{"id":3614,"date":"2007-09-05T06:29:00","date_gmt":"2007-09-05T13:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/09\/05\/the-power-of-words-illegal-immigrant\/"},"modified":"2007-09-05T06:29:00","modified_gmt":"2007-09-05T13:48:48","slug":"the-power-of-words-illegal-immigrant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3614","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post! The Power Of Words: "Illegal Immigrant""},"content":{"rendered":"

[This is a guest post<\/strong>, reprinted with Carmen’s permission from the blog All About Race<\/a>. Thanks, Carmen.]<\/em><\/p>\n

In March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court ruled that people of African ancestry were not, and could never become, citizens of the United States of America. <\/strong>The Dred Scott <\/a>decision asserted that blacks were property. And because no state or federal government could take a citizen\u2019s property away from him, this decision meant that any slave who managed to escape to a \u201cfree state\u201d would be hunted down and returned to bondage and his or her \u201cowner.\u201d This decision enraged many of the most vocal abolitionists and politicians in the North and was an important precursor of Abraham Lincoln\u2019s election to President.<\/p>\n

But still, even among those who philosophically opposed slavery, I imagine dinner conversations sounding something like this:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“That Dred Scott decision is appalling.”
\n“Yes, it\u2019s simply awful.”
\n“But, you know, those Negroes who just up and run away? I mean, they are breaking the law.”
\n“Yes, and our country cannot tolerate law breakers.”
\n“Just to think, what if everybody just went about doing whatever they wanted to do?”
\n“The whole Union would collapse into chaos.”
\n“Absolutely!”<\/p>\n

The issue of immigration in America is cause for this kind of conversation now. <\/strong>Many well meaning and good natured people are not critically examining what it means that the media uniformly and incessantly blares the term “illegal immigrant” as if the people who risk physical harm to get to America to work, are only that. The media would have you believe that these are not the same people America has welcomed to come to build and clean our houses, harvest, prepare and serve our food, and raise our children.<\/p>\n

In the South, the American Civil War was termed “the War of Northern Aggression.”<\/strong> During the 1960\u2019s, those who made the trip south to support Southern grassroots movements in their protests for an end to Jim Crow and racial terrorism, were called “agitators.” Now, it is all so clear. But, as the events of America\u2019s Civil Rights movement unfolded, many decent people, with hearts in the \u201cright\u201d place, felt “Negroes are pushing too hard, for too much. These things take time.”<\/p>\n

I support strong and secure borders, period.<\/strong> And with that, I believe that if we as a nation welcome people to come and clean our houses, harvest, prepare and serve our food, and raise our children, then I believe we must provide a path for those people to become full citizens of the United States sharing all of the rights and responsibilities that citizenship entails.<\/p>\n

There was a time in America when it was illegal to gather and discuss independence from England.<\/strong> There was a time in America when it was illegal for an American of African descent to vote or own property or drink from certain water fountains. There was a time in America when it was illegal for Americans of Japanese descent to live in their homes. Instead, Japanese Americans were legally evicted from their homes and moved to internment camps.<\/p>\n

So, I have a question for you<\/em>.<\/strong> When you say “illegal immigrant,” other than relating a fact of American citizenship status, what are you saying? What do you want me to know about the people you describe in this way?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This is a guest post, reprinted with Carmen’s permission from the blog All About Race. Thanks, Carmen.] In March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court ruled that people of African ancestry were not, and could never become, citizens of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-immigration-migrant-rights-etc","category-race-racism-and-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3614\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}