"Most of these bastards molest girls under age 12": Anti-Immigrations Dark Underbelly of Racism

McCamy Taylor

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Sat Nov-24-07 05:32 PM
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"Most of these bastards molest girls under age 12": Anti-Immigrations Dark Underbelly of Racism

Edited on Sat Nov-24-07 05:42 PM by McCamy Taylor

Paul Krugman recently wrote a column in which he gently brought up the idea that the anti-immigration debate is being framed as a racial issue by the Republican Party.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/opinion/19krugman.html?_r=2&n=Top/Opinion/Editorials%20and%20Op-Ed/Op-Ed/Columnists/Paul%20Krugman&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

"Can anti-immigrant rhetoric replace old-fashioned racial politics? No, because it mobilizes the same shrinking pool of whites — and alienates the growing number of Latino voters," he writes.

This, in the context of an article in which he describes how most of the country has become decidedly adverse to racism, at least of an overt nature. Racism of the kind that Reagan and Bush Sr. used so successfully in their campaigns.

Unfortunately, the Republican Party is like staphylococcus. It can mutate in order to stay lethal and infective. Unlike Karl Rove, it can learn new tricks. And it is not above being two faced if that will help it stay in power.

An article in the Sacremento Bee describes how the owner of a preschool, where kids can learn yoga and a second language, such as French or Spanish, received irate phone calls from people who accused her of encouraging illegal immigration. The French was fine. The Spanish was not.

http://www.star-telegram.com/national_news/story/319710.html

Just plain silly, right? I mention this to show that the Republicans have managed to package their anti-immigration racism in a sleek, non offensive wrapper designed to appeal to voters in non Southern states.

(A) neighbor struck up a conversation with her to blame Mexicans, Dupre said, for everything wrong -- including grocery prices.

Wait until she sees the grocery prices when the food is rotting in the fields and on the trees, because there is no one to harvest it!

For many outside the White South, where (for many) racism is still socially acceptable, anti-immigration is perceived as an economic and security issue. There is a reason for this. A study from the Anti-Defamation League entitled Immigrants Targeted: Extremist Rhetoric Moves Into the Mainstream shows how the anti-immigration political movement, spearheaded by Republicans like Bill Frist, speaks with two heads. At home, in places like Georgia, it pairs up with NeoNazis, White Supremists, members of the KKK and eugenics advocates to deliver the kind of racist rhetoric that is so useful in getting Southern Whites to vote against their own economic self interest and for the economic interests of the rich and powerful---in this case represented by the Republican Party.

http://www.adl.org/civil_rights/anti_immigrant/da_king.asp

This is a great document. Very in depth. I recommend that everyone read it.

Some examples (people who are convinced that the anti-immigration movement is not being framed as an anti-Latino or hate movement, please pay close attention):

Speaking at a Newton County (Georgia) Republican Party meeting in April 2007, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, King reportedly told attendees that undocumented immigrants are "not here to mow your lawn – they’re here to blow up your buildings and kill your children, and you, and me."

Dallacroce echoes the anti-immigrant themes of a "mass invasion" of unintelligent, disrespectful, conspiratorial criminals while targeting her message to women and families. She focuses on immigration as a threat to American children and denigrates the values of immigrant families, branding immigrant children as "dumb" and violent.

snip

"Our beautiful Nation has been turned into a jungle by the mass invasion of illegal aliens"

snip

"My children, as well as my grandchildren and everyone’s legal citizen children in our schools, are being affected, dumbed down."

Grass Fire’s 57-page pamphlet, "The Truth About the Illegal Invasion" tries to instill fear in readers with its claims that "illegal immigration is creating a crisis of lawlessness and has led to a massive underground criminal element that feeds off human trafficking and drug running. Illegal immigration is inundating our borders with mountains of garbage. And illegal immigration is undermining American culture and threatening our future."

There is of discussion of the inflated claims about the disease the immigrants are bringing into the country, including Lou Dobbs' insanity about leprosy (which happens to be endemic to Texas, silly rabbit! so no one has to import it).

