Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere – Los Angeles
Jill Garvey
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Posts by Jill Garvey
Center for Immigration Studies vs. The Truth
01 year ago
On a recent public radio program in Wisconsin, Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies was confronted about his controversial organization by a local organizer.
Rather than address the concerns being raised, Camarota instead implied that the organizer had a “deep hatred of American workers.”
For more information on CIS go here, here, here or here.
Top to Bottom, FAIR is Steeped in Extremism
01 year ago
‘What’s in a name?’ is an especially relevant question when it comes to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). For an organization with such a benign moniker, it has a whole lot of hate propping it up. Go to FAIR’s website and at first glance it may seem like just another conservative, beltway organization; relatively boring, chock full of links to articles and “factual” data on immigration, but lurking a few clicks away are clues to FAIR’s more sinister core.
FAIR was founded 30 years ago by John Tanton to address his obsession with racial eugenics, population growth, scarcity of resources, and more specifically which population group would have control of said resources. Tanton believed that the majority of immigrants were and would continue to be non-white, hence immigration became a convenient intersection and entry point for his agenda three decades ago. Immigration was a threat to Tanton’s vision for America and he set out to stop it.
Despite rooting it in racially extreme ideas, Tanton has increasingly mainstreamed his organization to achieve maximum political impact; however, FAIR’s reputation took a turn for the worst when it solicited and received 1.2 million from the Pioneer Fund in the 1990s. The Pioneer Fund was founded to promote the genes of white European Americans and funds groups who promote “race-betterment” – a controversial theory that supports the biological IQ difference between white and non-white people. In the 1930s the Pioneer Fund distributed propaganda films developed by the Nazi Party in Germany to public schools.
With that kind of financial support Tanton was able to build his empire of anti-immigrant groups that naturally attracted individuals with politically extreme ideologies that fit its own, mostly white nationalists.
Case in point, Concerned Citizens and Friends of illegal Immigration Law Enforcement (CCFIILE) is a Massachusetts-based group promoted on FAIR’s website as a state contact. One of FAIR’s main objectives is to foster anti-immigrant action at the local level. So it lists, promotes or supports dozens of state-level groups in an effort to network anti-immigration activists.
Just one problem, not only does CCFIILE crudely bash immigrants, but most of its content is dedicated to anti-Semitic videos and holocaust revisionism. It’s an unapologetic and ugly display of neo-Nazi propaganda.
The Anti-Defamation League has this to say about CCFIILE’s leader, Jim Rizoli:
Jim Rizoli, an anti-immigrant activist and anti-Semite based in Framingham, Massachusetts, delivered a lengthy diatribe promoting Holocaust denial during the October 20, 2009 segment of his public access television show. Along with his twin brother Joe, Rizoli runs Concerned Citizens and Friends of Illegal Immigration Law Enforcement (CCFIILE), a group founded in 2003.
Mainly known for demonizing Brazilian immigrants in Framingham, Rizoli took more than ten minutes of his hour-long show to defend Iranian President and Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and to promote his own anti-Semitic views. Before launching into his diatribe, Rizoli spent the vast majority of his show discussing undocumented immigrants as “crimaliens” who “God doesn’t really care much about.”
This is hardly new territory for FAIR; Tanton has funded and promoted the work of white nationalist leader Jared Taylor. Taylor is both a member of the old White Citizens Council, and founder of the racist eugenicist publication, American Renaissance. In 2005, Jared Taylor would write that when black people are left on their own, “any kind of civilization disappears.” in response to Hurricane Katrina.
Even FAIR’s own staffers and board members have let slip their extremely bigoted beliefs. In 2000, Tanton’s Advisory Board Member Donald Mann was quoted as saying, “We should give incentives to low-income people who agree to sterilization. We should make available free abortions to low-income people on demand.”
Another of Tanton’s D.C.-based anti-immigrantion groups, Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), promotes the white nationalist website VDARE, which publishes the works of numerous white nationalists, including Jared Taylor and the late Sam Francis. The website also features Kevin MacDonald, the anti-Semitic California State University-Long Beach Professor.
