George Will, defending Arizona’s draconian new immigration law, concludes his column (Washington Post, 4/28/10) with this today:
Arizonans should not be judged disdainfully and from a distance by people whose closest contacts with Hispanics are with fine men and women who trim their lawns and put plates in front of them at restaurants, not with illegal immigrants passing through their back yards at 3 a.m.
There are 47 million Latinos in the United States. Will’s assumption that the only ones known to the readers he’s addressing are likely to be waiting tables or mowing lawns is quite bizarre–and a testament to how homogeneous his world must be.
Equally strange is the contrast he draws between the “fine” individuals his readers know and the presumably more sinister types found in Arizona backyards. Arizona is not the only state with many Latino residents, nor with numerous unauthorized immigrants. At the beginning of his column, Will mocks House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for representing San Francisco, but California has more undocumented workers per capita and eight times as many in total; shouldn’t he stop judging her disdainfully from a distance?
It’s amazing how these guys can still get away with openly racist commentary like this. It is so hurtful and profoundly insulting to read crap like that.
Somehow I doubt Will knows any Latinos who “trim their lawns”, don’t you?
Any Latinos in his neighborhood – if there are any – would be likely to hire someone else to do their yardwork, don’t you think?
Maybe some of those folks who’ve passed through backyards at 3AM.
But I’m certain he’s had many a plate put in front of him by a Latino, and I’m sure he’s tipped them well.
Well, what he considers “well”, anyway.
As a former police officer with a long career working in the Hispanic community, I have mixed feelings about the whole issue that I won’t burden you with, because this is about George Will’s comments. Criticisms regarding his comments are following a familiar pattern. If you don’t like what a person has to say, charge him or her with racism. Base your argument on some small element that can be characterized as evidence that the writer harbors a prejudice revealed by what you choose to extract, while ignoring the author’s point. I’ll be surprised if someone doesn’t react in the same way to what I’ve written here.
He’s probably speaking from personal experience. I wonder if his gardener, maid, handyman might be “illegal” (whatever that means), or if he’s checked to find out. What would he do if they weren’t? Maybe turn them in to Joe Arpio? Mark Twain once wrote:
“We are always hearing of people who are around seeking after the Truth. I have never seen a (permanent) specimen. I think he has never lived. But I have seen several entirely sincere people who thought they were (permanent) Seekers after the Truth. They sought diligently, persistently, carefully, cautiously, profoundly, with perfect honesty and nicely adjusted judgment- until they believed that without doubt or question they had found the Truth. That was the end of the search. The man spent the rest of his hunting up shingles wherewith to protect his Truth from the weather.”
I think that George Will has been hammering up shingles for a long long time.
I happen to live in Chicago, in a neighborhood with many Latino residents, many of whom are presumably undocumented. I am more than willing to “judge disdainfully” this racist apartheid law, and can tell Mr. Will from personal experience that immigrants represent no threat to me, and in fact contribute greatly to the vitality of my community.
I’m a (white) American married to a Latino, for Gods’ sake. My husband’s grandfather was an illegal alien from Mexico. He walked over the border as a young orphan sometime around 1901 and grew up to be a prosperous businessman who loved his adopted country and proudly raised 3 kids with his wife, an immigrant from Europe.
So when exactly does an unsavory character “passing through a back yard at 3 a.m.” become a “fine individual” – according to George Will? Was it OK in 1901 but not anymore?
How is it that someone whose growth is apparently stunted at the adolescent level merits so much attention? Watch George Will on TV, with his stiff posture resembling an infant imitating an adult, or read his columns, which are generally devoid of any meaningful content and you will see what I mean.
Note, if you will my Spanish surname.
Leo Toribio
Pittsburgh, PA
Ron in Chandler AZ Says:
April 29th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
As a former police officer with a long career working in the Hispanic community, I have mixed feelings about the whole issue that I won’t burden you with, because this is about George Will’s comments. Criticisms regarding his comments are following a familiar pattern. If you don’t like what a person has to say, charge him or her with racism. Base your argument on some small element that can be characterized as evidence that the writer harbors a prejudice revealed by what you choose to extract, while ignoring the author’s point. I’ll be surprised if someone doesn’t react in the same way to what I’ve written here.
