Tim, you have a very good viewpoint on this. I was raised in the SOUTH(Playing Dixie) and was subject to the white peoples (I am one) views of segregation, racism, against black people, and believe it, DAMYANKEES,(not the baseball team).

I have (I HOPE) overcome this bias. OMG I even married a yankee, good thing my grandmother had passed on. She was still regalling us with Civil War tales she got from HER mother about how terrible the damyankees were.

I had one of the finest black men I have ever known as my campaign manager in an election in 1984. I still have strange feelings when I see mixed couples, but I know it's stupid.

 

True, and we helped you build the country.

 

Hmmmmm

We are not innocent from atrocities against humanity, with saying that....

Tell This Arab American that as an American he should never forget that.....

The ghosts still dance amongst the hills at Wounded Knee





That the Arizona still bleeds till this day





We still find Fallen Americans at ground zero

 

Agreed!!


But I don't care about the illegal immagrants who come here and get shitty wages, they shouldn't even be here let alone getting hired

 

You actually disagree. And all you have to do is substitue Mexicans for Arab/Muslims and add economic freedom to religious freedom and you'll see what I mean. And Kimiko's statement will still be true.

 

Racism to me is one of the most repugnant parts of human society I ever encounter. It's hatred of other people... other PEOPLE... Human beings... because they look different and maybe do things differently.

I find that the argument that African-Americans were "given the opportunity to return to Africa" pretty ignorant. A large number of emancipated slaves at that time were born in this country, as slaves. Africa was in no way their home country, even if it was their parents' country.

To explain to a Muslim that the racism he experiences is just another "era" of hatred in the United States is to cast an ugly shadow on the future for this country. That kind of mindset creates the tolerance for racism we see today, and the tolerance for racism in the future. You can explain to a man why ignorant people hate him, but to tell him his experience is insignificant because it's happened before is outright wrong. That attitude is what allows racism to continue to occur in this country.

I absolutely believe we DO owe every single oppressed group of people in the past something extremely significant. We owe them the respect and dignity of a human being in modern society, and we owe them the treatment we afford to our own "kind."

It sickens me that people in this world can't just realize that we're all in this together.

 

You worded my sentiment much better than I did myself.

 

You inspired me.

 

What happened on 9/11 was an act of criminalism, just like what happened in Oklahoma. It was turned into an act of war for our government by comparing it to Pearl Harbor even though people who can think for themselves can tell you there's nothing to comparison.

It was turned into a second Pearl Harbor to increase national defense spending and to go to war with the middle east.

 

Well, I don't know how we got off onto illegal immigration, but for the record, I do not consider it a case of prima facie racism to be opposed to rampant illegal immigration, and I don't think that's a matter of "economic freedom". This country simply needs to have a rationale immigration policy, and it needs to enforce its laws.

 

The racism I see is our immigration policies have always favored white people while we have been more than willing to oppress Latin America for our own economic enrichment, and yet try to keep people from Latin America from entering the country. In my view this has been both racist and greed based. On the one hand we need their labor, and exploit their illegal status through low wages that keep many of our products cheap. Then on the other hand we do not want to consider policies that would grant them legal status. At the same time our corporations have exported many of our manafacturing jobs to Latin America where they can avoid Unions, safety and working condition regulations and pay far less than a liveable wage.
The truth actually appeared right before our very eyes years ago when major US manafactures started printing labels in both English and Spanish. This indicated that Spanish speaking immigrants had become a major economic block worth going after, but there were few if any legal ways for them to enter the country.
The USA has been more than willing to help create and perpetuate both oppressive governments and economic conditions in Latin America but unwilling to do the things necessary to keep those same people from wanting and needing to seek a better life somewhere else. Our economic aid has traditonallly been in the form of arms and military aid to keep those countries in line and perpetuate the status quo. This is a form of prejudice (or racism) that we all benefit from and fear based because, one, they are different, and two (at least in my personal observation) they are willing to work a lot harder.
As far as a rationale (and fair) immigation policy, I agree. As far as enforcing it's laws if we look back at the orginal thread, and at all the oppressed groups, our racism and prejudice was reflected in laws designed to oppress those groups.
As is now the case with Arab/Americans.

 

I don't see how enforcing our immigration laws "oppresses" anyone. If our economy needs more low-wage workers, we should adopt immigration policies that provide for more legal immigration. But I'm not convinced there's a need, and the influx of low-wage workers has served mainly to undercut wages and benefits at the low end. People who used to make $15 an hour now make half that doing the same work.

Maybe that makes American businesses more competitive internationally, but I wonder to myself whether it's all just a ploy to improve the bottom line by ensuring there's a steady influx of cheap labor.

 

Illegal immigration, in fact immigration purely to fill low paid jobs with people that will take lower pay than indigenous workers, is just outsourcing by the back door. It's just a way of maintaining the margins in businesses which would historically have been less profitable.

It undermines the economic integrity of communities by reducing the amount of money circulating within a community and moving the money out, both to big business (or small exploitative businesses) and to foreigners.

It also tends to denude the nations that the immigrants come from of their work forces, thereby restricting the economic growth of those nations and ensuring that they stay 2nd or 3rd world and don;t enjoy the development that they should.

Having said that, I do think that the media in the UK demonise immigrant workers over here in a very unsavoury way. It reminds me of the scapegoating of Jews in Germany in the '30s (no, I'm not that old but I read!). Smoke and mirrors.

 

The oppression I see in our immigration laws is (unless I've missed something and I often do) they are quota based. However, I am guilty of painting with too broad of strokes because I was also referring to a number of laws that have been enacted in the past aimed directly at minorities. Our drug laws originated that way and segregation laws were another example.
As to the need for more (temporary) laborers I remember several news stories from California this fall about Alva codas and other crops that went unharvested.
Finally I believe American wage decreases were primarily the result of outsourcing manufacturing jobs to third world countries when the jobs like fruit picking and stoop field labor were not acceptable to American workers in the first place.
The one thing I do readily agree with is that most of this has been done simply to increase bottom line profits and stock holder dividends for the richest and smallest percentage of people in the US.

 

If there are no workers to pick the crops, they need to pay them more. That's another part of free enterprise agribusiness doesn't really believe in.

And yes, if they pay workers more, it'll raise the price of food, and that will have economic impacts. I just don't think the answer to those problems is to import cheap foreign labor in huge quantities.

 

The benefit of your argument Kimiko is that if they pay the workers more they will be able to afford more expensive goods, thereby stimulating a healthy economy which benefits all by circulating wealth at all levels, rather than the top-heavy version of the economic model that we operate in these days.

And yes, that would lead to inflation. Is that worse than low inflation and low pay?