Link Farm & Open Thread #28
| June 22nd, 2006Bitch Lab: The 17th Carnival of Feminists!
Jay Sennet Jaywalks: The Second Erase Racism Carnival!
YouTube: Joss Whedon’s Speech For Equality Now!
Damn! Awesome speech regarding being asked “why do you write strong female characters” by reporters a thousand times over. “How is it possible this is even a question? Why aren’t you asking other guys why they don’t write strong female characters?” Curtsy: Heron61.
Capitalism Bad, Tree Pretty: Women Are Really Neat People
There has been a bit of a bit of a debate among feminists blog-writers, about blow-jobs. I don’t want to write about that, but I do want to write about the way in which feminist analysis looks at women’s lives, both individually and collectively, and what relationship that has to the sort of action we take.
Taking Place: “Freedomland” sucks and is racist; here’s why.
Super Babymoma: What Happens to Bloggers Who Disappear?
Probably everyone who uses netnames - either for themselves or their netfriends - has had this thought.
Super Babymoma: Venezuela Begins Program of Wages for Housewives
Taking Place: Couple arrested for saving illegal immigrants’ lives
Interesting discussion of Gentrification and Neighborhoods
My Amusement Park: Why Should I Have More Right To Live Here Than Someone Moving In?
June 22nd, 2006 at 1:21 pm
I tried to read the “Taking Place” post, but for some reason the navigation sidebar runs down the middle instead and covers up the middle of each line. So I searched on the web and read some source articles.
First, the headline is a lie. The two students involved were not arrested for saving anyone’s life. The charges they face are transportation in furtherance of an illegal presence in the United States and conspiracy to transport in furtherance of an illegal presence in the
United States. What happened apparently was that in working with a group, they came across some individuals that were in distress. It was recommended to them by a medic that these individuals needed medical care. they put the people in a car and started to drive to Tuscon. Soon afterwards, they were picked up by the Border Patrol.
If the two charged individuals had rendered immediate aid to these people and had summoned medical care from the nearest town or had notified local authorities, they would have not been charged for a crime, for the simple reason that trying to save someone’s life is not a crime. But by bypassing nearby competent medical care in the local towns, concealing them from local authorities and attempting to drive them to a big city, they were trying to help these illegal aliens further their goal of sneaking into the United States and evading capture. And that’s what they were charged with.
If someone breaks into a house and robs it and is injured while escaping, I have every right and a moral obligation to assist that person to keep them from bleeding to death. But I still have the obligation to call the authorities and let them know that I have a thief on hand.
If these folks had called the cops and said “We’ve got 3 illegal aliens in our car. They’re very sick, so we’re taking them to Xaverian Hospital in Tuscon, please meet us there.”, there’d have been no arrest. By not doing so, it’s obvious that their objectives were not solely concentrated on the health care of these individuals, and so they were charged with the crime they were committing. In my opinion, the only unfair thing here is that the other people in this group who knew about what was going on weren’t charged with conspiracy as well.
BTW - it’s very misleading to post a statement like “Couple arrested for saving immigrant’s lives” when their actions to save their lives was not what they were charged with, when it’s not clear that these individuals lives were actually in danger (the source articles said that the illegal aliens never got any medical care and yet survived) and when you don’t know if these individuals actually were immigrants, or merely meant to come to the U.S. work illegally and then leave. The fact that you may not agree with the law doesn’t mean you have to mislead people on what actually happened.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2006 at 1:31 pm
BTW, the article also said that these two kids were advised by a lawyer. I sure hope that the advice he or she gave them was simply incompetent, and not an attempt to set up a test case and put these kids at risk for felony convictions.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2006 at 1:37 pm
Ron -
The link (which I know you couldn’t read) leads to a news article posted on that blog, which gave pretty full details about the case. I usually feel that it’s okay for a link title to be hyperbolic, if following the link leads to accurate information.
Can you please tell me what browser and operating system you were trying to view “Taking Place” from? I’d like to point out the problem reading it to the blog designer.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2006 at 1:56 pm
That’s not at all obvious - on the contrary, you’re making it up out of thin air. Saying “they obviously had bad motives” is a good way of handwaving away the total lack of evidence of bad motives in this case.
In an emergency situation, it’s totally natural to not think of calling the cops. It’s easy to say “they should have called the cops” with 20/20 hindsight, but the fact that they didn’t call the cops could have easily have been an oversight or a bad decision, not an attempt to break the law.
Your example is irrelevant because the robber in your example was only there to rob your house - the crime came first, assisting the person was a secondary result of the crime.
A better example would be if Mary discovered Sue bleeding to death on your lawn, and opened the door to your house to steal some bandages or to call 911. Yes, technically that is breaking and entering; and maybe people who weren’t in that situation can, in hindsight, point out better options Mary didn’t pursue. But to convict Mary of robbery in that circumstance would be a ridiculous miscarriage of justice.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2006 at 2:00 pm
Carol Hanisch, “The Personal is Political”, Attacking Women, Carnival of Feminists 17, and What the Heck
I’ve been patiently waiting for the 17th Carnival of Feminists which Bitch|Lab has hosted so I could find out, at last, specifically how and why she thinks feminists are misunderstanding or misreading Hanisch.
…
This comment was written by Women's Space/The Margins.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Windows XP Professional SP2 and IE 6 SP 2 (hey, corporate standard, it’s their box so I can’t change it).
Then we’ll just have to disagree. To say they were arrested for saving someone’s life goes too far for me. There’s no evidence to support that, and plenty of evidence to the contrary. I remember when you rebuked me for an “uglyism” when I used the term “Floriduh”. I figured that your objection was based on objectifying the people involved. Your title seems as though it demonizes the authorities, making them look inhuman. Not an exact analogy, I admit, but I hope you understand the spirit.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2006 at 2:36 pm
Seems as though it was obvious to the authorities, since that’s what they charged these two students with. They appear to see bad motives in the fact that criminals were being transported a long distance from the scene of the crime with no attempt to let law enforcement know of the presence of the criminals. Why didn’t the lawyer call the cops? Why is that lawyer there?
In an emergency situation involving criminals, calling the cops is one of the first things I think of. And it would also be quite natural to call nearby medical help, but they did neither. When you’re hanging around the border looking for illegal aliens to render assistance to (a humanitarian effort I quite endorse, BTW) you’re not working in a vacumn, especially given that these kids weren’t on their own but were working with an organized group. It’s very hard for me to conceive that the people involved don’t have on their minds that they are assisting criminals, people breaking the law. I’d imagine that they think about the cops/Border Patrol a lot. Certainly the Border Patrol is keeping an eye on them; they picked these kids up a few miles away from where they started. I can’t imagine they are not aware of the BP being aware of them. If your objective is to assist criminals, you better be aware of what kind of assistance is in itself criminal and what kind of assistance is not.
