Race & Ethnicity – Page 75

Harper Lee and Courage

I found this beautiful post by flea through a post at tbogg. Flea reflects on the school integration of the 1960s and the quiet courage of common people in standing up for their beliefs, even as other, good people were reluctant to do so if it meant bringing harm to their families.

My oldest sister was born in 1956, the next sister in 1959. My mother spent the decade of her young motherhood watching The Cheerleaders on television, watching the man in gray – a Christian minister, as it turns out – lead his six-year-old daughter past the howling mob. She watched the terror on the faces of the children and, when integration moved toward South Carolina, she was afraid. She and my father could not bear to put her children on the front line. So the three of us, first my sisters, then, when it was time for me to begin school in 1974, went to an expensive private prep school in a quiet, wooded area of town, a neighborhood surrounded by stables and tasteful estates, miles away from the nearest public school.

The good people that Steinbeck wondered about were terrified. They knew that, due to hundreds of death threats and no support from the all-white local police force, John Howard Griffen’s family had to leave the country after he went undercover as a black man in Mississippi and published his experiences in Black Like Me. Simply put, the good people, and make no mistake they were good people, lacked the courage necessary to make Abraham’s sacrifice. They could not put into jeopardy the life of their child for their political beliefs.

Read the whole thing.

Two Deaths

Coretta Scott King, 78.

Wendy Wasserstein, 55. Gail Collins has a lovely remembrance here.

In Case You Weren’t Aware of the Racism in the Mainstream Right

Let me remind you by using a few of our favorite pundits. Take Michelle Malkin’s column this week:

Asked to explain the difference between Democrats and Republicans, Hillary’s response oozed with righteous flava (did Bill “Our first black president” Clinton help her practice?):

“For the last five years, we’ve had no. Power. At All. And that makes a big difference, because when you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation. And you know what I’m talkin’ about. It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary point of view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument, to be heard. The Senate’s not that bad. But it’s been difficult. It’s been difficult.”

Yes, Hillary, we’re living in the antebellum South all over again. Forget the existence of the raucus Congressional Black Caucus. Pay no attention to the ubiquitous Rep. Charlie Rangel on cable television and radio airwaves. Look past the mainstream status bestowed on the fanatical black separatist Louis Farrakhan, most recently honored as Black Entertainment Television.com’s man of the year. And ignore the true ideological plantation mentality that punishes every prominent conservative minority dissenter who strays from leftist orthodoxy.

What racial demagogic stunt will Hillary sink to next? Cornrows and a cameo on Bush-bashing rapper Kanye West’s next album? Go on, girl. Go ahead. Get down.

Someday I Hope The World Will Be Even More Fare

More Women Crossing the Border

And they’re risking everything to do it.

It took years for Normaeli Gallardo, a single mother from Acapulco, to drum up the courage to join the growing stream of Mexican women illegally crossing the border on the promise of a job, in her case working in a Kansas meatpacking plant for $5.15 an hour.

First, she had to grapple with the idea of landing in an unfamiliar country, all alone, with no grasp of English and no place to live.

Then she had to imagine crossing the Arizona desert, where immigrants face heat exhaustion by day, frostbite by night and the cunning of the “coyotes” – smugglers who charge as much as $1,500 to guide people into the United States and who make a habit of robbing and sexually assaulting them.

And finally, Ms. Gallardo, 38, who earned $50 a week at an Acapulco hotel, had to contemplate life without her two vivacious daughters, Isabel, 7, and Fernanda, 5. That once unimaginable trade-off – leaving her children behind so they could one day leave poverty behind – had suddenly become her only option.

She simply did not earn enough money, she said. If she paid the electric bill, she fell behind on rent; if she paid the water bill, she could forget about new clothes for the children.

“My heart broke, my heart broke,” said Ms. Gallardo, who crumbled as she recounted her decision to leave her girls with her sister and make the uncertain journey across the border. “But I had to give them a better life. I told them I would go and work, and we could buy a small plot of land and build a little house and have a dog.”

We Heart White Christians

And we demonstrate it by hating everyone else.

