I debated whether or not to cover Obama’s speech. A put up a full copy of his remarks here. Eventually I decided that with hundreds of press people here, and more “influential” bloggers than myself covering this, that it would be best to do something a little different.
I knew Barack Obama wouldn’t reveal anything new about his positions on comprehensive immigration reform. As anyone who knows anything about the U.S. migration debate will tell you, the devil is in the details when it comes to comprehensive immigration reform. That’s why leading members of the SanctuarySphere have been trying to get the presidential candidates to answer a very specific questionnaire on migration. I will reserve my endorsement of a presidential candidate until those questions are answered. We need more than soundbites when it comes to immigration. See what my blogmig@s have to say on the subject:
Kai at Zuky
Marisa at Latina Lista
Manny at Latino Politico
Sylvia at Problem Chylde
Maegan at Vivirlatino
Nezua at The Unapologetic Mexican
Kety at CrossLeft
Symsess at Citizen Orange
XP at ¡Para Justicia y Libertad!
So rather than attend Barack Obama’s speech, I thought it would be best to cover what was happening around Barack Obama’s speech. I went outside where a crowd of a few hundred was gathered. There was a sizeable group of Obama supporters, a few people holding signs for 9/11 Truth (Noam Chomsky says all that needs to be said on that), as well as a loud and bosterous group that identified themselves as the San Diego Minutemen.
Supporters of the San Diego Minutemen held signs that said things like:
“Support Americans Not La Raza”,
“La Raza Means ‘The Race'”,
“La Raza Stop the Hate Against Americans”,
“La Raza, Neo-Nazi, KKK, Racist Groups”,
“Obama: 50% White, 43.75% Arabic, 6.25% Black, 100% Brown RACIST”
Just as I was about to turn away from filming a man holding a sign of a boy urinating on the phrase “La Raza”, I heard him begin to chant, “Fuck You Brown Boy. Fuck You Brown Boy. Fuck You Brown Boy.” The San Diego Minuteman supporter was walking up a ramp to the convention center and was speaking to another full-grown man that looked to be of latino descent to me.
In all fairness, I have no idea what the latino man was saying to the San Diego Minutemenn supporter. It could have been just as hateful. I followed them until they parted ways and just as I was about to stop filming again, a group of people walked through chanting, “Viva La Raza. Viva La Raza.” The Minuteman supporter then went at it again, “Fuck La Raza. Fuck La Raza. Fuck La Raza.”
It was heated out there. I tried to interview supporters of the San Diego Minutemen, but most walked away when I asked them. I was able to interview one woman, and they’ll be back tomorrow when I will try to interview them again. It’s not fair of me to call them out like this without getting an official comment from them.
Still, I find it ironic that the San Diego Minutemen were holding signs calling out the National Council of La Raza for their supposed racism at the same time that this man was engaging what was clearly blatant racism to me. How can you call a grown latino man a “boy” and condemn an entire race without being racist?
Why talk about this specific incident, today? Here’s a phrase from Obama’s speech that’s relevent:
The 12 million people in the shadows, the communities taking immigration enforcement into their own hands, the neighborhoods seeing rising tensions as citizens are pitted against new immigrants…they’re counting on us to stop the hateful rhetoric filling our airwaves – rhetoric that poisons our political discourse, degrades our democracy, and has no place in this great nation. They’re counting on us to rise above the fear and demagoguery, the pettiness and partisanship, and finally enact comprehensive immigration reform.
Some will see the above incident as the fault of a fringe lunatic, who supports a fringe organization, but as anyone who blogs about migration can attest, hateful rhetoric like this has poisoned almost every online forum that takes up the subject. Any newspaper article that dares even suggest that unauthorized migrants are human quickly fills up with hate like this in the comment section. Even the mainstream progressive blogosphere is filled with hate like this. Look no further than Alternet’s special immigration section for evidence of that.
This hate is degrading the U.S.’s democracy, and preventing the U.S. from arriving at a meaningful solution to the issues associated with migration. I live and breathe the U.S. migration debate. And even for someone like myself, who is very familiar with the U.S.’s history oppression, I find myself living in disbelief over the suffering of that millions of authorized and unauthorized migrants have to live through every day in the United States.