Well Ron in Chandler, I don’t know how to react to you except by your terse statement. You were a cop in & among Hispanics. I don’t know whether George Will is a racist, but he certainly is an elitist. In other words being Hispanic is not necessary to bring on his scorn. Any of the huddled masses will do.
Andrew Says:
April 30th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
I happen to live in Chicago, in a neighborhood with many Latino residents, many of whom are presumably undocumented. I am more than willing to “judge disdainfully” this racist apartheid law, and can tell Mr. Will from personal experience that immigrants represent no threat to me, and in fact contribute greatly to the vitality of my community.
Andrew may or may not be a cop, but hi lives among the Latinos. He feels no threat so I’m assuming he is no threat. With him I am also more than willing to “judge disdainfully” the Arizona law which, if upheld, will be the cause of more harm than without it. People are people who will respond according to how they are treated.
I would expect Will’s teabagger fellow travelers and his fellow fascist media commentators (Limbaugh, Beck, et al) to stick up for the people who support this law. As Will tries to position himself as a person of some intellect, I am sorely disappointed that he misses two important points in the discussion of this odious law. The idea that police officers can stop someone at random and ask them for their “papers” is something you would expect in a Communist or Fascist dictatorship but until now was totally alien to our country. Does it concern him that there is a provision in this law that a police officer who exercises his professional judgment to not harass some individual could himself be subject to legal jeopardy at the hands of some racist zealot? I cannot help but think that the people he considers his intellectual heroes, Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley, are thrashing madly about in their graves as they see the horrific direction our country has taken. One cannot know for certain, but I would hope that these gentlemen would have had the intellectual integrity to be horrified at how easily and casually conservatism transforms itself into a yearning for dictatorship.
In addition, the critical thinker should note the unquestioning implicit ease with which Will tries to legitimize the transition to the police state by assuring us that this oppressive measure is directed at the brown person sneaking across an Arizonan’s back yard while ignoring the dictatorial precedent that this law so easily sets. I strongly suspect that this individual was in legal jeopardy before this law was passed. What is different is that now he, Mr. Will, can be thrown in jail should he be in Arizona and not have a passport or birth certificate on his person. Only his Anglo-Saxon affect would stand between him and this fate. Mr. Will apparently thinks that is sufficient.
Instead of making common cause with intellectual vermin like Limbaugh and Beck, Will should remember the words of the anti-Communist German pastor Martin Niemoller as published in the book “They Thought They Were Free”:
“THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
The people most impacted by excessive illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America are; not surprisingly; silent about this issue. When you do hear from them, its usually through their thoughtless, opportunistic so called “reverends” vociferating in favor of the “rights” of the illegal Latinos instead of their own people. When are these NAACP and “civil rights” dinosaurs going to realize that blacks have NO allies?….when was the last time anyone ever heard of a Latino standing up for the rights of a black man? Actually, in any situation where the Latino has been in a position of authority, those who get the least and suffer the worst treatment are blacks.
Funny how someone like Will is held up as intellectual because be uses fancy words, but when you actual examine the palabra he spews it come out hollow and empty because he is little more than a mono-winged Parrot. Yes, illegals do pose a problem, to all including legal Latinos, but as always he forgets that there are more than just Latinos involved in illegal entry. The colors of the rainbow can be found in both sides. So regardless of whether there is an illegal alien issue, George shows he is a racist because he assumes only Latino’s are illegal. QED.
slytot:
Yes principled latinos did (and do) stand up for the rights of African Americans, though the society at large pays little attention to this. The idea is that we HUMANS should stand up for the rights of other HUMANS. Get it?
Your “opportunistic so-called reverends” are not elected politicians, they are religious scholars who understand and are living the meaning of the Bible text. Perhaps you should read it some time. You could start with Matthew, verses 31-46.