FAIR’s close associations with extreme bigotry are inexcusable. It is time for FAIR’s leadership to come clean on their racist agenda.
The Implied Bigotry of NumbersUSA
01 year ago
by Jill Garvey
in Americans For Better Immigration, Californians For Population Stabilization, Council for Conservative Citizens, David Duke, Grassroots Organization, Immigration, Immigration Reform, John Tanton, Numbersusa Action, NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation, Politics, Population Control, Roy Beck, White Nationalism
Beck at a CofCC event
NumbersUSA operates at the nerve center of the most influential anti-immigrant network in the country.
This network, created by John Tanton, consists of over two dozen lobby, legal, legislative, and environmental groups that have penetrated mainstream social and political discourse. Of late, no group has been more successful than NumbersUSA, which is leading a vicious campaign against immigration reform advocates. NumbersUSA was founded in 1997 under the financial umbrella of Tanton’s U.S., Inc.
Unlike Tanton’s other groups, NumbersUSA strategically avoids overt white nationalist rhetoric in favor of emphasizing the alleged negative economic and environmental impacts of immigrants. Based in Arlington, VA, NumbersUSA presently consists of three legally distinct but financially intertwined organizations: NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation, NumbersUSA Action, Inc., and Americans for Better Immigration.
Roy Beck is the executive director of NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation, NumbersUSA Action, Inc., and chairman of Americans for Better Immigration. Looking at Form 990s from each group, Beck is listed as a paid employee at all three. Compensated a whopping $274,500 in 2007 alone, Beck’s paycheck is more than five times the net income of an average American. Not bad for a gig at a “grassroots” organization.
Last week Beck laid bare his plot, called “S.T.O.P. Amnesty” to defeat a powerful march for immigration reform. NumbersUSA’s troops of choice are tea partiers and hard-core anti-immigrant activists. Beck all but ordered fractured tea partiers to fall in line behind his anti-immigrant agenda on a conference call last week. As evidenced at the national tea party convention, beating up on immigrants appeals to many tea party members; however, one has to wonder if they would be so enthusiastic were they to know about Beck’s views on population control.
Just in case the tea partiers don’t stick to the anti-immigrant talking points, Roy Beck is using his environmental background and population growth “expertise” to push anti-immigrant sentiment among the conservation crowd.
Under a coalition called America’s Leadership Team for Long Range Population Immigration-Resource Planning, NumbersUSA is partnering with the American Immigration Control Foundation (AICF). AICF president John Vinson regularly writes for the white supremacist organization Council of Conservative Citizens. Vinson is also a founding member of the racist League of the South.
This year NumbersUSA released a report with Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS). Rick Oltman, the media director of CAPS, was listed as a member by the Council of Conservative Citizens. Oltman also lost a Republican Party post in California after he supported physical attacks on undocumented immigrants.
While population growth is certainly a legitimate issue to address, just based on its ties to white nationalism as outlined above, NumbersUSA should be excluded from the discussion.
NumbersUSA supporters argue that the organization is merely a grassroots operation trying to protect American workers, but they conveniently ignore its ties to organized bigotry and murky financial structure. At the beginning of the week NumbersUSA’s campaign was heartily promoted by white nationalist David Duke. Nothing conveys “tolerance” quite like a pat on the back from a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
And what should be made of yesterday’s alert on NumbersUSA’s website that stated, “Organizers for the Amnesty March are providing transportation for marchers and have a website dedicated to helping marchers organize before Sunday. Immigration Equality is also providing transportation for the LGBT community, encouraging them to take part in the Amnesty March.”
It sounds as if NumbersUSA is pushing the buttons of some of its say, more extreme supporters, who may be into both gay and immigrant bashing.
Whether it’s in far-right conservative, working-class, or environmental communities, NumbersUSA, along with a host of related anti-immigrant groups, is trying to stir up trouble, not find solutions.
The answers to immigration issues will not be found through NumbersUSA’s brand of political extremism, but rather a vision that includes immigrants and native-born U.S. citizens working together to achieve a better life for all Americans.