Tis group’s whole purpose is to deal with people that are a) breaking the law and b) in desperate straits. If their protocols don’t have dealing with law enforcement as part of how to deal with these folks, then they either are conspiring to break the law or they are incompetent. Given that they have a lawyer on site to advise people, I don’t think the issue is incompetence with regards to the law.
I didn’t say “my house”, I said “a house”. I did so specifically to make myself in the example a neutral bystander.
Yes to the last sentence. But I’d disagree with your example being better. Let’s go to Sue being injured because she had tried to break into my house while I was away and had cut herself up trying to break through the glass of my front door. Now say that Mary rendered immediate aid and then transported Sue to a hospital tens of miles away without notifying either the home owner or the authorities of the crime. Mary didn’t commit a crime breaking into my house to get bandages. She didn’t commit a crime using them on Sue. But she did when she didn’t call 911 and instead took Sue off the premises and didn’t call the cops or someone like the EMTs who would look around, ask some questions, and likely call the cops themselves.
If the objective of “No More Deaths” is purely to ensure that illegal aliens don’t die crossing the border, then that’s great. I support that. But if they also assist people in evading law enforcement, then they are engaging in conspiracy to break Federal and State laws and deserve to be charged with and convicted of crimes.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2006 at 2:49 pm
I read the “Angry Brown Butch” posting. I loved this line:
When it’s white folks moving into a primarily POC neighborhood, it can look and feel very much like an invasion, all these white faces popping up where you used to only see brown ones.
Gee. Given that the likely original inhabitants of that neighborhood were white, I wonder what they thought when all the brown faces started popping up? This sounds exactly like the rhetoric used in the anti-illegal alien debates when people describe the large numbers of illegal aliens in the Southwest and elsewhere, language that is decried as “racist”. Well, if it’s racist used against Latinos, it’s racist when used against whites.
In fact, numerous people are proposing that states sue the Federal government to force them to put more forces on the border on the basis of Artucle 4, Section 4 of the Constitution:
Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2006 at 3:41 pm
Immigration in the news:
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Thursday dealt a blow to some longtime illegal residents, upholding the deportation of a Mexican man who lived in the United States for 20 years.
By an 8-1 vote, justices said that Humberto Fernandez-Vargas, who was deported several times from the 1970s to 1981, is subject to a 1996 law Congress passed to streamline the legal process for expelling aliens who have been deported at least once before and returned.
After his last deportation in 1981, Fernandez-Vargas returned to the United States, fathered a child, started a trucking company in Utah and eventually married his longtime companion, a U.S. citizen.
But he’s going back to Mexico now. And given the 8 - 1 vote, you can’t blame Bush’s appointments for this. Now you have a family that must either divide itself over an international border or move to Mexico. And it’s going to be hard to run a Utah trucking company from Mexico. This will be very difficult on that child, who I have much sympathy for. I have less sympathy for the adults; they knew what they were getting into.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2006 at 5:13 pm
If I worked for a humanitarian organization geared towards the mission statement of “No More Deaths”, I’d probably take them to the hospital for medical care, because it’s an organization involved with dealing with medical and health issues and not with smuggling or promoting illegal immigration. After all, that’s where the trained MDs are, in hospitals. It’s not even clear that they received medical treatment while in custody of border patrol (except that a doctor was denied access at one point). People have died in Border Patrol custody due to lack of medical assistance and while these occurrences might border on criminal negligence in these cases, BP and its descendent ICE would not be held accountable in any ways, criminally or civilly for these deaths.
The border clinics and hospitals are so swamped by ill and injured even dying undocumented immigrants, courtesy of Gatekeeper that they are barely functioning. They aren’t compensated adequately for financial costs of treating these people, who are not insured. That doesn’t make them always the best option for medical care.
Ironically, many times BP doesn’t even come back to deport the injured or ill undocumented immigrant because according to federal law, if they take these people into custody, then the INS, now ICE, is liable for the medical bills which total each year into the millions of dollars. It’s likely that if they had been able to get medical care, they would have been left to disappear into the country as a result.
If they wanted to hide the fact that they were transporting them, they probably would not have used the company car which was easily recognizable by border patrol. They did not try to flee from Border Patrol.
The federal prosecutor’s assertion that a “jury needs to take a look at this” tells you exactly how confident he is in trying the case. Still, No More Deaths has created new policies for handling medical emergencies although the arrests and filed charges has chilled many people’s willingness to become organized in this type of work at all.
I’d rather they go throw the book at the smugglers who steal their money, hold them for ransom, leave them to die in the desert(including inside locked railway cars or semi-trucks), commit vehicle manslaughter during pursuits (as has happened in my region several times), facilitate drug smuggling, sex or other trafficking or terrorists entry into the country (which seems to be more prevalent based on news coverage at our Northern border), rather than go after a humanitarian organization trying to seek medical assistance for three individuals. You might say, it shouldn’t be a choice between who gets busted and who doesn’t, but the resources available often force that choice to be made.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2006 at 5:15 pm
How do you know White people were the original inhabitants in that neighborhood? Many traditionally Black and/or Latino neighborhoods were created through racist housing laws which fostered racially segregated neighborhoods. Meaning that if Black or Latino residents of a city or town wanted to buy houses or live in the city or town, they could only do so in designated neighborhoods. Those neighborhoods often later become “White” through gentrification, a phenomenon involving the racial displacement of communities of color going on in many cities nationwide.
Racism against Whites? Oh, cry me a river.
It’s very unlikely when you think about it that Whites were the original residents anywhere in what is now the United States. They were johnny-come-latelys after all but still assume that they were really the first people on every inch of the continent.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2006 at 6:03 pm
The border clinics and hospitals are so swamped by ill and injured even dying undocumented immigrants, courtesy of Gatekeeper…
First off, they aren’t “undocumented immigrants”. They have Mexican birth certificates, identity cards, and so forth - documents galore. They aren’t “undocumented” - they are illegal.
Second, their injuries aren’t “courtesy of Gatekeeper”. If you put a fence around your house because you’re sick of me breaking in and stealing your stuff, and I cut myself on the fence, are my injuries “courtesy of your fence”? Mexicans have agency and humanity - they are responsible for the consequences of their choices, same as everyone else.