The latest outrage comes from Tim Chavez over at Political Salsa, who describes how Abu Ghraib and Guantamo have come to Nashville, Tennesee, where a pregnant mother was shackled as she tried to give birth to her baby. Her child was then denied the milk from her breast, and suffered from jaundice as a result of it. I highly recommend you read the full post to get a sense of the sorts of things I read about every day.
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Is this the sort of country you want to live in?
The credit for this post should go to The Sanctuary, but it has also been cross-posted at Citizen Orange, Blue Mass. Group, and Daily Kos.
If you understood what I said, then I’d rather not engage in a debate about labels.
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p>I’ve written some of my early thoughts on labeling migrants here.
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p>I don’t think any human being should be labeled illegal. The term quickly degenerates into labeling people as “illegals” which is grammatically incorrect, I might add (illegal is not a noun).
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p>Most of all though, it’s factually incorrect to try and draw a big red line between legal and illegal migration. In actuality almost half of of all legal migrants were at one point illegal, not to mention that most people don’t know anything about immigration law when they use those labels, and what actually constitutes a crime and or a civil violation.
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p>At first I thought it best just to refer to everyone as migrants, since we are all migrants.
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p>Since then, I’ve realized people need a distinction to be drawn so I’ve been influenced by Lawrence Downes’ piece, What Part of Illegal Don’t You Understand, where he argues that undocumented is probably not the best term, because then the crazies argue that they have lots of documents, illegal ones, and favors unauthorized instead.
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p>If you disagree, I’d appreciate it if you’d just let it slide. I’d rather not get into a debate about language.
There are many philosophical issues around the current immigration fiasco, on both sides. But some “facts” need to be stated before you could reasonable discuss other aspects. If you don’t believe in a nation’s sovereignty and their rights to keep foreigners outside of our borders then the whole discussion changes. I do believe we have the right to keep anyone from entering our country, and I believe the founding fathers, the majority of Americans and the Constitution agree with me.
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p>You are quibbling with my use of a label “illegal” (BTW, I used it as an adjective to describe the migrant, not a noun) and I am quibbling about your using labels of “authorized and unauthorized migrants” so what’s the difference other than mine being more factual?
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p>BTW, don’t the San Diego Minuteman, whom are probably American citizens, have the right of free speech? If they want to say virtually anything about the migrants or the movement they are allowed to. It is their right.
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p>Many opponents of the Minutemen, or anyone else who is against illegal immigration try to paint these people as un-American and being against the very thing that made this country what it is… immigration. The fact is most people I have spoken to who are against Illegal Immigration are very much in favor of “Legal Immigration”. Join the lines from every other country in the world, do the paperwork, learn to speak English and wait your turn. Funny how so many people within the US are so critical about our country, about how fucked up we are about healthcare, taxes, education… and yet every other nation in the world has a long list of people trying to come here. Funny.
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It’s a difference of opinion. The terms authorized and unauthorized are well-established terms.
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p>Free speech and hate speech are two different things. The San Diego Minutemen are allowed to say whatever they want, and I’m allowed to call them out on it.
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p>I do believe in national sovereignty. In fact I can point to several instances where the U.S. is encroaching on the national sovereignty of others. But I also believe in realistic solutions.
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p>Groups like the San Diego Minutemen do not have any real solutions to U.S. migration policy. Deporting millions of people, or forcing them out through the misery strategy of attrition through enforcement, results in horrific consequences.
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p>There needs to be legal avenues for the migrants that are coming to the U.S. to work. Right now there aren’t any. There is no line.
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p>But the only real solution to this problem is to give migrants opportunities in the countries that they come from.
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p>JohnD, you say that many of these groups are in favor of legal immigration, but the truth of the matter is they are not. Leading anti-migrant organization say they are pro-migrant, but if you read the fine print they are in favor of restricting legal migration as well. Look up any of them, FAIR, NumbersUSA, and you’ll see.
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p>As I stated before, this dichotomy between legal and illegal is a false one. If you’ll excuse me now, I’ve refuted these talking points over and over in my years of blogging this. If you don’t have better arguments than the standard talking points than please don’t both with them.
The difference between free speech and hate speech is whether you are the one talking or being talked about. Totally subjective.