The worst of the medical claims (and the one from which I take the title of this journal entry) can be found on the last page of the ADL document in the YouTube video clip in which a so called expert describes (in chillingly B Grade movie Nazi villain-esque tones) how Latino immigrants are destined to be pedophiles and child rapists because they were brought up in poverty (ouch!).

"Most of these bastards molest girls under age 12".."or some specialize in boys. Or nuns."

Hmmm. Wonder if her audience realizes that lots of people in Appalachia were brought up in poverty and also share a mixture of White and Native American ancestry, just like Mexicans.

For those from the South, this is all too familiar. The standard Fear the Black Man mantra begins and ends with "He is an oversexed animal who is after our White Women." For those of you who do not understand how the wealthy classes in the South keep working class Whites afraid of Blacks and other minorities by claiming that they pose a threat to the honor of White women, read W. J. Cash's The Mind of the South.

This is chilling stuff, but most Americans outside the South have never read or heard any of this, for a very good reason. The corporate media does not show you the Southern Fried face of the anti-immigration movement. Just as George Allen's "macaca" comment was supposed to be for local consumption only, the "stupid", "sex crazed", "criminal" adjectives are intended for a White racist Southern voting audience which, as Krugman writes, is dwindling in size, but which is still very powerful in a number of states like Georgia and Tennessee ("Harold, Call Me") Alabama and the like.

The rest of the country would react negatively to this kind of racially biased political talk, just as the rest of the country was terribly unamused by "macaca". So, the corporate media sanitizes the anti-immigration debate. From the ADL document:

Despite King’s numerous other inflammatory statements, the national media and elected officials have provided King with a mainstream platform. He has toned down his rhetoric in mainstream television and print media and his statements and articles now reach millions of Americans. In May 2007, Anderson Cooper interviewed King on CNN Today, introducing him as a "columnist" and "activist." Twelve mainstream newspapers have printed King’s articles, most notably The Washington Times, which neutrally describes the Dustin Inman Society as "a Georgia-based coalition of citizens with the goal of educating the public on the consequences of illegal immigration." King’s pieces, mostly discussing immigration, are also featured regularly in Georgia in The Marietta Daily Journal.

The Republican Party stands to gain from the anti-immigration movement. As I posted yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security has announced that the 1.4 million applications for citizenship which it received between Sept. 2006 and 2007 will not be processed in the usual 7-8 months. Instead, they will be processed in 15-18 months, preventing a million or more new Latino (Democratic) voters from participating in the elections next fall in Florida, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, where they might possibly turn the tide of close races. If Latinos were not being vilified in the press, they would never get away with it this. However, there is a good chance that Democrats in Congress will be afraid to stand up for these almost citizens' rights, for fear of angering voters who have gotten a whiff of the anti-immigrant Kool Aid and are scared but do not know that what has frightened them is old fashioned racist propaganda. Here is more on the voter suppression scandal

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/11/22/182533/10

Setting up any group as a criminal element to be feared helps a law and order candidate like Rudy, since he will vow to crack down on crime. Blaming Hispanics for the high price of food (???) takes the heat off the Bush administration and the Republicans for things like the high cost of oil, trade policies, the high deficit, the mortgage crisis and other factors that have contributed to the sour economy. And, in the South, having a racial group to fear and hate, brings Whites together under the banner of the party that says "We are for Whites only". If you are an undereducated, underpaid nonunion worker who is dissatisfied with his life, the temptation to vote for a party that says "It isn't your fault. It is the ____s fault. Stick with us, and we will make something again" sure can be tough to resist, especially when your parents and grandparents and great grandparents all fell for the same slick line.

