B'ham News Compares Use of Term "Illegals" to Using the N-Word (Barf Alert)

The Birmingham News ^ | 5/04/06 | John Archibald

[subaru]

The words still sting, just hearing them secondhand:

"You wetback, tortilla-and-salsa-eatin', low-rider-drivin', mariachi-playin', job-stealin', fast-speakin', greasy (I just can't say it). Are you all named Jesus or what? Do you always have to cram 40 into a car and 70 into an apartment? Learn to speak English."

The language makes me ill. It makes me think of white robes and fire and senseless hatred. Of times past. Times I thought shamed us into a little humility.

The quote, to be fair, did not come from a redneck hillbilly bent on driving Hispanics back whence they came. It didn't even come from a would-be state legislator prostituting his soul for votes.

It might as well have. It came from a Hispanic kid at Hayes High School, a girl named Juanita who wrote it a while back and gave it to Nancy Rhodes. It was part of an exercise dealing with the damage caused by ethnic jokes and stereotypes. The words, the horrid words, spelled out the insults Juanita would expect from those who dislike her skin tone, her heritage, her accent enough to hate her before they even get to know her.

Language may be a barrier. But the message, our unpleasant message, comes out clear.

For a few years now the rhetoric surrounding Hispanic immigration has been subtle and muted. Arguments about fair taxation and jobs and wages have flared with some bitterness, but by and large this community has tolerated its new neighbors. At least enough to let them pick our crops and build our homes.

But that is changing. Quickly. It's as if we've reached the tipping point where fear topples tolerance. The rhetoric is intensifying, the letters and e-mails and conversations are more fierce and less deliberate. Enough, Alabama seems to have said, is enough.

Monday's Hispanic boycott of jobs and businesses didn't really help. It stirred resentment as well as debate, and now some Alabamians talk of boycotting Cinco de Mayo.

No margaritas tomorrow. That'll show'em.

Just like passing laws to stop Spanish recordings of the national anthem. I still don't understand that red herring. (Or is it brown?) What is preferable, singing but not understanding a powerful English song, or getting the point - the point of America, really - in whatever language makes sense?

Freedom, in any tongue, rings sweet.

Now don't get me wrong. The issues of immigration are complex and overwhelming. Problems exist and our laws need work. I can't solve those. You wouldn't want me to.

I'm talking instead of the rancor that translates better than any song. A half-century after another pretty important boycott, we're doing it again, turning to catchphrases to justify our fear of people different from ourselves. "Illegals" is now the epithet of choice. Just use it in place of the n-word.

Take your positions, people, but keep your manners. If this keeps up we'll all take a sad step back. And Juanita? Well, Juanita just might be right.

[Gefreiter]

You know what? Not so very strange.

Read sometime about racial sensitivity exercises that some college freshmen have to go through.

[IronJack]

The words, the horrid words, spelled out the insults Juanita would expect from those who dislike her skin tone, her heritage, her accent enough to hate her before they even get to know her.

Notice that poor Juanita had never actually HAD those insults leveled at her. She was just practicing a little pre-emptive self-pity. You know ... all those gringos being such a bunch of bigots and all ... Good to get a jump on the victimology.

[George Smiley]

I guess a "You must be this tall to vote" sign would really frost his drawers.

[fhlh]

ping for later

[antiRepublicrat]

PC is ungood.

IMHO, doubleplusungood.

[banjo joe]

It was part of an exercise dealing with the damage caused by ethnic jokes and stereotypes

Well, here we go!

Can't find Louisiana, North America or Europe on a map? Can't do basic arithmetic without a calculator?

But by gawd, you'll be sensitive!

[banjo joe]

But the message, our unpleasant message, comes out clear.

Our fault again.

[Billthedrill]

Well, I guess we could just go with "criminals."

[Imgr8t]

jarchibald@bhamnews.com

[Lekker 1]

Difference...A person did not choose their ethnicity, so racism is wrong. A person DOES however CHOOSE their legal status. There is a big difference there, IMHO.

[L98Fiero]

"You wetback, tortilla-and-salsa-eatin', low-rider-drivin', mariachi-playin', job-stealin', fast-speakin', greasy (I just can't say it). Are you all named Jesus or what? Do you always have to cram 40 into a car and 70 into an apartment? Learn to speak English."

The language makes me ill.

Then why did you make it up? Binge at lunch?

[Crawdad]

If we are 'gringos' there, then they are 'gringos' here.

[Kimberly GG]

I heard one of the May 1 organizers try to rip Lou dobbs apart for calling them 'illegal aliens'. In comparison, the man let out a string of racial slurs like you wouldn't believe, including the "n" word in prime time live time. I was surprised Dobbs continued the conversation.

As far as Im concerned, feigning outrage over the what they truly are is nothing more than yet another attempt to intimidate us into letting them have it their way.

Not happening here.

[Doctor Raoul]

Thanks.

[backhoe]

I have been covering, ( Or, as Seamole calls it...-backhoe's pseudoblog--... ) psuedo-blogging, for years, a couple of the elements in WWIV ( III being the Cold War ), in which we find ourselves engaged.

The first element?

Islam, a Religion of Peace®? ( links, blogs, quips, quotes, aggravating pictures ) is located here- click the Pic, and scroll backwards:

The other, somewhat interlocking element is this one:

"Thunder on the Border," click the picture:

What is happening under the radar is that the alien lobby, certain elements of radical Islam, and some on the Left share common goals, tactics, and exploitations of our system and society.

See "ANSWER" in the poster?

Work backwards on my links to see all the shady left-wing and terrorist-enabling organizations backing this nonsense.

[RoseyT]

Well, if Juanita is in fact an illegal, perhaps her parents should have chosen to stay in their home country.

[willyboyishere]

Liberal pieties are always bad, and so is Liberalism in general, but this piece fits nicely into a special category I call "Wet Liberalism". The kind of rancid black/white, no-irony kind of reading of every situation as if it held the key to understanding the "horrid" heritage of racist America. The kind of thing that has a perennial appeal to wide eyed, quivery-lipped adolescents who just KNOW they have discovered "social injustice" before everyone else has.

[DoughtyOne]

That's my take as well. I agree with Hugh on some matters and disagree with him rather stridently on others.

[sergeantdave]

I don't like the word illegals either. I prefer the phrase illegal invaders.

[RatRipper]

"99.9999% black"

Not true, but the inmates are running the asylum.