Tanton Network Uses E-verify to Terrorize Immigrant Communities
01 year ago
by Jill Garvey
in Center for Immigration Studies, E-Verify, Economy, Federation For American Immigration Reform, Immigrant Communities, Immigrant Groups, Immigration, Immigration System, John Tanton, Krikorian, Law Enforcement, Numbersusa, Politics, Racial Profiling, Racist Organizations, Unemployment
The John Tanton Network is more interested in terrorizing immigrant communities than helping employers.
Nothing else can explain its recent response to a comprehensive report on the failure of E-verify. Rather than accept the program’s failures and promote more effective ways to fix the immigration system, the network of anti-immigrant groups led by John Tanton is attacking the report and trying to discredit hard facts. The anti-immigrant trifecta of the Tanton Network – FAIR, Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA – came out swinging against the report which effectively debunks their data on E-verify.
Mark Krikorian of Center for Immigration Studies said, “Nevertheless, it’s certainly true that E-Verify isn’t tight enough yet, but in a glass-half-full sense, this isn’t really bad news,” and “…we know perfectly well what the problems are, and they don’t have much to with with the E-Verify system itself.”
We do indeed know perfectly well what the problems are. The problems are anti-immigrant groups with ties to racist organizations injecting themselves into a mainstream debate and distorting data.
Here is the truth: E-verify encourages discrimination in hiring. The harder it is for employers to properly utilize the system (and it sounds nearly impossible), the more potential employees they will pass over. Don’t be surprised to one day hear reports of employers who admit to resorting to racial profiling because it was easier than E-verify. Anti-immigrant leaders like Krikorian know this. They know that applying for a job while brown is hell and E-verify just makes it worse.
Putting aside undocumented immigrants for a moment, this has serious implications for all workers of color. Think unemployment among communities of color is bad now? Just wait.
Just as the anti-immigrant movement has tried to turn landlords, local law enforcement, and ordinary citizens into the federal immigration police, so too would it like to turn employers into immigration snitches.
We can’t afford it. America is in economic trouble, and lawmakers and employers can’t afford to spend their time tracking down and reporting every single potentially undocumented immigrant. It’s a waste of precious resources and will hurt American businesses.
When anti-immigrant groups make their motives clear, when they renounce all associations with white nationalist organizations, then we can talk about E-verify. Until then, their opinions on the matter simply aren’t valid.
Anti-immigrant Movement Attacks American Property Owners
01 year ago
by Jill Garvey
in Apartment Owners, Center for American Unity, Economy, Extremist Groups, Federation For American Immigration Reform, Immigrant Communities, Immigration, Immigration Laws, Immigration Reform Law Institute, John Tanton, Peter Brimelow, Politics, VDARE, White Nationalists, White Supremacist
The anti-immigrant movement wants private property owners to enforce immigration laws, and be punished when they don’t. It’s shocking the lengths some groups have gone to in order to pressure, intimidate or force ordinary citizens into complying with their anti-immigrant activities.
Leading this effort is Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), the legal arm of the John Tanton Network. IRLI’s primary purpose is to push legal causes that unfairly target immigrant communities. IRLI works with extremist anti-immigrant groups and leaders to push anti-immigrant ordinances at the municipal level. In 1985, John Tanton launched IRLI, but made sure he kept it firmly under the control of Federation for American Immigration Reform, which has tried to portray itself as a mainstream organization despite its links to extremist groups, including white nationalists.
IRLI “was structured in such a way that it could operate under FAIR’S tax exemption but have its own board, appointed initially by FAIR’S board,” Tanton says in an oral history. “We tried to keep control of IRLI by making sure that the FAIR board was the ultimate authority in appointing the IRLI board.”
In New Jersey, IRLI brags about bringing a federal civil racketeering lawsuit against apartment owners for “illegal harboring” in 2008. In Pennsylvania, IRLI has persistently tried to pass anti-harboring ordinances and cost the city of Hazelton an untold amount of money in the process.