Example A: Dumb Jews who don’t blindly worship Evangelical Christians for generously allowing them a place in this Christian nation. Plus Jewish Democrats would vote for Hitler, and we’re one holiday tree away from living in Soviet Russia.

Example B: Ann Coulter on Kwanzaa. Yeah, you already know it’s gonna be bad. But did you know that giving black children fake African names is what made all black people criminals (“That was a big help to the black community: How many boys named “Jamal” currently sit on death row?”)? Also, Kwanzaa is for Commies: “Kwanzaa itself is a lunatic blend of schmaltzy ’60s rhetoric, black racism and Marxism. Indeed, the seven “principles” of Kwanzaa praise collectivism in every possible arena of life — economics, work, personality, even litter removal. (“Kuumba: Everyone should strive to improve the community and make it more beautiful.”)” Improve the community? Make it more beautiful? Now that is just sick.

Example C: Mike Adams loves Minutemen, and kickin’ him some Mexican ass. Or, having his friend — who he only cares about in a totally heterosexual way — kick some Mexican ass.

New GOP Immigration Plan: Change Citizenship Laws

Because it just ain’t fair that some brown babies get to be citizens simply by virtue of being born here. The plan by 92 House members would change U.S. citizenship laws, which currently afford automatic citizenship to children born here. The issue here is a section of the 14th Amendment, which reads:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

Pretty clear, right? But, sadly, no.

John C. Eastman, director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence at Chapman University in Orange, told the House immigration panel in September that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” suggests that the 14th Amendment does not apply to children of undocumented immigrants because their parents are living in the United States illegally.

Ok, I call bullshit — the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” basically means that one is subject to U.S. law. Children of immigrants, even illegal immigrants, certainly are. Where’s the argument here? And what part of “All persons born” do these folks not understand?

Thankfully, others point out that the underlying (il)logic of this proposal is deeply flawed:

Because of the length of time involved, some immigration experts say that birthright citizenship is not a major incentive for the vast majority of illegal entrants.

“No, absolutely not,” said Tamar Jacoby, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. “It’s something that a few middle-class professional people do. I have never met a poor person who has his wife walk across the desert at eight months pregnant so they can wait 21 years to be sponsored by their child.”

Going after babies really isn’t the way to deal with illegal immigration.

Consider the Hijab: Blogging Against Racism

Blogging against racism a full week late. Forgive me.

Earlier this week my mentor teacher (MT) parodied the hippies of the 60s, which was easy because she was one, and stood in the hallways with her “Make Love, Not War” placard, two fingers held up in a peace sign, clad in Indian-print shirt and bandana. She resumed her position at the head of the classroom this week, teaching Transcendentalist literature to our college-bound 11th graders. In order to put the transcendentalists into some sort of frame that these kids understand, we have been drawing connections between those in the 1860s and those in the 1960s, painting them as ideological brethren. “My parting words to you,” I started last Friday as I wrapped up my tenure with their class. “It’s all John Lennon, baby, living for today.”

The students are only interested in the hippies’ drugs. Nonetheless, we tried to impart the importance of political action and public works that were so prevalent to these thinkers and assigned a fun experiment that MT modeled above: Commit a public act of nonconformity, step outside of your comfort zone, record your observations, share with the class on Monday.

Their projects have been interesting. Three girls walked out of class unannounced (and were so scared they ran right back into their seats after doing a lap around the cafeteria), and two girls came to school clad in a grab bag of political slogans ranging from the pro-Christian to the anti-war. Another girl, an uber-preppy straight-A student, came to school dressed in knee high leather boots, a short skirt, and white bandana, strutting the halls like a biker babe with the bad attitude to match and skipped classes all day to hang out with the most awesome student teacher ever.

The most radical experiement of them all took my breath away. Yesterday, a Muslim student, only one of two in the school, took off her hijab.

Blog Against Racism

It was Blog Against Racism Day today, but my writer’s block preventing me from finishing the long, cumbersome post I’ve been working on for some time now. Perhaps this weekend?

TONS of great reads. Check it out.