It is a humane and charitable act to give aid to someone who is suffering, even if their suffering is the result of a criminal decision on their part. The most humane act of all is to remove the possibility of the criminal act. Let’s prevent the sufferings and deaths in the desert by making it effectively impossible to break in to this country - not by trying to reduce the consequences of breaking our laws.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 4:43 am
s Speech For Equality Now! Damn! Awesome speech regarding being asked “why do you write strong female characters” by reporters a thousand times over. “How is it possible this is even a question? Why aren’t you asking other guys why they […]Continue reading at Alas, a blog … posted 6:37 am at Alas, a blog
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June 23rd, 2006 at 6:52 am
Radfem, I presume that Native Americans did not build a neighborhood of brownstones in Queens. I’m not up on the history of New York, I admit, but the history of Chicago is that few (not none, but few) neighborhoods were built for poor people from the beginning; they were built for working-class or upper-class people and then were occupied by poorer people and immigrants, while those who could afford it moved out. This is one reason why you see gentrification in many of these neighborhoods; the basic structures of the housing stock in these neighborhoods are very substantially built with materials and workmanship that would cost a fortune to replicate today, and they are reasonably close to public transportation (which poor people with few transportation options need) that takes them downtown to their middle-class or upper-class jobs.
Very often in Chicago, neighborhoods changed from majority-white to majority-minority when some few minority families moved in to the fringes of the neighborhood. Racist attitudes, fueled by real-estate speculators, sparked “panic selling” by whites as they fled out of the neighborhood. This phenomena has been written about a lot, and the word “invasion” was used. It was racist then, and it’s racist now. That’s why the word jumped out at me (that, and the bold font used in the original).
Racism directed at whites is no more acceptable, or at least should be no more acceptable, than racism directed at anyone else. And just like racist speech directed against non-whites, it speaks to the underlying attitudes/motivations of the writer. That’s one reason I oppose “hate speech” rules; it makes it harder to identify the a$$holes. Of course, it’s true that in the macro viewpoint, racism on the part of people with low economic and social power has less effect on those it is directed against than racism on the part of people with a lot of economic and social power. But that doesn’t make it any less racist, or any more acceptable.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 7:16 am
RonF - When I say that an influx of white folks moving into a formerly POC neighborhood is something like an invasion, it’s because, far too often, those white folks are a visible signal of the oncoming gentrification and displacement of the people who are currently living there. Poor folks, often people of color, are forcibly forced out, through evictions, out-pricing, and other means, to make room for gentrifiers. So yes, it can feel like an invasion when a more privileged group starts coming in and a less privileged group starts to be forced out to make room. To compare that to the racist, xenophobic rhetoric of anti-immigration movements is to completely ignore the dynamics of power and privilege involved in each case.
Also, this is, of course, a matter of definition, but since I believe that racism equals racial privilege plus prejudice, a person of color being racist against white people is an oxymoronic impossibility. Distrust, dislike, or even hatred of white people (as a group) on the part of people of color seems more like common sense or a good defense mechanism than anything else, given the track record that whites have for completely screwing over people of color. And the acknowledgement of that track record and the continuing tendency of white people to wield their racial privilege in ways that harm people of color - that’s not racism, that’s just telling the truth.
And no, Native Americans didn’t build a community of brownstones in Queens (and, btw, Bushwick is in Brooklyn), but if anyone can lay original claim to that land, it’s them. Also, the difference between white neighborhoods changing to primarily POC neighborhoods is choice. Those white folks most likely chose to move, either because they were making more money and could afford nicer places, or because they wanted to get as far as possible from the newer immigrants and people of color who were moving in. Poor folks and people of color are now being forced out by gentrification - for the most part, it’s not by choice, at least not by their choice. Once again, rich folks, primarily white folks, are the ones who are getting to decide what happens to a neighborhood by choosing to either leave it or come into it.
This comment was written by Jack.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 7:24 am
I was wondering what you meant by “courtesy of Gatekeeper”. However, if you are referring to an effort to keep people from crossing over the border illegally, then I have to second Robert. Illegal aliens are not mindless animals being forcibly herded through a desert. They know what they are doing is illegal, and they know that it’s hazardous. The responsibility for their injuries and deaths belong to them, not to us. They are self-aware human beings that are responsible for their own actions and the consequences thereof.
I’ll certainly buy off on trying to nail the smugglers, for any and all crimes that they have committed.
I’d be interested in documentation of this.
If they’re swamped, then I imagine that the BP is as well, which might help explain why BP would have a problem getting these folks medical care. I must say that this paragraph helps justify increasing the enforcement effort at the border. The fact that these clinics are swamped by illegal aliens with no way to pay likely means that local residents who have a right to live where they do and whose taxes help pay for these clinics have a hard time getting health care in them.
Having said all that, I can see then why it might be advisable to transport someone farther away to a hospital or clinic that is less crowded. But that still begs the question of why no one told the authorities what they were doing. If you’re going to transport criminals, you need to tell law enforcement what you are doing. Unless you want to hide the fact that you’re assisting criminals.
NMD apparently has been operating on the border for a while. They obviously run into a lot of people who are in distress. The medical situation you describe at the border would be no news to them, I should think. A group like “No More Deaths” really has no excuse for not working out how to assist these folks while taking care of their legal obligations.
And I, too, inveigh against the term “undocumented immigrants”. Many of these folks have documentation; they just can’t show it, because it would show that they have no legal right to be in the United States. And as far as being immigrants goes, immigrants are people who come to a country with the intent to take up permanent residence, which isn’t always true in these cases. Use of a term like “undocumented immigrants” seems to me to be a rhetorical trick to hide the main issue; these people are here illegally and commit illegal acts every day.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 7:35 am
Test to see if I can post here(thanks, Amp!)
I will respond to these two gentlemen later, if I have the time and the energy after dealing with their RL counterparts for today.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 7:43 am
The thing that gets me is that Mexico GNI is not that of a 3rd world country; they rank above Poland, the Russian Federation, and other countries that we don’t think of as 3rd world (see here. What seems to be going on is that widespread corruption and gross misgovernment keeps a huge number of people from having a fair opportunity to earn a decent living. By exporting people to the U.S., the elite that benefit from this arrangement are able to delay the consequences of it. Why should we solve such a problem for them?
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 9:28 am
Why should we solve such a problem for them?
Perhaps because the United States has a whole lot to do with creating that problem and with shaping economic policy in Mexico and other Latin American countries in order to serve American interests, not the interests of the majority of the people living in those countries. (can anyone say NAFTA?)