These are just a few examples of IRLI’s efforts to set a model for local legislation that will make it impossible to rent an apartment or give someone a ride in a car without first confirming their citizenship. This will make for some very serious divisions in our communities. Divisions that would make John Tanton’s white supremacist friends very happy.
Friends like VDARE, the white supremacist online publication founded by Peter Brimelow and supported by his foundation Center for American Unity. This 2006 brief illustrates Center for American Unity’s collaboration with John Tanton Network organizations. The Center for American Unity considers multiculturalism a threat to American heritage.
Then there is the question of who will be targeted next. Will taxi drivers be sued for picking up customers? Will school bus drivers have to defend themselves in court if they drive undocumented children to school? What about motel owners in these communities or ambulance drivers? I wouldn’t put it past The John Tanton Network to do whatever is necessary to divide communities along racial lines. One of FAIR’s state contacts, Minnesotans for Immigration Reform, has already taken these activities to the fringe. It recently promoted a very extreme website to supporters. The website asserts that “aiding and abetting” undocumented immigrants is a felony, and offers visitors the opportunity to “report” their landlord. Aside from all the blatantly inaccurate information contained on the site, it is clearly advocating for extreme vigilantism.
The anti-immigrant movement claims to be protecting regular, working Americans, but its actions say otherwise.
Americans value the freedom to prosper. And the freedom to do with their property as they see fit. Threatening property owners with lawsuits to further a political agenda is underhanded and hinders the economic prosperity of average Americans.
Anti-immigrant Network Uses Faith to Mask Hateful Agenda
01 year ago
by Jill Garvey
in American Free Press, American Renaissance, Catholics for a Moral Immigration Policy, Charles Martel, Conservative Political Action Conference, Council Of Conservative Citizens, Father Patrick Bascio, Immigration, Immigration Policy, James C Russell, John Tanton, Politics, Wayne Lutton, White Nationalist, Willis Carto
Fr. Bascio at Tanton event
The John Tanton Network has debuted its newest spin-off group. This time, instead of targeting environmentalists or progressives, they are trying to win over faithful Americans to their anti-immigrant agenda.
The group is called Catholics for a Moral Immigration Policy (CMIP). The public face of the organization includes a priest who, keeping with the Tanton Network’s history, has ties to controversial organizations like American Free Press – founded by notorious holocaust denier Willis Carto, and the white nationalist journal, The Social Contract, founded by John Tanton.
In fact, Social Contract’s bigot-in-chief, Wayne Lutton, personally helped Catholics for a Moral Immigration Policy (CMIP) get started at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington D.C. this past Friday. In addition to releasing racist publications, Wayne Lutton is also a Board of Director for the Charles Martel Society, an anti-Semitic organization that publishes the Occidental Quarterly. Lutton was also active with the overtly racist magazine American Renaissance and the flagship publication of the Council of Conservative Citizens. The Council of Conservative Citizens is the reconstituted, segregationist White Citizens’ Councils.
Catholics for a Moral Immigration Policy, which is also staffed by James C. Russell, may appear at first glance to be run by a few harmless, Christian academics who just happen to have a lot in common with the Tanton Network. However, CMIP has been strategically orchestrated by Tanton’s anti-immigrant movement to distract the public from some of its decidedly un-Catholic activities.
Sadly, this isn’t the first time James Russell or Father Patrick Bascio have dabbled in hate.
James Russell’s book, The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity: A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious Transformation, I found was cited by several racist online publications, including Vdare.com and The Occidental Quarterly. Coincidentally, one of the only gushing reviews of Father Bascio’s book, On the immortality of Illegal Immigration, came from VDARE.com’s Brenda Walker. VDARE is named for Virginia Dare, allegedly the first white child born in the U.S. Brenda Walker is a prolific anti-immigrant blogger who uses racist and xenophobic outlets to spread her views. Walker was a featured presenter at last year’s “Preserving Western Civilization” conference in Baltimore, Maryland. The annual conference gathers a group of racist academics and anti-immigrant activists who focus on how the “massive influx” of “third-world immigrants” allegedly threatens American and European cultural values, as well as the dangers of Islam, and alleged racial differences in intelligence.