Perhaps I wasn’t as clear as I could have been. Religious leaders are not obligated to represent the views of their congregation. They ARE obligated to do their most sincere and persistent best to decode and represent the views of God. Based on a loose poll of national religious leaders of all different religions and denominations, I would say it is safe to say that God is against this law.
” If you don’t like what a person has to say, charge him or her with racism. Base your argument on some small element that can be characterized as evidence that the writer harbors a prejudice revealed by what you choose to extract, while ignoring the author’s point. I’ll be surprised if someone doesn’t react in the same way to what I’ve written here.”
Actually, my reaction is to simply point out that you appear to be hoist on your own pitard here. You charge the detractors of Arizona policy with ad hominem attacks, suggesting that they have injected racism into this discussion as a means of avoiding what you see as the real issues. Of course, that’s hardly the only possible assessment.
Laws which vest law enforcement with unfettered discretion in stopping residents without the necessity of meeting the constitutional requirements of reasonable and articulable suspicision of a crime, such discretion only logically being expressed against Latinos given the context of the law, may reasonably be seen as racist and probably unconstitutional. To make that observation does not make one racist themselves. It also does not attack the persons of those who made the laws, it simply questions their judgment and the impact of the laws they have passed vis-a-vis the Constitution which binds all Americans. This doesn’t avoid the issue, that being the problem with immigration. It simply observes that responding to serious problems such as those Arizona is facing with problematic legislation does not resolve the problem, it exacerbates it.
As a Southerner who weathered the desegregation of schools during junior high, I am sensitive to the charge of racism even as I recognize the strong tendencies in America toward racist thought. One of my classmates in seminary observed that “In America we breathe racist air.” That means it’s difficult on a good day to be conscious of these pernicious ways of seeing other human beings our culture imbues in us. We would all do well to think twice about impact of our decision making. The question I regularly ask my students about laws is simply, Cui bono? Good for whom? And at whose expense?
“Religious leaders are not obligated to represent the views of their congregation. They ARE obligated to do their most sincere and persistent best to decode and represent the views of God. Based on a loose poll of national religious leaders of all different religions and denominations, I would say it is safe to say that God is against this law.”
As a former lawyer, I find this statement troubling at best. I do think there is a place in public policy making for religious thought. But I also recognize that religion is regularly used to validate all kinds of things from invasions of Iraq to Holocausts. G-d is on the side of humanity, as best I can tell. Beyond that, I think we confuse wishful thinking and the need for legitimation with our understandings of the will of G-d.
As an Episcopal priest, I would say that requiring religious leaders to speak for the mind of G-d is probably an unreasonable request. I think it is perfectly possible to point to understandings gained from scripture and from the traditions of a given religion as possibly indicating the mind of G-d. But assertions that G-d takes a given side in any human conflict is problematic on a good day. Bear in mind that the Axis soldiers prayed to the same G-d as did the Allies in WWII for their own causes. Suggesting that G-d answered the prayers of the Allies because G-d was on their side is troubling. That’s little more than might makes right dressed up in religious clothes. It also has some troubling implications when one begins to look at the Holocaust.
I think for Christians, the example of Jesus is instructive. Jesus uses a parable of a hated foreigner, the Good Samaritan, to answer the perennial question, “Who is my neighbor?” Moreover, in Hebrew Scripture, the example of Sodom focuses on the problem with ill treatment of the alien among us. The sin of Sodom was the failure of hospitality, the willingness of the men of Sodom to engage in gang rape to assert their dominance using the visitors (who turn out to be angels) as the means of that demonstration. Conduct like that could readily stop any kind of trade in the ancient middle east.
Ultimately, however, all world religions have some version of the Golden Rule in them. Is that true bcause it is found in the various scriptures or does it find its way there because human beings have recognized it to be true? What is the mind of G_d? Love your neighbor as yourself. Honor the image of G-d on every human face. Do not do unto others what you would not want done to you. And, as Hillel, the rabbinical sage noted, that’s the totality of the law. The rest is commentary. Go and study.