This comment was written by Jack.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 12:12 pm
How did we create the problem of pervasive corruption up and down Mexico’s governmental structure? How did we create the problem of Mexico power structure eliminating opportunity for their own population? It was like that long before NAFTA was ever heard of.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 12:23 pm
To compare that to the racist, xenophobic rhetoric of anti-immigration movements is to completely ignore the dynamics of power and privilege involved in each case.
What anti-immigration movements? I’ve seen a number of organizations (notably the Minutemen) who have organized to try to keep illegal aliens out of the country, but if you could direct me to an organization that opposes immigration that has any political impact at all I’d appreciate it. I am not aware of any organization that opposes people immigrating into the U.S.
Also, this is, of course, a matter of definition, but since I believe that racism equals racial privilege plus prejudice, a person of color being racist against white people is an oxymoronic impossibility.
Fortunately, there are authorities that enable us to settle matters of definitions. From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary:
I see no mention of power relationships there. As I said, racism by people with a lot of power has a much different practical effect on the objects of that racism than racism by people without a lot of power. But whether or not an attitude, statement or act is racist has nothing to do with what power to act against people the racist has. If you believe that white people possess a given negative trait primarily on the basis that they are white, that’s racist. Just as much as if you believe that black people possess a given negative trait primarily on the basis that they are black. The race of the individual professing this opinion and the particular race the opinion is directed towards are immaterial as to whether or not racism is involved.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Those white folks most likely chose to move, either because they were making more money and could afford nicer places, or because they wanted to get as far as possible from the newer immigrants and people of color who were moving in.
It would be the latter. If you look at the history of “block-busting” in Chicago, you’ll see that 1) people weren’t moving because they were making more money, they moved because they had racist attitudes and didn’t want to live next to blacks, and 2) a lot of the white people who moved out ended up losing money, not making it, as property values went down when minorities moved in. They often ended up getting into worse housing than they had had in their old neighborhoods.
I’m not asking for sympathy for this; people’s own racism led them to this. But those are the facts.
Poor folks and people of color are now being forced out by gentrification - for the most part, it’s not by choice, at least not by their choice. Once again, rich folks, primarily white folks, are the ones who are getting to decide what happens to a neighborhood by choosing to either leave it or come into it.
No one’s being forced out of a gentrifying neighborhood because of their color. They’re being forced out because someone with more money than they have is willing to pay more money for the housing in a neighborhood than they can. In an urban setting, there’s generally representative numbers of middle- and upper-class minorities that move in (representative with regards to how many of those minorities make middle- or upper-class incomes).
I can see where the present residents would have a problem with this; after all, where now do they go to live? Probably further away from their jobs and from public transportation, or to a neighborhood that’s not as in good of a shape as the one they are in now. But what can be done about this? Certainly, a property owner has the right to make as much money as they can from it, and in general to dispose of their property as they see most advantageous to them. Public housing in Chicago is improving as the high-rises have been torn down and scattered-site housing is more developed, but there are still not enough units to go around to people who want them.
The problem has to be solved at the source; improve the ability of young people to get an education that will fit them to become productive members of society, and have them grow up in families that will teach them the values that will be most likely to make them productive. Tax money can help with the former, but other resources are needed for the latter.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 12:47 pm
Being anti-illegal aliens does not equal anti-immigrant. As an example: the location where I work lends itself to open discussions among groups of people. I have heard and participated in a number of discussions where everyone is dead set against shutting our eyes against illegal aliens coming across our borders. There have been disputes regarding what measures to take, whether or not amnesty should be tried again, whether a wall should be built, whether we should station troops on the border, etc. But there’s an overall consensus that it should be stopped.
However, being an IT shop, we have some non-citizens here. But they’re here legally. No one’s got a problem with that. In fact, when two of them became citizens recently (after 5 years of effort each), we bought them each an American flag (not cheap ones, either). They were quite pleased to get them. They also see no common cause with illegal aliens.
Once again, it’s a rhetorical trick. People who are for keeping illegal aliens out of the country are labelled “anti-immigrant” with full knowledge that this is not true. I can only guess that it’s an attempt to curry favor with the vast majority of people in this country who (like me) are the descendents of immigrants not too far back in their ancestry.
If someone wants to come here legally and do what it takes to become a citizen, that’s great. We can use more of them. But if people come here and commit crimes from the second they set foot in the country, hold allegiance to a foreign nation and make no effort to become a citizen, that’s a different story entirely.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 12:48 pm
Although I think you’ve made some good arguments (although I don’t agree with most of your conclusions), I think the above is about as lame a non-response as you could have made.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 1:04 pm
I think the above is about as lame a non-response as you could have made.
I disagree.
Progressives want to change the definition of “racism” to require power-over. That’s fine; everyone gets to set their own agenda. But you don’t get to do it by fiat; you have to do it by argumentation and getting others to agree that your reconceptualization of the term is better.
Jack said that “this is, of course, a matter of definition, but since I believe that racism equals racial privilege plus prejudice, a person of color being racist against white people is an oxymoronic impossibility”. Jack is attempting to conflate what s/he BELIEVES with what the DEFINITION is. Ron is citing the (currently) authoritative definition - specifically refuting the “it’s a matter of definition and I get to define it” assertion of Jack. If it’s a matter of definition, then we have authority to rely on; if it’s a matter of RE-definition, then honest progressives must acknowledge that in their rhetorical constructs.
Ron’s citation therefore goes directly to the point raised by Jack; its not lame or non-responsive at all.
Now, the real question: why are you refereeing blog comments when you’re supposed to be toiling on another page of Hereville for my amusement?
(We won’t ask why I’m reading blog comments when I’m supposed to be editing books on how to get grant funding for your nonprofit.)
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 1:24 pm
What? I don’t understand, Amp. This is not Alice in Wonderland. If a word is established in the language enough to have an entry in dictionaries, then that’s what it means. There are authorities in language. Changing the definition of a word to suit one’s own political/social positions makes it hard to impossible to have a discussion.
I don’t dispute the point that racism has different consequences when directed towards someone with no power to do anything about it than it does when directed towards someone who does have power to do something about it. But saying “a word means what I think it means, never mind what people who disagree with me say” or “let me take a word that means one thing and use it to mean something else” hardly leads to meaningful discussion. If Jeff wants to come up with a way to express the concept of “racism + consequences”, then let him make up a new word. But existing words mean what they already mean. Otherwise all language is relative
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 1:26 pm
Damn, there goes my monitor again, all covered with raspberry ice-tea.