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p>I don’t know of the groups you mentioned, nor do I care. I care about what the voting public thinks and not PACs or interest groups. I know what I want and I have heard from enough to know what others want. I think goal of the “talking points” on your side of the argument are in to link people who are against Illegal immigration as being against ANY immigration. That is simply false. I am adamantly against illegal immigration, including the lawbreakers who are already here (and I don’t care how long they have been here either). I am absolutely for legal immigration and would increase the numbers of immigrants allowed and would go for a larger guest worker program (even though is will put our low income workers out of a job since the argument of needed more workers for jobs nobody wants is total bullshit). But nobody should ever get rewarded for breaking the law and jumping the lines. I disdain it at McDonalds, at the line for the mew’s room and at the border to our country. This argument has not even taken into account the national security issues as 10,000 unsearched, unidentified and potentially disease carrying people enter our country.
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p>Thanks for the discussion, although I think your arguments were sadly weak. I am having an addition done on my house right now and various jobs are probably using illegal immigrants for labor. I’m sure they are being paid shit for their labor. The end result is some contractor is making a lot of money and a bunch of low income American laborers out of work. I’m also saving a bunch of money on the job. And even though these people are being treated almost like slaves, they are probably happier than being in their home countries. But I’m sure it won’t take too long before they start complaining about things in this country too… free speech.
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p>Absolutely not.
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p>Hate speech has nothing to do with doing the talking or being talked about. Absolutely nothing.
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p>Hate speech is a term for speech intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against a person or group of people based on their race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, language ability, moral or political views, socioeconomic class, occupation or appearance (such as height, weight, and hair color), mental capacity and any other distinction-liability.
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p>The bold part is the key part. I can talk about you until I’m blue in the face, but if I’m not using speech intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action, it isn’t hate speech.
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p>Hate speech is serious stuff, and while [often] protected speech, it deserves to be discussed responsibly. Blithely equating free speech and hate speech ignores the very real violence that hate speech represents.
We could quibble about what legally constitutes “hate speech” but it would go nowhere. The point is we have the first amendment is that is where it should end. For centuries American citizens have been able to say anything they wanted, far right wing, far left wing, liberal, conservative, fanatic and it was protected. Now we enter an enlighten age where we have to be “sensitive” to people’s feelings. Think of all the “hurt feelings” that came out of US Marine boot camps from those bad drill sergeants, almost makes me tear up just thinking about it.
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p>Go check any “emotional” issue from the nation’s history and when people got excited they would often say some nasty things to each other, certainly things which “degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against a person” but it wasn’t “Hate Speech”, it was passion (at least then).
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p>There have been many blogs and comments on this page against me and other conservatives and Republicans. Some of them have “degraded” me and your definition includes “…moral or political views” so are these HATE SPEECHES? People have commented and ridiculed John McCain’s “age” so is that “hate speech”?
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p>People need to grow some thicker skin and get over it.
is a definition having nothing to do with the law. In general, hate speech is first ammendment protected speech in America, right now, as upheld by the courts.
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p>In general, the statement: “All Jews have stinky feet” is hate speech, but it’s protected.
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p>Crime comes in to play when (i) an act of violence [not speech] is interpreted to serve as a threat to others in the same demographic, or (ii) when the hate speech includes threatening speech. The “hate” isn’t the crime, nor is the speech. It’s the threatening act, either verbal or implicit in action, which is the crime.
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p>Degrading is fair game in all cases, and prejudicial action may or may not be legal, depending on circumstance. Intimidation and the inciting of violence is criminal, and has been for many years now, regardless of whether or not it is also technically hate speech.
People that make arguments like this are usually in favor of either deporting all unauthorized migrants, or the equally horrific attrition through enforcement.
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p>Legalization is the only humane way, in my opinion.
I like the method used in Arizona where they punish employers who hire illegal immigrants. With no jobs they leave the state heading for another state or go back to whatever country they came from (and are legal citizens of).
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p>Deporting is an alternative but might be costly, although I would target some notable illegals and ship them out. I would also want the current ICE raids to continue and maybe be stepped up a bit. They also need to target these companies who hire illegals with some real fines.
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p>We already have a legalization policy… called Legal immigration.
The same way migrants are treated is one piece of the puzzle, but this whole “get rid of them any way we can” just isn’t a feasable solution.
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p>Just because some migrants are leaving Arizona, doesn’t mean all migrants are leaving Arizona. The only way migrants will go back home is if you make conditions for them worse in the United States than it is for them in the countries they are fleeing from. It will take a whole lot of suffering to accomplish that.
