With all these rallies in favor of letting illegal aliens stay in the U.S. and making them citizens, it seems like no one is talking about anything else. My general view is that illegals should be sent home and replaced with new immigrants, screen and quarantined, with papers and records and limitations on their stays. Most people who disagree with that eventually call me a racist. And one of these days, I'm just going to pop one of those guys in the mouth.
It is not racist to strongly disagree with the most extreme activist views of immigration. In fact, often they are the racists. If you heard some of the crap spewed out of the mouths of some of the La Raza (which translates into English as "The Race") and MEChA leaders in California, then switched the words in the transcript to refer to whites and blacks, or, better yet, Jews and blacks, you would condemn the speaker as a racist who deserved to get his ass kicked.
I actually heard someone say that white people are so racist, "every time an Anglo encounters a Latino, he wonders in the back of his head about the Latino's immigration status." Honestly, who is the racist there? The average white guy she's talking about, or this bitch who purports to know what I think when I see a Latino (or a Latino-looking Italian or Iranian)? If she really wants to know the truth, here it is: I don't care about their status most of the time, because its not my place to root out and return the illegals. But if I am to make assumptions ever, it will be based on context, not skin color. If I see a Hispanic looking man in jeans and a long sleeve work shirt lurking at Home Depot soliciting day work, I assume he is illegal. If I see a Spanish-speaking Hispanic woman with four kids in one stroller outside the free clinic in Santa Ana, I assume she's illegal. If she speaks good English, I don't. If I see her at a doctor's office in Newport Beach, I don't. If I see a Hispanic teenager at South Coast Plaza, I assume he's American. If I see a Hispanic guy working in my building doing anything other than janitorial work, I assume he's American. If I see a Hispanic person in line at the grocery store, I can't tell, nor would I try.
Like most everyone, I have my biases, but biases against Mexicans or other Hispanics is not one of them. I grew up in a town with more than its share of Hispanics. I went to a high school with a heavily Hispanic student body. My first few girlfriends were Mexican. Most of my friends in high school were Mexican. I don't dislike Mexican people or Mexican culture. About the only thing I really dislike about Mexicans is that they talk so fast most of the time that I can't even try to translate in my head. Oh, that and most of them rooted for Julio Cesar Chavez against Oscar de la Hoya.
Supporting law and order, and wanting immigration reform that is something other than letting all of the undocumented residents just stay here as long as they want and have their numbers be replenished later by more illegals is not racist. Wanting immigrants to be identified and regulated is not racist. And even if I had anti-immigrant bias (as opposed to what I do have, which is an opposition to broad and expansive rights to illegal immigrants and the companies who employ them), that would not be, in and of itself, racist. The anti-immigrants are not primarily motivated by racial animus. They are motivated by the same fears and desires that motivated those people who put signs in their shops saying "No Irish Need Apply" or who called people pollocks or dagos and wanted them rounded up and shipped back to Ireland, Poland and Italy in the 19th and 20th centuries. They are generally motivated entirely by the same desires that motivate people to form and support unions. It is a protectionist economic and sometimes cultural issue. Sometimes it is a language issue. It is not primarily a race issue.
I am sympathetic to illegal aliens who get cheated out of their wages or anything else by someone who takes advantage of the fact that it would be risky for them to report the violation or crime. Just because they are undocumented does not mean they should be exploited and cheated. However, just because they are exploited and cheated does not mean we should give them carte blanche to ignore the law.
Everyone to the left of center seems to forget that the reason these people get exploited in the first place is not because they are Mexican or Guatemalan or Ecuadorian. It is because they are illegal. And that makes them vulnerable to abuse from employers and criminals. I have seen several instances of contractors who won't hire laborers whose green cards are legit because there are plenty of illegals to take that job, and the employers want to make sure that none of these workers will blow the whistle when the certified payroll says they got paid $33 an hour, but in reality, they were making $8 an hour cash.
It's easy to just call people racists when they disagree with you, because that makes you feel morally superior and gives you no reason to question whether everything you believe is right. But it's wrong.
"Yes," they sometimes say, "but I don't hear you screaming for the deportation of illegal aliens from Ireland. That's racist." Not so. The second I see an Irish guy putting his face in front of a camera and demanding the right to stay here in violation of American law is the second I say "Deport his ass." Thus, for example, send this Irish bugger home tomorrow, and let's replace him with an honest guy who just submitted a good application in Mexico City. Race should have nothing to do with it.
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