You know, I was wondering if either you or Robert would refer to human beings as “aliens” and you actually did. Aliens are not human beings, human beings are human beings. To think that you use a term which does not even label them as human is disturbing.
Racism, by Webster, I guess that works, but one would think you would have other “authorities” to go to on this issue to argue your points than a dictionary, never mind that it’s but one of many, many dictionaries. But you’re not the first conservative to rely on Webster and his friends as a fallback. You’re not even the first one today. Pity, it’s not even evening yet.
Well, Jack, you know what happens when we don’t like the economic policies(or politics) of certain LA countries. We oust those governments and install an easily controllable(and often corruptible) dictator instead.
I don’t know, but I think they are still trying to find all the mass graves of the hundreds of thousands of people killed in these countries. Of course, since it took so long, they’re mostly bones now, but at least those regimes they died under as well as our own government can no longer deny that these people even existed, let alone were raped, tortured, killed and dumped into mass graves simply for objecting to the dictatorships they lived under which our government supported or even facilitated the creation of to further its own economic interests.
If our dictators blow back, we kill hundreds of maybe thousands of people by launching an offensive including the use of explosive devices in densely populated cities in that country.
But they’re brown, thus they aren’t really human. We developed policy which apparently told us that we had the authority to dictate what happened in other countries in our hemisphere populated by people of color(Canada, of course not being included).
We can call those that live further north “aliens” because it makes it easier to not think of them as people then. If hundreds of them die, from Operation Gatekeeper(the deaths began soon AFTER Gatekeeper, not before), it’s nothing to concern ourselves about, because they deserve death for trespassing in order to be able to take care of their own families. Those that instituted Gatekeeper knew the end result unless we terribly underestimated the desperation felt by people and the desperate things they will do and go through to ensure their survival. Maybe we did do that, since those who make those kinds of decisions likely aren’t aware of what that desperation feels like themselves, living in the wealthiest nation in the world.
Gatekeeper did not cure illegal immigration, but it has killed a lot of people. How can you cure something when your government gives tax breaks and turns a blind eye to corporations that hire undocumented immigrants?
(After all, they cross the toxic Rio Grande river which in many parts will turn a BP agent’s boots to liquid rubber in a matter of minutes.)
The Klan? Other White-Supremacist organizations? The thing is that a lot of members of the Klan and other racist organizations put in applications to belong to minutemen. I think they were the first people to run and sign up for the cause. The leadership tried to downplay their involvement and said these people were screened out but that didn’t turn out to be true. Besides, if the organization wasn’t about race and racial hatred, the Klan and its ilk wouldn’t have been interested.
You know, it’s too bad they aren’t nearly as concerned with the porous Canadian border. I mean, that’s where some of the 9-11 terrorists not to mention others of that ilk have entered into this country.
Last I heard they were off having parades and building a fence out in Arizona some where and essentially driving BP batty with their wannabe gunslinger antics.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 1:27 pm
Of course, then there’s the term “progressive”, another rhetorically loaded term wherein by using it you assert that the agenda a “progressive” desires is actually progress.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 1:40 pm
Distrust, dislike, or even hatred of white people (as a group) on the part of people of color seems more like common sense or a good defense mechanism than anything else, given the track record that whites have for completely screwing over people of color.
Sounds like an argument for racial profiling.
“Suspecting Mexicans of being illegal aliens seems like common sense given the track record that Mexicans have for sneaking over the border.”
The fact that it may be a defense mechanism or common sense doesn’t change the fact that such an expectation of being screwed over would be based solely on the race of the person being observed (a white person) and thus is racist.
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June 23rd, 2006 at 2:14 pm
RonF, ask any linguist with the remotest bit of education, and you’ll be told that dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive, and are generally behind the leading edge of both common and academic usage.
This comment was written by little light.Let’s leave that one behind, shall we?
If nothing else, you’re working here with a community whose common parlance, agreed-upon usages, and jargon all dictate the acknowledgement of power structures when using the term ‘racism’ and whose common terms for discussion include the theory work that lays this groundwork.
You wouldn’t walk into a geology forum and insist that their discussions of ‘cleavage’ use the word the same way pornographers or the average bystanders on the street do, would you?
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June 23rd, 2006 at 2:44 pm
Aliens are not human beings, human beings are human beings. To think that you use a term which does not even label them as human is disturbing.
“Alien” has been in use in the United States at least since the 1700s, and in England since the 1600s.
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June 23rd, 2006 at 3:39 pm
Historically, that is true, but many people find the word offensive today, precisely because of the other definitions associated with it. AP Style actually stopped using it, except in direct quotes, a while back.
The connotation of that term is somewhat different today.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 6:57 pm
but many people find the word offensive today
I doubt it.
Do some people find it offensive? No doubt.
However, I suspect that their offense comes in the fact that they are considered alien, not from the use of the word itself. Cf. “undocumented immigrant” and other laughable euphemisms. The problem isn’t the language for such folk, the problem is the undesired status that the language accurately describes.
They are in good, or at least royal, company. Britain’s King George V, of German ancestry but lifelong English residency, was once described as “our alien and uninspiring king”. He replied “I may be uninspiring, but I’ll be damned if I’m alien.”
Nobody wants to be thought of as alien, even when it’s the case.
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June 24th, 2006 at 9:49 am
LOL, you are a card, Robert.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
June 26th, 2006 at 7:37 am
The word “alien” is the term used to describe non-citizens in Federal law. It is more inclusive than “immigrant” for that purpose because “immigrant” describes people who come to a country with the intent to stay, an intent that we have no way of knowing for every person who comes over the border. Also, the word “immigrant” in law describes people who are here in the U.S. legally, not illegally. Someone who holds a green card is a legal alien. Someone who has snuck over the border in contravention of American law is an illegal alien. It’s the proper term to use, describes the legal status of such persons precisely, and if it offends some people that’s too bad. I’m offended by euphemisms and obfuscations such as “undocumented worker” or “undocumented immigrant”. Does that mean that everyone has to stop using them?
I presume that “AP Style” would be a writing standard set by the Associated Press? I don’t write for the Associated Press and I don’t see where their authority extends any further than their employees. It’s like when someone from the American Legion starts trying to tell me about how they do a flag retirement and how my Troop is wrong for doing it the way we do. They certainly have authority to tell their own members how to perform such, but they don’t own the flag. AP doesn’t own the English language, and they certainly don’t own Federal law and associated legal terms.