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p>Do you know anything about legal immigration? Do you know how complicated legal immigration is to the United States and how broken the system is?
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p>I encourage you to look up the alphabet soup of visas that exist now just to get an idea. Furthermore, if you are a low-skilled worker there is just feasible legal way for you to migrate to the U.S.
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p>Sorry JohnD, you’re going to have to come up with arguments a lot better than that if you’re going to have any credibility on this issue.
These terms are not well established, but are simply used to identify the political position of the speaker. When someone talks about “unauthorized workers” everyone immediately knows what that guy’s position on “unauthorized” litigation is.
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p>Same thing goes for someone who uses the phrase “illegal alien”: they probably advocate a rounding up and deportation.
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p>Use of these terms inevitably provokes this silly semantic debate.
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p>Personally, I find “illegal immigrant” to adequately describe the phenomenon. It, helpfully, distinguishes those who utilize the existing process for legitimate immigration, from those who do not. It describes a “person” as illegal only to the extent that one is unfamiliar with the use of adjectives, or is unfamiliar with the definition of the word “immigrant.” “Undocumented” and “unauthorized” approach the issue, but improperly make the immigrant’s status out to be the result of some unfortunate error, rather than a result of deliberate attempt to evade the existing process. “Migrant” is too broad to bring any focus. On the other hand, the minutemen and Tancredo, et al. have made the legal term “alien” too inflammatory to be useful.
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p>It would be nice to see policy that limits the phenomenon by (i) making it harder to do in the first place; and (ii) discouraging it by (a) making it harder to find gainful employment here, and (b) making the consequences of being caught more costly.
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p>To the extent that this can be accomplished, the status of existing illegal immigrants can be benignly ignored. The next generation will be citizens, and there will be no need to make those who attempt to immigrate legally into suckers.
I don’t have a problem with people using the term “illegal immigrant” as long as they use it clinically and not as a way to degrade migrants.
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p>I think you’re passive approach is a good one. One element that you’re missing though is a global one. We need to try and move towards a world where people migrate out of want and not out of need. We need to give migrants opportunities to stay in their own countries.
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p>That’s the real solution. Not targetting employers in the U.S. like a lot of people argue.
“and yet every other nation in the world has a long list of people trying to come here.”
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p>The problem doesn’t seem to be with the majority of developed countries, but more from those that have been left behind. And those “problem” countries are often those with whom we have the so-called “free trade” agreements. What if we had insisted that any such agreement was equally fair to workers and corporations? Wouldn’t we have made sure that companies that moved operations to another country did not exploit the workers in wages, benefits and conditions? And if we had done so, wouldn’t those workers have living employment in their own countries, and therefore little incentive to gain work here? But then again, had there been such agreements, maybe fewer companies would have moved out of the US, or those that did would do so to produce the goods for the country they entered, rather than to import them more cheaply into the US.
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p>Maybe if we changed the system we could not only avoid our own depressive economy, but also lessen this issue with illegal/unauthorized workers.
I think you’re asking the right questions, but in my experience as someone who has lived in Guatemala for 18 years, the problem isn’t so much the lack of human protection in free trade agreements (which is a problem) but the lack of opportunity overall.
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p>There are also a lot of other huge U.S. influenced global developments that are pushing migrants north, like U.S. deportation policies, the trade of illicit drugs, protectionist U.S. policies like agricultural subsidies, U.S. insistence on subsidizing corn ethanol instead of the more efficient Brazilian sugar cane ethanol, etc.
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p>Of course there are also a lot of local problems with the governments of the countries that migrants are leaving from. They should not be excused in the slightest. In fact when I started my pro-migrant blogging, one of the statements I began with is “states of emigration have failed their people”.
For bringing this to the front. Still reading Blue Mass. Group here in San Diego as I prepare for John McCain’s speech today.
Why would this be a joke? I am here, and I have a supporter of the San Diego Minutemen saying this.
or do we have to “take your word for it?”
Within the next few days. Currently working on juggling equipment and software at the moment, so I’m not going to be as quick as I would have liked.
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p>It’s fair to ask though, EaBo, and I appreciate you doing so. I also made sure to get comment from a spokesman of the group to give the San Diego Minutemen an opportunity to defend themselves.
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p>I identify as a migrant advocate, but when making claims as serious as this I make sure to cover my bases and be fair. I don’t make the claim of racism lightly.