In 2009, Father Bascio’s book was sold on Amazon.com under the publisher American Free Press – the same publisher that persistently peddled anti-Semitic conspiracy theories post 9/11. Now it is sold as a revised edition under a different publisher. But the first few pages are filled with praise from a veritable all-star list of Tanton Network players. Otis Graham, an old friend of John Tanton and a board member for both organizations founded by Tanton, FAIR and Center for Immigration Studies, calls Bascio’s book “invaluable”. Leah Durant, the head of another Tanton front group, Progressives for Immigration Reform, says Bascio makes a “compelling case”. The book lists Vernon Briggs as a Cornell University professor, but conveniently omits that he is a board member with Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and The Social Contract. Maybe that’s because the book’s other admirers include CIS fellow James R. Edwards, board chairman Peter Nunez, and former director David Simcox.
John Tanton, the founder of FAIR, has financially supported platforms to debate pseudo-scientific research (racial eugenics) purporting to show that African Americans and Latinos are mentally inferior to whites because of their genetic makeup. While the false science of racial eugenics lost respectability after the crimes of Nazi Europe in the 1940s, Tanton still clings to these beliefs. In The Case for Passive Eugenics, Tanton does not overtly distance himself from Adolf Hitler’s application of eugenics to “cleanse” the German population. He writes instead that “Hitler’s reign in Nazi Germany did little to advance the discussion of eugenics among sensitive persons.”
Then of course, there is long-time FAIR representative Rosanna Pulido who is well-known for her anti-catholic diatribes. As we reported in January, Pulido stated at a public forum in October 2007, “The Catholic Church is not Catholicism. It has nothing to do with Christianity or the Bible.”
Of the Catholic Church and immigration she stated at the same forum, “What better way to fill your pews and fill your offering coffers than with inviting in and giving sanctuary to illegal aliens.”
In March 2009, Pulido harshly criticized Chicago’s Cardinal George for his appeal for humanity on behalf of immigrants. She told ABC news, “Cardinal George is responsible for every illegal immigrant who dies while crossing the border coming over here because he is luring them.”
It is clear that CMIP is merely John Tanton and Co.’s latest puppet show. America’s Catholic communities have proven time and again that they reject anti-immigrant bigotry. Catholics for a Moral Immigration Policy does not speak for America’s faithful.
Anti-immigrant Forces Target Struggling American Communities
01 year ago
by Jill Garvey
in Anti Immigration, Center for Immigration Studies, FAIR, Federal Immigration Law, Federation For American Immigration Reform, Fremont Nebraska, Immigration, Immigration Laws, John Tanton, John Tanton Network, Kris Kobach, Nebraska Community Colleges, Politics, Racial Profiling, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Undocumented Immigrants
Kobach
Tanton
The man at the heart of the most influential anti-immigrant network in the country, John Tanton, has created an empire of organizations consisting of lobbyists, lawyers, legislators, and “experts” who have infiltrated the very depths of social and political debate.
Lately, that has been no more apparent than in Arizona’s Maricopa County, where the Tanton Network’s favorite attorney, Kris Kobach, is busy working with notoriously brutal Sheriff Joe Arpaio. A Kansas attorney, professor, and politician with controversial associations, Kobach has a history of preying on vulnerable communities. Communities weakened, for example, by corruption or political division.
Maricopa County residents learned that the hard way when Kobach abruptly appeared with a plan to train over 800 deputies in the art of terrorizing the immigrant community. Supporters of Kobach’s program say it will help local deputies enforce federal immigration law, but fail to take a cue from the federal government’s recent decision to strip deputies of their power to make immigration arrests. Additionally, it does little to help the sheriff’s office fend off persistent accusations of racial profiling and related legal troubles.
Maricopa residents aren’t alone.
Last year Kobach partnered with a small group of Fremont, Nebraska residents to propose a city ordinance that would make it a crime to aid or abet undocumented immigrants. And just last month Kobach sued the Board of Regents for the University of Nebraska System, the Board of Governors for the State College System, and the Board of Governors for each of the Nebraska Community Colleges to end the practice of public universities offering in-state tuition to students who cannot prove citizenship. Interestingly, fewer than 50 undocumented students are receiving in-state tuition at Nebraska’s colleges and universities.