For the AP to put quotes around a term that appears in Federal law seems to me to be commentary, not reporting.
Gatekeeper did not cure illegal immigration, but it has killed a lot of people. How can you cure something when your government gives tax breaks and turns a blind eye to corporations that hire undocumented immigrants?
You talk earlier in your post about how, in your opinion, the United States has regarded certain people as less than human. I can’t think of a better way to dehumanize people than to say that a given law killed people who own actions seem out of their control, rather than that those peoples’ own actions taken in full knowledge of the risk caused their deaths.
The Klan? Other White-Supremacist organizations? The thing is that a lot of members of the Klan and other racist organizations put in applications to belong to minutemen. I think they were the first people to run and sign up for the cause. The leadership tried to downplay their involvement and said these people were screened out but that didn’t turn out to be true.
Besides, if the organization wasn’t about race and racial hatred, the Klan and its ilk wouldn’t have been interested.
So if group A supports cause B, then cause B and it’s other supporters is all about group A’s objectives? The fact that the Klan may not want non-white immigrants, legal or no, coming into this country (I say “may” because I have no direct knowledge of the Klan’s views on immigration) due to their racist beliefs has nothing to do with the objectives and beliefs of the founders of the various Minuteman chapters and the great majority of their members.
Back in the ’70’s I opposed the Vietnam War, and was involved in a couple of organizations that organized (and I use the term loosely) demonstrations, etc. against the war. People who were members of the local Communist party joined. Their membership was used to condemn the entire group as Communist sympathizers who sought to destroy the American form of government. This of course was not true, but it seems to me that the “logic” is exactly the same as what you use above.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 26th, 2006 at 7:51 am
You wouldn’t walk into a geology forum and insist that their discussions of ‘cleavage’ use the word the same way pornographers or the average bystanders on the street do, would you?
A geologist’s use of the term “cleavage” isn’t meant to describe the same thing that the person in the street thinks of as “cleavage” while modifying it for political or social objectives. Poor analogy.
“Racism” is a powerful word. Describing someone as a racist is very derogatory, condemning, and insulting. To try to change such a word to mean something other than what it is generally believed to mean is something straight out of 1984, an insidious form of propaganda. In this particular example, it’s an attempt to remove the very idea that someone who is not a member of one particular class can be racist. This isn’t an attempt to communicate, it’s an attempt to obscure and destroy an idea.
RonF, ask any linguist with the remotest bit of education, and you’ll be told that dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive, and are generally behind the leading edge of both common and academic usage.
Well, then, it’s describing the common usage of the word, which is what I’m looking for.
The question is, is redefining “racism” to include power relationships the leading edge of common and academic usage, or is it simply a minor variant limited to a small group of people without any actual influence on the language as generally understood?
If nothing else, you’re working here with a community whose common parlance, agreed-upon usages, and jargon all dictate the acknowledgement of power structures when using the term ‘racism’ and whose common terms for discussion include the theory work that lays this groundwork.
I’m guessing that the group of people on this blog don’t all agree on this new definition of “racism” that you’re trying to promote. And that’s the community at hand.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 26th, 2006 at 10:52 am
Where did I say that these people’s actions were out of their control? I did not.
These undocumented immigrants made the decision to take the actions, knowing the risks, but they balance the risks against those involved with the alternatives as well and make a final decision. However, our government made the decision to put in place a policy which it knew or should have known was going to increase the number of deaths of those crossing the border, which is exactly what it has done.
It made its choice to implement Operation GateKeeper more to appease certain groups of people including those attracted to organizations like the Minutemen, rather than to offer any type of solution to the problem, which should certainly include holding the corporations that employ undocumented immigrants because it’s cheaper, accountable. Operation GateKeeper was never set up to solve any problems, let alone with illegal immigration. It was a political tool to make it appear as if the government was addressing the issue, rather than continuing to cater to corporations which hired undocumented immigrants.
In comparison to appeasing these groups of people, the losses of hundreds if not eventually thousands of lives of people crossing from countries south of the United States was an acceptable loss. IMO, that type of attitude is dehumanizing to a group of people who want no more than a better life for their families.
Well, the Klan and other white supremacist oranizations including neonazi groups are trying to as one magazine article put it, “burrow” their way into the immigration furor. So we should be hearing more from these folks and their ilk in the months ahead. I’d be a little bit concered if I had any common ground with this ilk, but maybe that’s just me.
The Klan doesn’t like people of color in this country no matter where they come from. They want America to be “White”. Allowing poor Mexicans or poor residents from Central American countries, who are predominantly people of color, conflicts with this goal, don’t you think?
Quite a few of them did “burrow” into the Minutemen organization, even though its leadership protested that their screening methods were excluding them, but hey, if you get to guard a border to prevent people of color from coming into your country AND get to carry a firearm, do you think the White Supremacists are going to want to sit it out?
That didn’t turn out to be the case unfortunately. They did join up. And if you have ever listened to the rhetoric of these Minutemen as I have had the misfortune to do, you’ll see that there’s a fine line between their hatred of undocumented immigrants and their hatred of Mexicans and it’s a line that they cross fairly often. I think that’s one reason why even in these parts, their numbers are still fairly small.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
June 26th, 2006 at 11:41 am
Where did I say that these people’s actions were out of their control?
When you say “A law killed someone” rather than “People died as a result of actions they took”, you shift responsibility from the people to the law. This implied to me when I read your statement that you felt that these folks were
That didn’t turn out to be the case unfortunately. They did join up. And if you have ever listened to the rhetoric of these Minutemen as I have had the misfortune to do, you’ll see that there’s a fine line between their hatred of undocumented immigrants and their hatred of Mexicans and it’s a line that they cross fairly often. I think that’s one reason why even in these parts, their numbers are still fairly small.
Actually, I’ve read the output of the various Minuteman chapters a fair amount on Free Republic, and I haven’t seen any racist remarks. I also haven’t seen any hatred of illegal aliens, either, although I have seen condemnation of their illegal acts. That’s not to say that there aren’t some a$$hole individuals who’ve had horrible things to say, (of which there is no lack on Free Republic, unfortunately) but such things don’t seem to reflect the feelings of the people involved or the organizations as a whole.
