Just because you "don't get it" doesn't mean that you can't understand it. Use those beautiful minds of yours and think. Not easy, but worth it when you realize that the kids tears can be avoided and better yet you can do something about it. Because Murka is doing this in your name, and if they do it to "them" now they can and will certainly do it to "you" tomorrow. Going from "Us" to "Them" only takes a single click of the mind switch, and that one makes no sound at all (and it also works both ways).

I say this not crankily at you, Rafael, just thinking out loud. It shouldn't need to be me or "us" eventually in order for it to matter. That whole "first they came for the Jews and I didn't say anything, and then they came for the whoevers and I still said nothing, blah blah blah" speech that they taught in my middle school history class...I feel like - really? So if it had *just* been the Jews (or immigrants, or anybody else) who "they" came for, and it stopped there, we wouldn't be having this "damn I wish I'd done something" conversation? Cuz otherwise you lost me at "I didn't say anything."

Yeah I get what your saying Joan. But I think thats the point, that the person did not act when it was happening to someone else, because it didn't concern them, or thought they where immune or simply did not care. That passage proves that we have to act when it happens to anyone, because that anyone could be us. Its not about where it begins or ends, so much that once it begins, it does not end, and no walls, false sense of entitlement or racial bias will stop it.

Nez:

How you find the time to do all of this and be non-virtual parent and spouse is beyond me.

The arguments against immigrants are framed at the level of:

"they're parasites who steal our jobs (which we would not work in any case), steal social services (while paying tons into social security, medicare and other federal, state and local tax coffers--with zero expectation of reimbursement)and cost our country billions of dollars to monitor, arrest, deport/imprison."

Unless of course they are high-tech folks on special visas or nice, "white" people.

My older brother works in the meatpacking industry. His particular division employs numerous Vietnamese (he married one of them) and he has no problem whatsoever with their work ethic or anything else about them (except the usual "in-laws" stuff. He is a very complicated guy. He brooks no dishonesty in tax reporting (he's a CPA) and doesn't cut many people slack in terms of their being responsible for their own lives. He is, however, very aware of the inequities of society vis-a-vis immigration and really had no problem standing up for his beliefs--even before he "tainted" himself by marrying his beautiful brown wife. I showed him a photo, years ago, that I took in SoCal of a group of migrant workers. His immediate comment was, "Oh, yeah, anybody who thinks those folks are lazy and shiftless needs to spend a little time doing stoop labor in 95 degree heat, for minimum wage or less."

The real problem with race relations, imo, is that the argument (as I framed it above) allows those who benefit--BigFarming, BigBoxing and BigEatingAmerica to have their profits--while blaming immigrants for all the social ills that this country suffers. Also, and this is really not talked about enough, the straw man of the hateful, lazy, couldbeaterrarist immigrant is being knocked down so busily that canned green beans & other vegetables, pet foods and other foodstuffs imported from places like China are not even thought about until we have a scare like those of the recent past. WTF, eating green beans grown in China? No offense against anyone, but that's just plain crazy.

This country keeps shrinking in upon itself in terms of immigration while attempting to export its "values" to other "less democratic" regimes. I almost want to give up.

This piece really taps into the absence of the left on this issue. For people like Duke and I, it really feels like we're speaking into nothingness. The only real allies are members of the latino community.

But the truth is that this sort of thing isn't anything new. Civil rights leaders railed against the mainstream liberals all the time. Sometimes I wonder why there is even an effort to appeal to mainstream U.S. citizens. When people walk around with "We are America" signs I can't help thinking of what Malcolm X famously said in his speech "The Ballot or the Bullet".

