobbs isn't getting the same pariah treatment that Don Imus got. I don't have any particular sympathy for Imus, but I also don't really care what he says. He's a dumb shock jock. And here Dobbs is, making completely false statements, presenting them AS FACT, with the intention of stirring up racist hatred. Seems to me a much more important deal than the "nappy headed hos" comment.
posted by Chris Oliver at 3:35 PM
2 Comments:
Two things I find interesting about this topic: Most (if not all) of the people terrified of being "invaded" (and I don't know about CA...but we have friggin BILLBOARDS spouting this retardocity here) are "good christians". But it's a strain of christianity that seems to not only not give a fuck about the poor, but to actively despise and persecute them. JUST LIKE JESUS WOULD DO!
Second, most of these people (again, here) live in the suburbs where their $250,000 McMansion would cost 4x that if it hadn't been built by illegals.
I don't sense that it's that bad in L.A., where Latinos have some political power, but from Orange County down, there are a lot of elections won by immigrant-bashing. And yeah, the "immigrants taking our jobs" seems to come from people in no danger of losing their jobs to immigrants rather than genuine poor people (but I guess that's the same argument you hear from conservatives about "limosine liberals").
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