In the long run, keeping the low skilled working class oppressed is good for business owners, because they are assured cheap labor. For years, they kept African-Americans out of schools so that they could pay them dirt wages for manual labor. The Civil Rights movement changed some of that. Now Black women make about the same wages that White women do. Blacks receive educations and most important of all, they can get government jobs with job security and union safeguards. This has left a void in the workplace which Hispanic immigrants are filling. However, Mexicans more than people born in the U.S.---Whites and Blacks---tend to join unions, protest unfair treatment, vote for their economic benefit, stay abreast of politics. That means that they will quickly stop being a source of cheap low skilled labor---unless something is done to keep them oppressed, marginalized, living in fear, just as Blacks have lived in fear for so many years. Worse yet, as they become a larger part of the population, they may encourage other ethnic members of the working class to stand up for their own rights. Imagine the U.S. with the kind of vocal, fearless working class they have in Mexico, combined with the wealth we have now. We could become like one of the civilized countries of western Europe, where people have health care, fair elections, maternity leave and the rich pay taxes.

Immigrants have always added to the richness of this country. We learn something from every wave. In part, that is because it is often the most enterprising and industrious who come here to better themselves. I strongly suspect that the nation's employers do not want the working class to improve itself with what Latino immigrants can teach us.

At this moment, immigration is the only issue the GOP has going into the 2008 election, and they are playing it for all it is worth. The Republicans do not care if their racist talk results in violence towards Hispanics ( some of whom are citizens) and for this they deserve to be sentenced to repeat High School so that they can learn what it means to be a good citizen in a democracy (Hint: it does not mean treating other human beings as expendable). The recent report on Hate Crimes in the U.S., which admits to under counting hates crimes, mentions that 63% of crimes involving ethnicity are committed against Latinos. In a climate in which there is no mandatory reporting of hate crimes, and southern states do not report hate crimes and alien victims may fear retaliation, it is likely that the FBI statistics are not accurate. A better picture of the virulence of hatred towards Latinos can probably be gained from this report from the Southern Poverty Law Center which describes actual acts of violence and calls for violence.

http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?aid=186

The list includes

Lawless' suggestions included: "Steal the money from any illegal walking into a bank or check cashing place," "Make every illegal alien feel the heat of being a person without status...I hear the rednecks in the South are beating up illegals as the textile mills have closed. Use your imagination," and "Discourage Spanish-speaking children from going to school. Be creative."

On March 27, New Jersey-based neo-Nazi radio host Hal Turner called for the mass murder of Hispanics and the assassination of U.S. senators who support guest worker programs. "All of you who think there's a peaceful solution to these invaders are wrong. We're going to have to start killing these people," Turner said.

So, tell me. Who exactly are the terrorists here?

In this kind of climate, Latinos are much more likely to be the victims than the instigators. However, we see the press doing what it has done to Blacks for years. Every time there is a crime with an Hispanic suspect and victims of another race, it becomes a media circus. Immigration status is the first thing reported. Something like a car accident not involving alcohol becomes a rallying cry for a Berlin Wall on the border.

This is not inevitable. For over a century, the nation's politicians, business leaders, press, scientists treated African-Americans this way, some out of prejudice, some out of habit, some because it was good politics or good business. It changed. Writers and civil rights leaders and right thinking citizens and brave politicians and the courts made it change.

The fact that the Civil Rights movement happened within our lifetime and the fact that most of America remembers "I have a dream" means that if we point our finger directly at the fundamental racism that lies at the dark heart of the anti-immigration movement in this country, the majority of Americans will turn their faces away, just as Paul Krugman says. Take away the sleek packaging that says "economic issue" and the pretty ribbon that says "security for my kids", and the nation's soccer moms and dads will find themselves repulsed by the cross burning and violence inciting talk that is going on in some parts of the country.

A good way to start would be with a PBS documentary. Please, Bill Moyer. Or maybe a book. Over 50 years ago, John Steinbeck opened the nation's eyes to the plight of another group of migrants, who were also "illegals" in that they were branded vagrants and undesirables by the state of California. I am talking about the book The Grapes of Wrath and the plight of the refugees from the Dust Bowl.

Okie use' ta mean you was from Oklahoma. Now it means you're a dirty son-of-a-bitch. Okie means you're scum. Don't mean nothing itself, it's the way they say it.

http://www.allgreatquotes.com/grapes_of_wrath_quotes.shtml

Immigrant used to mean you were from another country. Now it means you are a pedophile rapist, terrorist and carrier of disease. It doesn't mean anything in itself, it's the way they say it.