What Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez Says

"Psst...It's me...Abu. And I've got Carlos with me."

Link from James Wolcott:

I'm happy to announce the op-ed editors of the Washington Post got hold of this blog and contacted me about contributing a shorter, more simplified version of my first immigration post. It appears in today's Outlook section of the Post.

Interesting story on this? When the editor, who is British but lives in DC, brought my piece up at the meeting, a fellow editor of hers said, "Yeah, but YOU'RE not an immigrant..." to her. He was NOT kidding. Because she is white, he had simply...assumed, in spite of her obvious accent. She told me about this with a bit of disbelief at how bad the confusion had gotten in the U.S. between race/nationality/legal status/immigrant status/socioeconomic class etc.

Now for the bad news. New polls show that Americans, awash in anti-immigrant propaganda the last few weeks, have suddenly decided (thanks to CNN and most other irresponsible media outlets) to blame this nation's economic problems on...you ready for this? Illegal immigrants. That's right. I saw this coming. Propaganda 101.

If you had any doubt what this faux-debate on illegal immigration has been about, or who has orchestrated it, this poll tells you all you need to know. The Big Brown Alien Frenzy was created by right-wing think-tanks who have studied the strategies of dictators throughout time. They are purposefully and incorrectly using Latinos - and they have convinced the public that we are ALL illegal immigrants, even though 60 percent of us were born here and the majority of the other 40 percent are legal - as scapegoats and distractionary hate-targets so that no one pays attention to the real reason for our nation's economic destruction: George W. Bush and his idiotic fiscal policies...

The mistake the U.S. spin-meisters are making now is that they are clumsily and racistly trying to equate "Latino," "Mexican," and "illegal," (terms that are NOT interchangeable) in hopes of scaring the bejesus out of non-Hispanic white Americans and directing American anger over disappearing jobs, failing schools and lack of health care on what they wrongly perceive to be a foreign menace.

Why this fearmongering against Latinos a mistake? Simple. Most Latinos in the U.S. are citizens who are extremely offended by this false labeling and ignorant discourse. The only exception, I think, is Alberto Gonzalez.

The single exception I'll take to Rodriguez's post is to note that, interestingly enough, no one among the rabid Team Bush/GOP cabal seems to give a damn about the rather large number of illegal immigrants who've traveled to New Orleans looking for work. If I remember right, these folks were being employed at cut-rate wages by receipents of federal contracts...while at the same time, plenty of New Orleanians could and would take these jobs (provided they were paid a decent wage).

Maybe the government should look into THAT, instead of stigmatizing an entire group of people solely on the basis of ethnicity. But then again, Sensenbrenner's a coward...