As far as the Minuteman groups having small membership, it’s not surprising; you need some free time and money to actually sit out there and do the work. Lots of people like to talk, but actually acting is a different deal.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 26th, 2006 at 11:55 am
In this particular example, it’s an attempt to remove the very idea that someone who is not a member of one particular class can be racist. This isn’t an attempt to communicate, it’s an attempt to obscure and destroy an idea.j
I don’t know about that, RonF. I heard this idea from POC for the first time 20 years ago, when I was 19. It isn’t a new concept - it was around way before 1986. But here is another case where it may do some good to examine white privilege. Certainly, most white people want to believe that POC can be racist, but if this definition takes hold they won’t be able to believe that. Who gets to define words like racism?
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 26th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Dang.
When you say “A law killed someone” rather than “People died as a result of actions they took”, you shift responsibility from the people to the law. This implied to me when I read your statement that you felt that these folks were not in control of their own actions. If you think that this is putting words in your mouth, I can back off a bit. But setting aside arguments over capital punishment, laws don’t kill people. If people would rather take a chance on dying than comply with a law, it’s their own responsibility, not that of the law. I’d also say, though, that we need to take a good look at what the reasons why the conditions that encourage them to take such a chance exist.
Last I heard they were off having parades and building a fence out in Arizona some where and essentially driving BP batty with their wannabe gunslinger antics.
A private landowner of property on the border, sick and tired of having illegal aliens tear up his property, asked the Minutemen to come out to his property and help him put up a fence. This they did. This was done at the landowner’s expense, and its design is a prototype of a fence that some are proposing be built across the entire Mexico/U.S. border.
Some people running the BP don’t appreciate the Minutemen trying to get them to get off their asses and do their jobs. From what I’ve read, most of the people actually at the border trying to do hands-on enforcement appreciate what the Minutemen do.
As far as “wannabe gunslinger antics”, perhaps you could be more specific. Some, not all, of the Minutemen carry handguns. For some odd reason, they figure that people who are a) criminals and b) often desperate might decide to shoot at them, especially the people running and profiting from human and drug smuggling efforts. Carrying guns in the fashion they do is perfectly legal in the state. I must say that the term you use brings to my mind a picture of people running around irresponsibly using guns - but I’m unaware of any Minutemen actually firing their weapons at all. Can you explain what you’re talking about here?
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 26th, 2006 at 12:20 pm
[The current Administration] made its choice to implement Operation GateKeeper more to appease certain groups of people including those attracted to organizations like the Minutemen, rather than to offer any type of solution to the problem, which should certainly include holding the corporations that employ undocumented immigrants because it’s cheaper, accountable.
Those certain groups would seem to include the majority of U.S. citizens. Making it harder for people to violate America’s borders has pretty broad support. If you think that this idea only appeals to certain small fringe groups, great! It’ll make your opposition to it that much less effective.
Operation GateKeeper was never set up to solve any problems, let alone with illegal immigration. It was a political tool to make it appear as if the government was addressing the issue, rather than continuing to cater to corporations which hired undocumented immigrants.
I’ve not read anything that used the term “Operation Gatekeeper”, so I’m going to presume that it’s the recent efforts to increase immigration law enforcement in those areas most heavily used by illegal aliens to cross over into the U.S. From what I’ve read, it has been effective - the number of people crossing through those areas has dropped quite a bit. If you’re going to try to limit the number of people crossing a border illegally, where better to go first than to those places where the most people doing just that are?
In comparison to appeasing these groups of people, the losses of hundreds if not eventually thousands of lives of people crossing from countries south of the United States was an acceptable loss. IMO, that type of attitude is dehumanizing to a group of people who want no more than a better life for their families.
If they want no more than a better life for their families, let them stay home and fight for it. The real problem here, as a whole lot of people seem to be finally figuring out, is that Mexico is broken. The imbalance of Mexican politics, law and social policy towards the wealthy and elite and it’s institutional racism makes the American equivalents look like the soul of egalitarianism. They get away with it because illegal entry into the U.S. and the huge amount of money (as a percentage of Mexican GDP) being sent back to Mexico from the U.S. acts as a safety valve. But it’s not our responsibility to fix Mexico’s problems, and if the people who are most dissatisfied with it keep leaving the country and coming into the U.S.A. it’ll never get fixed.
Having said that; I wholeheartedly agree that much more effort should be put into place in enforcing immigration law at the employer level. So do a lot of other people. In fact, if you went onto Free Republic, you’d find that a great many Republicans and conservatives there have exactly the same suspicion regarding why there’s insufficient emphasis on this as you do; President Bush and his administration trying to do favors for corporations that benefit from cheap labor that can’t cause trouble like U.S. citizens could where there are problems with job conditions or pay. Gee, you (and I) and a whole bunch of Republicans and conservatives have common cause here. Are you then “a little bit concerned if I had any common ground with this ilk”? Of course, just because we need to put more effort into this doesn’t mean we should put less effort into the actual work at the border.
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June 26th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
The first time I saw the word “aliens” to refer to non-citizens that I can remember was in 1958 (+ or - a year). I would have been 6 years old. It was a PSA that ran on all the TV stations (all 4 of them …). The spot opened up with a strong male voice intoning, “Aliens report!” The voice then reminded all non-citizens that Federal law required them to report to a post office or other government facility and report their address, any change in their marital status, and various other information that non-citizens were (and, I believe, still are) required to update during the month of January each year. I believe the penalty for non-compliance was also mentioned.
This was coupled with cartoons of a hand holding a document of some kind, followed by a line of individuals with documents in hand waiting outside some building. I forget what else was shown. It ended with the same phrase; “Aliens report!”
If the word offends some squeamish or over-sensitive editors in the Associated Press, too bad. They are doing a disservice to their readers by not using accurate terminology.
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June 26th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
OK; from now on I say we start saying “cock-phobic harpie witch queen” instead of “feminist”. You can stamp your feet and demand to use the old word, but that just shows you’re unable or unwilling to accept change.
Of course, a reasonable response to my inexorably crushing logic is to say “well, most of us disagree with you”.
When it comes to “alien”, most Americans are OK with the term - its accurate and descriptive, and it fills a need in the language to describe a particular population. Most of us find the idea that its use is similar to “oriental” and “negro” laughable. Most of us reject the prejudice/racism dichotomy that the cultural left is attempting to slip in through the back door, too.
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June 26th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
RonF: And who, might I ask, are those authorities? Who do you think has historically had say and control over what goes into those dictionaries, over how words are defined? Have you heard the proverb about how history will glorify the hunters until the lions have their historians? I don’t trust most American history schoolbooks to give me a complete view of American history, because they’re usually written by people who want to uphold certain myths about the U.S. while erasing much truth. Similarly, dictionaries are shaped and controlled, often by privileged groups of people, and so no, I do not think that they always offer the final word, pun intended.