The worst thing about the Arizona law is not its racism – it is the simplistic, knee-jerk “strike back” at what many Arizonans think is a problem that can only be solved with such extreme measures. During hard times, Americans have always had the tendency to turn against those that are “different”- seeing them as some sort of threat. This isn’t usually the case, but there are political interests that like to stoke such fears for their own advantage. Actually, American citizens and illegal aliens should be aware of the REAL causes of this situation. For one thing, we are all suffering from the consequences of NAFTA. Before that ‘deal’ was signed, there were many economists that warned us, MANY TIMES, that illegal immigration would balloon as a result. They were dismissed. Now, of course, there is no discussion about the connection, because the same huge corporations that benefit most from these so-called “trade policies” WANT the supply of cheap labor to stay high. When US corn is subsidized and shipped into Mexico at prices that undercut the locally-grown corn, Mexicans who depended on this crop for their income were put out of business. Everyone knows that poverty and starvation enticed many immigrants to the US. Why should we be so surprised that it is happening again? Since NAFTA and the other “trade policies” took effect, huge numbers of American jobs have gone elsewhere in pursuit of low labor costs. Big corporations swarm to one country for a while, but when somewhere else turns out to be an even better bargain, they move again, leaving unemployed workers first in one country, then another. If the US tries to protect some of its own businesses by increasing tariffs on foreign-made products, the big corporations that are outsourcing their labor shriek “protectionism”. The REAL objective in making “protectionism” some sort of economic heresy is that efforts to protect the American ECONOMY would result in less “protection” of corporate profits. Americans should learn that throughout the nation’s history, low taxes were always balanced by high tariffs and high taxes made up for low tariffs. In fact, until the income tax was begun after WWI, the country lived ENTIRELY on tariffs! The high tariffs after WWII enabled the US to become a major economic power, even as we overcame the setback of the Depression. But for the past 30 years, BOTH taxes and tariffs have been going down, greatly depleting national income. Corporations would prefer to add that income to their own balance sheets while “starving the beast” (government), keeping it too weak to rein in the abuses born of greed and power.
There also needs to be a crackdown not on those who are illegal workers, but on those EMPLOYERS who happily exploit them. The technology to check on job applicants is improving and there is no excuse for these companies to claim ignorance when they’re caught. Having EMPLOYERS serve time in jail will help reduce the DEMAND for low wages that illegal immigrants are trying to supply like anyone else who wants a job. Supply-siders take note: It is always demand that drives an economy. Without it, the supply becomes unnecessary. Another one of the best guards against illegal labor was the existence of unions, whose emphasis on training, certification, skill level, and quality, not to mention formal contracts, kept illegal workers at a distinct disadvantage. Thirty years of union-busting has not been good for the American worker. If unions are not allowed, company boards should be required to have half of their members elected by the employees. This kind of democracy in the workplace has been successful in other countries, and there is no reason to not try it here – allowing power to accumulate in the hands of the few is dangerous to society. Other business models, like worker-owned businesses and co-ops are being tried, believe it or not, in some parts of Latin America! You won’t hear that in the US (corporate) media – maybe they’re afraid to bring up the subject . . .
First, I strongly recommend that people go to Greg Palast’s website to read his investigative report on what is behind the Arizona law. (Greg Palast (http://www.gregpalast.com/) It is quite enlightening.
In addition, what is never mentioned in this issue of immigration is U.S. economic policies and domination of countries south of the border like El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, etc.. During the war in El Salvador when Reagan was in office 75,000 were butchered by the death squad government we supported.
In 1954 the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz was overthrown by the CIA to get back UNUSED United Fruit Company lands that Arbenz wanted to nationalize so that the peasants (who were starving) would be able to farm and grow crops. Arbenz offered to pay United Fruit company what they said the land was worth on their tax return EXCEPT that to get a better deal on their taxes they undervalued what the land was worth so they refused Arbenz’s offer.
At the time the Dulles brothers (one of whom was in the State department and the other one headed the CIA) had stock in United Fruit, so they went to President Eisenhower and told him the Communists were acting up in Guatemala. They sent down Col.Philip Roetinger to overthrow Arbenz. He did and since then some 180,000 Guatemalans were butchered by the juntas and dictators we supported in what was considered a genocidal war against the indigenous Indian population..
