The New Niggers

The title is deliberately provocative,
but someone has to say it.

Mexican immigrants are the new Niggers.

They provide all the advantages blacks
did back in the day. They’re cheap, they’re uncomplaining. They can
be taken advantage of. They depress wages so other groups can’t get
up the economic ladder.

Best of all, these niggers are useful
to black bigots as well as whites. There’s been a rash of robberies,
even murders, committed against Mexican immigrants in South Georgia
recently.
The suspects are black. They might not know they’re doing just what
their white neighbors did a century ago (wearing sheets) but they
are.

As a start toward discussion, let’s
consider the language.

Nearly two-thirds of Georgians believe
most Mexicans they see are “illegal.”
That word is important, illegal. Not undocumented, illegal. These are
illegal people. Thus, they are not people at all. I had a big fight
on this point recently with my 15-year old son. It got pretty ugly.
But I’m not backing down.

There is no such thing as an “illegal”
person. These are people who came into the country illegally. There
is a huge difference. Some are murderers and thieves. Others do us great honor. 

But if a person is illegal, you don’t have
to acknowledge their rights, even their humanity. You can shut them
into cattle cars, you can put them behind barbed wire, you can break
up their families with impunity. You can systematically dehumanize
them, and in the process dehumanize yourself.

Once they are people who came into the
country illegally, however, you have to look them in the eye. And
when you do, here’s what you’ll find.

They are Americans. As in native
American. That reddish skin, that black hair, those dark eyes, the
straight nose. America committed genocide against its native
Americans. They went the way of the passenger pigeon and the buffalo,
herded onto “reservations,” plied with liquor, their culture
wiped clean away, until a few aligned with gambling interests a few
decades ago. Now there are tons of one-eighth and one-sixteenth
“braves” running around, trying to get a piece of that action.

These guys (many families remain in
Mexico) are the real deal. When they converted to Catholicism, the
Spanish let them live. They honor their great Aztec civilization
still. They live four or six to a room, many of them, they work like
stink for minimum wage (or less), they send every penny they can back
to the wives and children. Look at your own family history, bigots.
That’s how most of your ancestors started here. It’s how my ancestors
started here.

These are the “illegal” people?
These are the folks not deserving of respect, of humanity? You dare
say that, you who probably haven’t broken a decent sweat at work your
whole life, you sit on your fat butt, you suck on that damned
cigarette, you drive that Humvee and dare to look down on these
people whose ancestors were here before yours got out of trees, who
do the work you won’t for money you won’t take. Ri-i-i-ight.

And today, if you’re white, if you want
change, if you’re tired of this “War on Terror” bullshit and the
theft of our nation by a cabal of ultra-rich greedheads, well, these
people are being used against you, too.

Because it’s on our hatred and our fear
of these people that today’s Republicans hope to retain their
monopoly on power. I personally watched this debate gather steam in
Georgia this spring and now our Republican governor is running on it, acting like it was
his idea. (It wasn’t.)

I’ve also watched, in horror, as media
demagogues like Lou Dobbs
have thrown their ethics out the window in order to race-bait on this
issue, all the while pretending they’re “not Republicans, not
Democrats.” Again, ri-i-i-i-ght. But maybe Dobbs is right. Because
what he is, in a word, is a racist.

There are lots of excuses for this
behavior, which are to be found in the “legislative proposals”
that come down the pike. They don’t speak English.
They want to go to our schools, use our hospitals, maybe even collect
Social Security benefits many are paying for. They’re taking “our”
jobs
(in the fruit orchards), they’re lowering “our” salaries. They
want to turn the USA into Mexico.

Now before you jump down my throat shut
your gob a minute and listen to this.

We do have an immigration problem. We
do need to solve it. And there are solutions available:

1. Real Identity for everyone. This
   means we have the best possible biometric protections on our own
   documents, and that we keep working on them, just as we work to
   protect our currency. If you’re privacy is offended you’re soft on
   the immigration issue.

2. Stop screwing Mexico. NAFTA turned
   out to be a disaster for Mexico. American solutions won’t work for
   the Mexican economy. Telmex needs to be broken-up, the power of
   oligarchs needs to be curbed, the system needs to become more
   transparent, they need more online resources, schools and training
   to start climbing the economic ladder. We can work on that, but only
   in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Bush has turned the place into a
   colony of Texas.

3. Employer Enforcement. Employers
   who accept obviously-phony papers need to go to jail. Without that
   threat, no one checks anything.

4. Raise American salaries. Raise
   them high enough so Americans will do those jobs they don’t want to
   do now. That will dry up demand for undocumented workers.

5. Deal with the backlog. Hire enough
   cops and judges and lawyers to clear the current backlog of
   immigration cases, which runs into the centuries. Accept that some
   of these people are going to have good cases for staying, and allow
   those cases to go forward. It’s not amnesty. It’s called justice.

There are many side-benefits to all
this. We don’t single-out Mexicans, but can start dealing with
everyone – Africans, Muslims, Asians, Eastern Europeans, everyone.
That improves national security (you know mein herr – der
Homeland). Once we start respecting Mexico and Mexicans, maybe that
poor country can start getting its act together. American respect
would be a good start toward that.

Finally, this means higher salaries for
Americans, better living standards, maybe new machines to pick the
strawberries and clean the dishes. We have been practicing an economy
of human feudalism this decade, and the time has come to end it.

Democrats need to stop being defensive
on this, stop parroting Republican talking points, and get the other
side on the back foot. They can start by stating the problem baldly,
as I have.

This country needs no new niggers. We
need to respect one another, and respect ourselves again. That means
raising demand for the skills every American offers, and compensating
every American fairly.