Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere – Los Angeles
Chris Bober
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Home page: http://imagine2050.newcomm.org
Posts by Chris Bober
Hardcore Racists Flock to NumbersUSA’s Campaign
01 year ago
NumbersUSA deployed its counter-action to the immigration reform march in Washington D.C over the weekend. The plan, S.T.O.P Amnesty in four days, contained carefully crafted talking points that tea party and hard-core, anti-immigrant activists used to lobby state and federal lawmakers. NumbersUSA’s anti-immigrant rhetoric was used once again to demonize immigrants and create the illusion that Americans are strongly opposed to immigration reform.
In order to facilitate its efforts, NumbersUSA re-tooled its home page to include webcasts, detailed action alerts, and a social media feed. Not surprisingly, its attempt to create a web-based community backfired as its action alerts and website brought out racists, bigots, and the worst of the anti-immigrant movement. Even though NumbersUSA and the John Tanton Network claim its anti-immigrant agenda does not fuel hateful rhetoric, here are some recent examples of how NumbersUSA’s message once again created an environment where individuals and groups have felt comfortable using hate speech.
Near the end of last week, a disturbing tweet was seen on the NumbersUSA web-site. The tweet read, “Thanks@NumbersUSA we need somebody to stand up for the rights of white people. JUST SAY NO TO DIVERSITY.” This tweet echoes a common message found in the white nationalist community which claims that diversity and multiculturalism is the root of all our nation’s problems. NumbersUSA removed this tweet from its feed but failed to publically disavow the message.
In a members-only section of its website that evaluates members of Congress, NumbersUSA assigned Senator Dick Durbin an F and Senator Roland Burris an F minus on their immigration record. Under a picture of Illinois Congressman Roland Burris, a NumbersUSA member wrote, “You have disgraced yourself and the (sic) all the people of IL, especially the Black citizens. We should welcome you home with Tar and Feathers.” Another member wrote, “Only when the people show up to REMOVE these treasonous crooks will justice be served! Bring back the rope!” Despite the fact that Roland Burris is African-American and the history lynching and torture has played in our country, these horrible threats remained on NumbersUSA’s website for nearly a month before being removed.
NumbersUSA seems to be popular throughout the white nationalist and skinhead communities. At the beginning of the week NumbersUSA’s campaign was promoted by white nationalist David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. On Vinlanders Social Club, NumbersUSA is promoted on the home page with a direct link to its website. Vinlanders Social Club is a midwest coalition of racist skinhead groups with a history of violence against members of the black community.
On Stormfront, in a thread entitled, “Obama Begins Immigration Reform and Amnesty” a posting which reads like a NumbersUSA advertisement cites the details of the S.T.O.P Amnesty campaign and directs Stormfront members to the NumbersUSA website. Stormfront is the leading white nationalist, white supremacist, neo-Nazi, and skinhead social networking forum. The website was started by former Ku Klux Klan leader, Don Black, in 1995. NumbersUSA’s campaign was promoted on Stormfront the same week that a member of Stormfront wrote of his plans to carry a concealed weapon to a similar immigration reform rally in Utah.
Although NumbersUSA has actively tried to distance itself from the extreme far right, its message stills resonates deeply with these communities. Even the group’s own Executive Director, Roy Beck, has spoken to a white supremacist organization, the Council of Conservative Citizens in the past. Therefore, until NumbersUSA strongly condemns the comments made on its web-site and the promotion of its messaging on skinhead and white nationalist sites, they are not a credible voice on the important issues surrounding immigration in our country.
Anti-immigrant Bill Dies in Mississippi
01 year ago
So what’s got me smiling today? Could it be the “surprised kitten” YouTube clip floating around the office? No, as sweet as that is, I’m most excited about Tuesday’s civil rights victory in Mississippi which saw the state’s legislature kill the so-called “Immigration Reform Act of 2010” (SB2032).
The bill, which initially passed the senate, died in a house committee despite being promoted by the anti-immigrant group, the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) and a last minute endorsement by the white supremacist hate group, Council of Conservative Citizens.
This alarming and fiercely anti-immigrant bill (co-authored by Senators: Michael Watson, Chris McDaniel, and Lee Yancey) called for severe penalties for undocumented immigrants caught with false identification. It also included 287(g) provisions for local and state law enforcement and language which would have created a “new crime” to “transport” or “harbor” undocumented immigrants in the state of Mississippi.
Of course, the transporting part got my attention too. Especially, because according to the bill, one can “conceal, harbor, or shelter from detection” an immigrant in “any building or means of transportation.” This, unfortunately, would have opened the door to a whole new dimension of racial profiling and meant offenders would see over $1,000 in fines and at least a year in prison.
The Council of Conservative Citizens, the reconstituted old White Citizen’s Council, which has referred to blacks as “a retrograde species of humanity” and opposes “all efforts to mix the races of mankind” promoted SB2032 on their website this week writing, “Please call your representatives and urge them to keep this bill alive, pass it, and continue to drive illegal immigrates (sic) out of our state.”
In order to “drive immigrates (sic) out of (their) state” those writing the bill (see above) would have had to include penalties which were sufficiently scary and extreme. Indeed, had it passed, SB2032 would have drastically changed existing state laws by charging undocumented immigrants (21+), found in possession of false identification, with a felony. This felony charge would include a $10,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison. To put this into perspective, the existing laws in Mississippi state that a U.S. citizen convicted of manufacturing false identification (i.e., those people in the business of making fake ID’s) can only face a $5000 fine and/or up to 3 years in prison.
Furthermore, the 287(g) provisions in the bill would have given greater power to state and local law officials to enforce immigration laws – which has led to abuses of power in the past – most notably, Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s extreme actions in Maricopa County, Arizona.
However disturbing, it is not surprising that language found in the bill is similar to model legislation promoted by the Immigration Reform Law Institute. IRLI is the legal arm of the John Tanton Network and primarily pushes legal causes which unfairly target immigrant communities. On their website, IRLI offers model legislation for policymakers interested in “planning state and local enforcement of immigration law.”
In one such model – Model Ordinance I – it states that it is not lawful for a business or person to provide safe haven for an immigrant “knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of the law.”
SB2032 states similarly that it would be against the law for anyone in Mississippi to “shelter from detection” any undocumented immigrant whether “knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that the alien has come to, entered, or remained in the United States in violation of law.”
It is not clear whether the Immigration Reform Law Institute played a part in the development of this legislation; however, it is frightening that legislation like SB2032 fits so nicely within the ideology of groups like IRLI and CofCC.
With despicable and discriminatory legislation such as SB2032 (so willingly pushed by those in state legislatures), I worry that an anti-immigrant and white nationalist vision of America may move forward right under our noses. It’s enough to wipe the smile right off my face.