United Fruit company (which I think owned something like 70% of the land in Guatemala) got back the land that Arbenze wanted to give to the peasants. They, the peasants, continued to starve in a country with abundant agricultural resources while we got their produce for our markets.
I met Philip Roetinger years ago when I lived in Los Angeles. He is actually a sweet man who now deeply, greatly regrets what he did as a young gung ho Marine in 1954. He gave a talk on what he did in 1954 that I attended.
Likewise, in Nicaragua, the Marines put into power the Samoza regime around the 1930’s and we supported that brutal regime for 50 years until the Sandanistas overthrew them and then Reagan sent down the CIA to organize the Contras and about 30,000 died in that brutal war.
Many of these people fled these wars to come here. But we NEVER discuss the impact of our foreign policies and our economic policies (like NAFTA, globalized trade, neoliberal economic policies, the IMF, the World Bank, Structural Adjustment programs, etc.) and their impact on immigration flows and the lives of MILLIONS of people globally who are the victims of these policies.
We ONLY know how to engage in this discussion from the right-wing hate radio (Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Limbaugh) rhetoric focusing solely on their illegal status and what “they” presumedly take from us.
Let’s calculate how many BILLIONS (TRILLIONS?) of dollars in land and resources we stolen from them over the past century, how much we owe THEM for 150 years of exploiting THEIR slave labor for our benefit while they starved and lived under the brutal dictatorships we imposed on them. And how do you even put a price tag on the pain, suffering and genocidal wars we supported that killed and maimed so many over 150 years? In that context, we have a lot of GALL talking about what “they” have taken from us.
Sorry, but I get really pissed about the rhetoric that gets tossed around on this subject.
· A few years ago, family farm activist Merle Hansen wrote the following in an article entitled â┚¬Ã…“Farm Crisis and the Progressive Communityâ┚¬Ã‚Â:
â┚¬Ã…“The chronic crisis of low farm prices and high production costs during the 1980’s forced off the land 24% of the rural population in the USA. Nebraska lost one third of its rural population. Since 1945 the United States has eliminated 4 million farmers. Land loss among blacks in the South continues at a rate of two and one half times greater than the national average. At one time there were 926,000 African American farmers. All of our black farmers may be gone by the year 2000â┚¬Ã‚¦
â┚¬Ã‚¦If we continue to allow this elite group of economic giants to dominate the farm and food sector, we are poised to dump two billion of the 3.1 billion people who still live in the rural areas of the world into the cities. There unemployment and other social, political and environmental problems await them. The forces rapidly pushing the world towards industrialization of agriculture are the same forces dominating U.S. farm and food production.â┚¬Ã‚Â
In August, 1931, the much decorated Commandant of the Marine Corps. General Smedly Butler stunned an American Legion convention in Connecticut with the following:
“I spent 33 years…being a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1916. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City (Bank) boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street…In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested…I had…a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals, promotions…I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate a racket in three cities…The Marines operated on three continents…”
1948 Internal document by George Kennan written when he was head of the State Department:
“…we have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population…In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction…We should cease to talk about vague and – for Far East â┚¬“ unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.” Commenting on the quote MIT Professor Noam Chomsky writes “This prescription is noteworthy not only for its clarity and forthrightness, but also because of its source, one of the most thoughtful and humane of U.S. planners, who left his position not long after because he was considered not sufficiently tough-minded for this harsh world.”