"I’m no politician. I’m not even a student of politics. I’m not a Republican, nor a Democrat, nor an American, and got sense enough to know it. I’m one of the 22 million black victims of the Democrats, one of the 22 million black victims of the Republicans, and one of the 22 million black victims of Americanism. And when I speak, I don’t speak as a Democrat, or a Republican, *nor an American.* I speak as a victim of America’s so-called democracy. You and I have never seen democracy; all we’ve seen is hypocrisy. When we open our eyes today and look around America, we see America not through the eyes of someone who have -- who has enjoyed the fruits of Americanism, we see America through the eyes of someone who has been the victim of Americanism. We don’t see any American dream; we’ve experienced only the American nightmare. We haven’t benefited from America’s democracy; we’ve only suffered from America’s hypocrisy."

I personally think that the only way to make people care about migrants is to develop a new conception of citizenry, even humanity. Right now if you don't have a nation, you don't have any rights. Since when did the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness exist only for the citizens of you own country? It's time to create a global citizenry

Practically the only difference I can see between the discussion on the right and the (very little) discussion on the left is that at least many on the right are honest about their racism, while the left frames similar sentiments as looking out for American labor.

Perhaps that too harsh, but I'm so discouraged when I see liberals swollowing the RW talking points and lies without even questioning them.

Oh and..

Why am I called racist or biased because I'm mexicana and care about issues that affect mexicanos?

because you're forgetting that the dominant culture prescribes we all care about what affects white people in the mainstream first and foremost. if you prioritize a (brown) sub-sector, you are hurtfully ignoring the mainstream's priorities, which are racist ones. this makes you a racist. simple!

Rafael:
"That passage proves that we have to act when it happens to anyone, because that anyone could be us."

I believe I am being grouchy about that passage, and it's better that people end up caring than continuing not caring, like Nez talks about, however they get there...What continues to gnaw at me is another point, which is - there are things that are going on, and have been going on since this country's inception, that may not necessarily ever happen to certain groups of "us." To me, not to put too fine a point on it and as an example. I will never not-be-able to pass as white, middle class, college educated, supposedly desirable citizen. Even if/when I break laws, hold subversive ideas, take subversive actions - if anyone came knocking I could save my individual skin by pretending to be the type of person who does not typically suffer the gravest consequences of social policies. As long as there exists certain groups of people to whom "it" never happens, I am troubled by the idea that the reason to protest is because one day it *could* happen to that group. I am fairly convinced that the reason injustices have been both allowed and enforced is because there are groups of people who actually know that they will not ever be "them," as long as those particular injustices are going on.

As long as there is a lower class, I am in it.

As long as there is a criminal element, I'm of it.

As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

- Eugene Debs

I heard someone the other day on the radio referencing this quote you posted from Debs, and I almost referenced it as well in my first response here. (I had to look him up first, since the person on the radio didn't mention his name, just his words.) It's exactly what this post - and maybe strangely, maybe not, your Where is the Kindness post - made me think of.

makes a lot of sense.

we are losing our sense of connectedness and humanity as we squeeze every thought through the fine meshes of individual and political and national identity.

Nez:

I was just thinking that it's rare if ever that someone calls me out on my ethnicity (especially if they don't know my name). I am almost never called a "Mick" although that certainly happened to my grandfather and his father in the 1800's. 142 years since the Emancipation Proclamation and counting and we still call people of any shade of sortabrown by pejoratives that indicate their color rather than their nationality. Two of the Boston Red Sox' most prolific batters are Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz. Both are from Dominica, as are numerous other ball players. They are called Dominicans. If they were waiting tables, digging ditches, picking veggies or performing a host of other tasks by which the immigrant is "sucking the lifeblood" out of this country, there is another word that would be used to describe them.

There is a tremendous gulf in this country, in the understanding of what racism is. Racism is not limited to overt acts of cruelty, obvious acts that are criminal under the law or name calling. It is all of those things, but racism is, much more pervasively, a mindset that runs along the lines of, "Wait until we solve our problems, then we will solve yours." That task is impossible. If racism is not seen as THE problem, then it can't be solved.

not to discount my own focus my "identity" and how it fits in to my feelings and place in this society, that is, not to say other views aren't important. they are. but we cannot lose sight of the humanity in even our opponents, or i think we help morph them into the creatures we fear they must be.