I love this quote from an immigration comment thread:
illegals suck we should have fucking sank the mayflower and anything that came close to our homeland
Hokay so while I failed in my trip back from Chicago to encounter anyone using a Hello, Kitty! item (Chicagoans clearly treat "Hello, Kitty!" like a pothole, avoiding HK items with deft precision) but I did encounter in the airport burger bar a couple travellers from North Carolina. They were businessmen and chatty.
The chattier of the two, with no warning, looked at me. "What's your name?"
I replied, [in the alternate universe where I say what's on my quasi-Aspergers mind]
"I'm a damn fine pilot. This Polynesian flight attendant will serve your drinks while I crash our sabotaged plane. Good-bye."
But of course I didn't. The conversation might be bloggable. Heh.
So we got to chatting and he brought up the fact that he and his partner HAVE to learn SOME Spanish for WORK and he's too old and besides, THE MAJORITY of Spanish-speaking people here are ILLEGALS.
I looked at him like his face was made of grapes. "I do not have statistics at my immediate disposal, but you are dead wrong about that "majority" business. I am sure of that."
He. Caved. Told me I had a good head on my shoulders, whatever that means. You mean, like Holly Goodhead? I'm her, too.
So these guys work for a HUGE multinational corporation. Offices in Germany, here, around the whole world. And these two guys supervise or sell or buy or something only the packaging for some of the products this company makes. And their specific office is located in North Carolina.
I ask innocently, because my awareness of the importance of manufacturing and small industry has been increased of late, "are the packages that you deal with as managers manufactured in North Carolina, indeed, are they manufactured in the US?"
"Aw, noooo. They sure aren't."
I stifle the urge to ask them if they get their packaging at Wal Mart. Because I know, and they know I know, and I know they know I know, because I've got a good head on my shoulders, exactly where their packaging is manufactured.
We do not have a Hispanic problem in America. We do not have a problem with "illegals."
We have a white problem. We have a problem with idiots. Our problem is whites who are easily manipulated by Lou Dobbs or any of the GOP white guys on the teevee sayin' that brown people are takin' away their jobs and they listen to Lou Dobbs on a teevee that they bought at Wal Mart, not thinking about the cheaply paid and maybe not paid at all "yellow" people (don't mention slave labor it's impolite) who made it... no not one bit.
And they don't think about the so-called liberal world we live in where everybody gets a batchelor's degree in business so they can be the next Lou Dobbs, and no one is trained to make packaging for anything, because, in America, everyone can get an entry-level banking job and just coast and then Mom and Dad can be proud sonny wears a tie to work. They do wear ties at Best Buy, selling made in China teevees, right?
Immmigration is a huge problem. Sure. But the problem lies not with "them," folks. In so many ways, it lies with us.
"We have a white problem. We have a problem with idiots."
ReplyDeleteI want that on a coffee mug. Great post. Can't decide which is more impressive, the good head on your shoulders or the evidence that you actually speak to other humans when traveling through airports.
yep, idiot problem!
ReplyDeleteand more and more, wal mart reminds me of the old "company store" in coal mining towns.
Excellent post!
ReplyDeleteIt's fear-mongering and our willingness to scapegoat and make someone else the whipping boy instead of confronting the serious challenges that face us.
ReplyDeleteIt's not making the conscious decision to buy less, buy for quality not quantity, and not patronize places who either directly or indirectly contribute to or from this system of inequality that currently exists.
That is a real challenge for all of us and historically few of us have been willing to jump on board until we have no choice.
Blue Gal:
ReplyDeleteI live in Upstate NY (a mile south of Lake Ontario. There is a big INS and Border Patrol presence in the area. They say it's to stop the infiltration of islamoterrarists from Can-uh-duh. I know, however, that the truth is that they want to interdict the streams of "frostbacks", the Canadians who illegally swim across Lake Ontario in the dead of winter, as they know that there are fewer patrols on the ice clogged waters during that part of the year.
democommie
Great post.
ReplyDeleteDivide and conquer is easy to achieve when your scapegoat is across a border. We don't have a sense of solidarity with the working class of China or Mexico. Instead, assholes like Dobbs lead us to believe that they're competition.
Rather than organize together, we tear each other down for the business elite. Workers of the world unite (oh, unless there's a border between you or you happen to look different from each other).
well i think to allow the illegal immigration situation to remain as it is, to allow the exploitation of these people by both the greedy gringo and the government of mexico, is a sin.
ReplyDeletethe american government should be putting a lot of pressure on that petty kleptocracy called a nation to the south, and we should be sending mexico a great big bill every year and prosecuted in the international courts.
churches, on the other hand, should not be a mechanism of the state and should grant sanctuary, and good hearted people should help these folks whenever they can. but issues of governance should be pursued by sound domestic and foreign policy. our policies in this regard are not sound. the countenance of importing slave labor is unsufferable.
link
We had Quarterly Meeting at our Quaker Meeting this past week. One of the committees on which I serve had food service duty for the covered dish supper afterwards. I was very interested in an animated conversation amongst a bunch of older guys - white guys - at one table, so I listened in.
ReplyDeleteLots of talk about "...guys in turbans." "I was the only white face there." "I felt like the minority..."
So I said, "Hey, I heard what you said, about feeling like you were in the minority." And they stopped and looked up. And I said "Get used to it, Friends. You're in the minority here, too."
They didn't like that.
Idiot problem. Yup.
"illegals suck we should have fucking sank the mayflower and anything that came close to our homeland"
ReplyDeleteOooh, oooh, do I get a vote on the whole "sinking the Mayflower" thing?
'Lots of talk about "...guys in turbans."'
Yeah, all hell's gonna break loose when Greater Wingnuttistan discovers that, just like Secret Covert Mooslum Barack bin Hussein Osama, Cherokee wear turbans, too...
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