Finally, I would add this point:
From the November, 1999, issue of No More Jobs, the newsletter of The Employment Project:
â┚¬Ã…“The global quantity of available work is shrinking â┚¬“ this beingâ┚¬Ã‚¦a STRUCTURAL (emphasis mine) problem related directly to the passing of control over crucial economic factors from the representative institutions of government to the free play of market forces. There is, therefore, little thatâ┚¬Ã‚¦the state may do to combat itâ┚¬Ã‚¦Hans Peter Martin and Harald Schumann, economic experts of Der Spiegel, calculate that if the present trend continues unabated, 20 percent of the global (potential) workforce will suffice â┚¬Ã‹Å“to keep the economy going’ (whatever that means) which will leave the other 80% of the able-bodied population of the world economically redundant. One can thinkâ┚¬Ã‚¦of ways to reverse, arrest or at least slow down the trend, but the major issue today is no longer what is to be done, but who has the power and the resolve to do it. Behind the expanding insecurity of the millions dependent on selling their labour, lurks the absence of a potent and effective agency which could, with will and resolve, make their plight less insecureâ┚¬Ã‚¦
â┚¬Ã‚¦Insecurity of livelihood, compounded with the absence of a trustworthy and reliable agency capable of making it less secureâ┚¬Ã‚¦strikes a severe blow at the heart of life politics, â┚¬Ã‚¦
â┚¬Ã‚¦There is less and less paid work aroundâ┚¬Ã‚¦Unemployment looks more sinister than ever beforeâ┚¬Ã‚¦.We learn for instanceâ┚¬Ã‚¦that in France the volume of work available in 1991 was just 57 percent of that on offer in 1891: 34.1 billion hours instead of 60 billion. During that period the GNP multiplied by ten, hourly productivity by eighteen, while the total number of people at work increased in a hundred years from only 19 million to 22 million. Roughly similar trends have been recorded in all countries which began industrialization in the nineteenth century. The figures speak volumes about the reasons to feel insecure even in the most stable and regular jobs.â┚¬Ã‚Â
Rather than demonizing those at the bottom who are victims of economic and foreign policies that they have NO SAY in, why the hell aren’t we looking UP at the SOB’s that are creating these policies and the subsequent economic policies that are harming ALL of us for THEIR benefit???
According to the United Nations Development Program, the last three decades have seen an alarming growth of global economic inequality. Thirty years ago, the richest fifth of the world’s population had an income 30 times greater than the poorest fifth. Now, the income of the richest fifth is 61 times that of the poorest fifth. And 358 super-rich individuals now have a combined wealth equaling the total income of 2.3 billion people, nearly half the world’s population.
THAT is what we should be angry about. THAT is what we should be doing something about.
Thank you kindly for the useful intel, Larry. The effort is much appreciated.
Larry’s comment, although long, hits the key issues in our current (ridiculous) immigration debate. It’s as if the people crossing our borders dropped in from outer space! The US gov’t continues their repressive Latin American policies, and right-wing media completely glosses over this fact and makes immigration an issue of trespassing. And so you have a blonde wing-nut governor in an echo chamber of fear and denial passing laws which almost everyone but the smallish percentage of hinterlanders thinks is a big racist step towards fascist nationalism. Inevitably with such a scenario, George Will is there to put his convoluted (and nearly always confusing) stamp of approval on it. I struggle to comprehend how he is as influential as the media portrays him. With a nation of people who watch Fox News, who exactly is his audience? Most cannot understand his vocabulary, or the concepts he preaches from his Ivy League pulpit. Anyway, George Will speaks for almost no one, save a few thousand of his overindulged peers. There are many better mentors of the language, the people, and the institutions that make up America. George Will, to me, is a national embarrassment who screams, ” I’m an isolated, wanna-be aristocratic intellectual, and you want to be just like me.”
Slytot:
What is a ‘Latino’ to you?
To the white Anglo-Saxon from North America, it means either brown, Hispanic (Spanish speaking) or Latin language speaking (Haitian French, Brazilian Portuguese) or the Iberian American catholic.
Anglo-Saxon and Latin Europe have been at odds with each other for ages, over religion, language, culture and even ethnicity differences – the Iberian Peninsula was invaded and occupied by Arabs for centuries. The British Kingdom glorified and rewarded piracy – the ransacking of Spanish ships on their way back from L. America.
In L. America, the Spaniards and Portuguese are despised for plundering their nations. The difference between North and Latin America is that the former was intended for colonization, the latter for exploitation.