Kobach has attempted to pass severe anti-immigration laws in towns across Pennsylvania, California, Missouri, and Texas. What do these communities have in common besides Kris Kobach? They reap no benefits from the anti-immigrant laws and ordinances he is trying to implement and are often left with a costly legal mess.
In Hazelton, PA, after an ordinance crafted by Kobach and fellow IRLI attorney Michael Hethmon was struck down by a federal judge, the city was forced to pay for all legal fees.
Mr. Kobach has penetrated all these communities while drawing a hefty paycheck from the Immigration Reform Law Institute, the legal arm of the anti-immigrant group, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). The Southern Poverty Law Center, a respected civil rights organization, lists FAIR as a hate group on its website, based on FAIR’s association with white nationalist organizations.
What appears to the public as a myriad of voices advocating for immigration enforcement is nothing more than a series of front groups and spin-offs seeking to overwhelm reasonable debate on immigration. Tanton founded the Federation for American Immigration Reform 30 years ago and shortly thereafter U.S. Inc. These two entities jointly fund and support most of today’s national anti-immigrant groups. They operate under names like Center for Immigration Studies which serves as the Network’s quasi-think tank, or the Coalition for the Future American Worker which pretends to be the voice of American workers. Names meant to belie the most sinister aspect of John Tanton’s Network. Civil rights groups continue to uncover the Tanton Network’s troubling associations with racists, white supremacists, and political extremists. One is the Pioneer Fund, a foundation committed to eugenics and “scientific racism”. The Pioneer Fund provided John Tanton with the funding he needed to build a multi-million dollar operation.
Anti-immigrant groups are using vulnerable communities like Maricopa County and Fremont to give their leadership mainstream legitimacy in the immigration debate, regardless of the cost to residents. While the Phoenix community embroils itself in a costly debate, Kris Kobach is busy building his campaign for Secretary of State in Kansas and his national political profile.
The Tanton Network’s agenda is obvious – create racial divisions among Americans using immigrants as the wedge. In communities across the nation, from Arizona to Nebraska to Pennsylvania, our towns and cities have become casualties of the anti-immigrant movement’s intolerant agenda. Before anti-immigrant rhetoric takes hold, they must loudly and collectively reject extremist groups. It is in our nation’s best interest.
No Doubt About It, Glenn Beck is Racist
01 year ago
Remember the time Glenn Beck suggested that President Obama was burning down the country by trying to repair the immigration system? When he pretended to be the President in a skit in which he doused an actor with make-believe gasoline and lit a match? Or the time he called President Obama racist? That was idiotic and insulting. But what he did Thursday was worse. Because this time he didn’t just insult the President, he insulted all of America.
Many of us know already what an obnoxious bigot Beck is, but somehow he has managed to keep his FOX network TV show and nationally syndicated hate radio platform. What he said a few days ago should leave no doubt about it, Beck is racist.
BECK: He chose to use his name, Barack, for a reason. To identify, not with America — you don’t take the name Barack to identify with America. You take the name Barack to identify with what? Your heritage? The heritage, maybe, of your father in Kenya, who is a radical? Really? Searching for something to give him any kind of meaning, just as he was searching later in life for religion.
A coalition of organizations, which includes America’s Voice, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), Center for New Community, Color of Change, NCLR (National Council of La Raza), Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, and Media Matters, swiftly responded by releasing the following statement:
Glenn Beck’s comments reveal the depth of his failure to grasp the true nature of America and of the American people. Ours is a nation of immigrants. Ours is a nation of proud individuals who celebrate their heritage as surely as they love the country in which they live. Ours is a nation that draws strength from its diversity, rather than rejecting it. And America is not a country that defines citizenship or patriotism based on color, or creed, or name.
In 2004, Senator Barack Obama explained that when growing up, he possessed “the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.” And he was right. It does. Mr. Beck’s inability to accept this fundamental quality of our nation — or at the very least his willingness to pander to those who reject it — should trouble us all. He owes an apology to the people of this great country.