I have never heard objections to the “racism = power plus privilege” definition from people of color; only from white people. Said white folks seem to think that, clearly, they should be the ones who get to define what racism is (and to define it to their favor, interestingly enough), and that people of color who have been proposing a different definition for many years now are clearly mistaken. These folks are also usually quick to declare that they have nary a racist bone in their body. Huh. Funny, that.
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June 26th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
I have never heard objections to the “racism = power plus privilege” definition from people of color; only from white people.
So in other words, you only know, read or speak to people of color who hold a particular political viewpoint.
Because there are plenty of black public intellectuals, and ordinary citizens, who explicitly reject that formulation.
I’m not sure how rejecting that formulation “favors” white people; it puts everybody at the same level of being judged on the basis of their individual behavior. Do you contend that white people have a better level of behavior, and thus are favored by such an individualist viewing?
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June 26th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
Well, not quite. I didn’t mean to say that all people of color agree on this position; as you say, there are those who explicitly do not. So, to clarify, I’ve spoken with many people about it, and the only people who have really been invested in disagreeing with that definition of racism have been white folks. I have spoken with some people of color who weren’t quite sure about it, having heard the definition for the first time, but in my experience no people of color have ever attacked or dismissed the definition the way white folks have. I’m just pointing out that, in my own experience, it’s far more common for white folks to freak out about this redefinition than for people of color to freak out over it. And I think that this tendency on the part of white people to reject that definition of racism is symptomatic of a common desire on the part of white folks’ to wash their hands of their unique responsibility for the effects of racism.
I’d argue that this is exactly how that rejection favors white people: it looks at racism as an individual condition, a wilful set of individual judgements and actions, completely divorced from any analysis of systemic power. Sometimes it seems like white people want to ignore their very special role in perpetuating racism in our society, and their very privileged place in the triangle of racial privilege. If everyone can be racist, and equally so, white folks don’t have to be quite so accountable for the fact that they possess the most racial power in our society and, in turn, can inflict the most racial damage by acting on their privilege and prejudices.
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June 26th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
The purpose of my analogy was to demonstrate the fatuity of the “afraid of change” argument.
The idea that a population ought to get to select its own label - or at least, have some kind of veto over labels it finds derogatory - is reasonable on its face. The case seems very strong to me in the case of racial or religious groupings, which have independent existence and histories as groups.
The case is very weak when it comes to definitional groupings, where the definition is intrinsically and inevitably created by people outside the group. “Alien” is a word we use as American citizens to describe noncitizens who reside among us, with the various qualifiers (”illegal”/”legal”, “resident”, “documented”/”undocumented” or what have you) indicating shadings of that status. Absent the larger defining contextual group (”American citizens”), the defined group has no corporate existence. Accordingly, its terminological preferences would seem to be less relevant. Secondary groupings who existence is defined by the relationship to a primary grouping don’t generally get to decide what the primary grouping calls them.
Now, if we said “dirtbag foreign scum” instead of “alien”, I’d strengthen the case for the right of the definitional group to reject that label. But we don’t; we use a technical and descriptive term. Again, my strong suspicion is that it is not the label that is offensive to those protesting it - it is the status being described. And it’s singularly counterproductive, from the standpoint of desiring to have a common language that we can use to communicate, to change labels to attempt to mask a bad status; all the sanitation engineers in the world can’t clean up the messes caused by refusing to just say “janitor”.
Perhaps we can clarify or rule out that suspicion - do you have an objection to the status of “alien”, or merely to the word “alien”?
Choosing to ignore this is what makes one racist.
I think that choosing to ignore individuality is what makes one racist.
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June 26th, 2006 at 3:12 pm
I’d argue that this is exactly how that rejection favors white people: it looks at racism as an individual condition, a wilful set of individual judgements and actions, completely divorced from any analysis of systemic power. Sometimes it seems like white people want to ignore their very special role in perpetuating racism in our society, and their very privileged place in the triangle of racial privilege. If everyone can be racist, and equally so, white folks don’t have to be quite so accountable for the fact that they possess the most racial power in our society and, in turn, can inflict the most racial damage by acting on their privilege and prejudices.
This doesn’t seem logical.
If “systemic power” is the real core of racism, then individual intent and actions are significantly less important. This would seem to imply that white people who want to reduce their level of racial guilt should endorse the systemic theory. “It wasn’t ME - it was the system!”
White people have unquestionably historically exercised a great deal of racial power and have demonstrated individually racist behavior. Placing the locus for racial responsibility on the individual rather than on some systemic cause would seem to enhance this individual guilt - not dissipate it.
Why would white people who wanted to avoid accountability for their racial power argue for an individualist model that maximizes their individual responsibility?
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June 26th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
By the way, an individualist analysis does not foreclose investigations into systemic power. It simply requires that group actions be analyzed as the vector sum of many many individual choices.
I believe that such an analysis would be far richer and would create a much more compelling narrative of racial power and privilege than the standard white power/black helplessness model.
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June 26th, 2006 at 3:34 pm
In practice, it doesn’t work that way. Thinking seriously about systematic racism means that Whites have to admit that even if they don’t personally hate black people, they have almost certainly benefited from racism in some manner.
On the other hand, if racism is just a matter of individual acts, then white people can think to themselves “gee, I don’t hate people, I’ve never burned a cross, I don’t use the N word - clearly racism has nothing to do with my life.”
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June 26th, 2006 at 3:35 pm
A simplistic “standard model” that doesn’t exist anywhere but in the imagination of conservatives.
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June 26th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
Thinking seriously about systematic racism means that Whites have to admit that even if they don’t personally hate black people, they have almost certainly benefited from racism in some manner.
But it isn’t necessary to accept that systemic racism is the “real” racism in order for white people to acknowledge that they’ve benefited from racism they didn’t personally have a hand in.
I’m the freakin’ poster boy for individual-racism-is-the-shit - and I have no difficulty whatsoever admitting and talking about how the racism of other people has made my life easier or better. Hey, former pothead, never had the cops look twice at him even while strolling through the park in a cloud of smoke, right here.
On the other hand, if racism is just a matter of individual acts, then white people can think to themselves “gee, I don’t hate people, I’ve never burned a cross, I don’t use the N word - clearly racism has nothing to do with my life.”
White people can think this regardless of whether racism is systemic or individual or some combination. Forcing bigots to confront their own bigotry is generally a good thing, but it’s not an argument for why a particular viewpoint is correct or not.
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June 26th, 2006 at 5:52 pm