So as North America was invaded and occupied by Anglo Europeans, Latin America was populated with Africans at least 7 times more than the north, under slavery for extraction of resources, since the natives knew their homeland well and could escape easily and disappear into the jungle, whereas the kidnapped African could not.
Haiti “was the first independent nation in Latin America and the first black-led republic in the world when it gained independence as part of a successful slave rebellion in 1804” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti
Latin America has much more African Americans (and natives for that matter) than North America – North referring to US and Canada and excluding Mexico, because it’s always part of Latin America. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who is a Black Haitian with a French name, was the president of Haiti, overthrown by a military coup with the help of US (Clinton) and France. Chavez, who is part black, suffered a failed coup d’état in 2002. Evo Morales, a Aymara native and president of Bolivia also suffered a failed coup attempt against him.
Obviously, Chavez and Morales are Spanish names, the colonizer and slaver name, not an Aymaran name – Ayma, the last name of Evo is though. And so everyone in LA is named with an Iberian name, although only few of them are descendents from Iberians. Most US ‘immigrants’ from Central and South America called ‘latinos’ are natives bearing the colonisers’ names and religions – the catholic church sent jesuit priests to convert the natives and teach them Spanish since the beginning of colonization, depriving them of their own heritage.
The US MSM wants you to believe that ‘latinos’ can all be bundled up into one group and even one ethnicity. They say the majority of Jewish American voted for Obama and omit or overlook the Hispanic electorate, which are posing a big threat to the absolute white ruling. The Jewish Americans don’t have enough numbers to have elected Obama nor do the US black citizens alone. Then they went after ACORN for helping the disenfranchised register for voting and now they’re witch hunting the ‘ilegals’ but what they’re really doing is going after the brown AND black population. If you’re black they’re going to stop you too. Maybe you’re from Haiti – lots of Haitian refugees escaping the earthquake were sent away. They’re both earthquake and free trade refugees. Free trade has ruined their country, is being imposed on them by the IMF, US, France, world bank… And Aristide still hasn’t been allowed back home, for trying to lead his country away from unfair policies imposed by rich domineering countries.
If you can’t see the correlation between Latin, Native and African American struggle, then you should learn some History and go beyong what the MSM spits at you.
I was born and lived most of my life in Brazil and never heard the word ‘latina’ until I came to North America. Except for Ney Matogrosso’s song “Eu sou Latino Americano” this concept is not mentioned much or important to Brazilian society. Everyone under the sun is Brazilian there. Period. No sectioning of the population into subgroups.
‘Latino’ is the new ‘nigger’ – a pejorative word used to hate and segregate a portion of the population that sounds and/or looks different.
The Brazilian society is not without its own prejudices, after all, racism is everywhere, but to what extent?
I can’t find a Brazilian word or translation for the N word. Actually, ‘preto’=black is insulting and negro is OK. I dunno the explanation for that, but I can tell you that ‘preto’ is not racially and hatred charged like the N word.
If you hang a noose on a tree of a Brazilian public school or anywhere in LA, someone will bring it to you and say:
“sorry your donkey escaped”.
“Instead of making common cause with intellectual vermin like Limbaugh and Beck, Will should remember the words of the anti-Communist German pastor Martin Niemoller. . . ‘”THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists”.
Let me be the first to speak up.
Keep your hands of Rush Limbaugh and Mr. Beck. And stop pretending to like George Will to make a point.
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Today, with all the fast way of living that everyone leads, credit cards get this amazing demand throughout the economy. Persons throughout every area are using the credit card and people who aren’t using the credit card have made arrangements to apply for one. Thanks for sharing your ideas on credit cards.
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Pluma abajo llenando la capa de relleno, gran forma redondeada. Representaron más de la mitad de la cubierta general de agachar la cabeza, y usted puede mezclar algunas pequeñas plumas, el pato limpio, pasteurizada y luego rellenar la ropa es una chaqueta. Abajo caliente y bueno. Sobre todo la gente vestida en las regiones frías, pero también se utiliza comúnmente para el personal de la expedición polar.
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