Glenn Beck is accustomed to crossing the line; it’s his shtick – say outrageous things, cause controversy, increase ratings, collect fat paycheck from FOX and repeat. It could be described as pure greedy opportunism but for the nasty hatred present in every rant.
As Americans, we are well known for our love of low-brow entertainment à la Jerry Springer. We get a kick out of the tacky, self-inflicted humiliation of our fellow Americans. Beyond lacking taste and incurring disdain from our international friends, there’s not much wrong with it.
But there is a line to be drawn between mere crappy TV and hate-mongering. Beck is that line. He is a bully and self-appointed expert on what it is to be “American”, which, ironically, makes him decidely un-American. It’s time to tell Beck to take his inflated ego and hateful rhetoric, and shove them where the sun don’t shine.
It’s time to tell Glenn Beck to shut up.
Monthly Racism Round-up
02 years ago
Cairo, IL 1970
It’s common to encounter subtle bigotry from all types of people in every community in America, even in unexpected places. A sad reality of our progress as a nation is that we are not even close to overcoming racial divisions. But sometimes things are said or events take place that are so outrageously overt, they deserve special condemnation. This is a recent round-up of insidious items that went down just in the first month of 2010.
First up is Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies with this thoughtful quote, “My guess is that Haiti’s so screwed up because it wasn’t colonized long enough.” He goes on to say that French colonizers didn’t do a good enough job suppressing paganism. He is referring to Haiti becoming the first Black-led republic in the world when it fought for and won independence from France in 1804. It’s akin to saying that America should have been ruled by the British longer or slavery ended too soon. It’s blatantly racist and insults our most cherished American value: freedom. Center for Immigration Studies is trying hard to secure mainstream respectability, but with spokespersons like Krikorian, it can’t help stepping in racist doo-doo time and again.
Mark Krikorian’s friends at the white supremacist American Renaissance are on the radar as well. They’re on the hunt for a space to hold their annual conference on “Defending the west” after they were banned or booted from many DC-area hotels. With things like, “Virtually no whites anywhere are willing to break taboos about racial differences in IQ, the costs of ‘diversity,’ or the challenges of non-white immigration,” printed on its website, it’s no wonder every hotel is running in the opposite direction.
Concluding our racism round-up is Bob Kellar, a California councilman who spoke at a Save Our State anti-immigration rally in California and declared himself a “proud racist”. Kellar said he was glad when people told him he sounded racist. It doesn’t get much scummier than this blubbering bigot, folks.
As the above items illustrate, no matter how bigotry is qualified, it can’t be tolerated.
Racist Violence in Italy Could Happen in U.S.
02 years ago
Last week in Southern Italy’s working-class city of Rosarno, African immigrants clashed with local residents in what has been described as the worst racial violence since World War II, when Italy allied itself with the Nazis. The riots erupted after a racially-motivated attack on a group of Black agricultural workers. 1200 immigrants were evacuated by the government for their own protection and sent to detention centers to await deportation. This was not a spontaneous or isolated event, racial tensions have been exacerbated on multiple, coordinated fronts.
Americans should pay close attention to Ital; we are not far behind.
Like Italy, U.S. industry and those who profit from it (Italy calls it the mob, we call it big business), has benefited from the cheap labor of undocumented immigrants and refugees of color, while at the same time exploiting the tenuous existence of these same workers.
Like the U.S., Italy has a parallel force of bigotry at work: an anti-immigrant movement which has infiltrated government and undermined not just the basic democratic rights of immigrants and refugees, but those of the entire working population. Its parliament mapped harsh restrictions and fines for undocumented immigrants, and authorized “citizen patrols” similar to what we’ve seen in Maricopa County, Arizona.
The anti-immigrant movement in the U.S., led by the John Tanton Network, has ties to counterparts in Russia and Europe, and it is the relationship of groups like the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) to European ultra-nationalists that should be of real concern.
The European Union spends over half of its “migration management” funds for border enforcement, giving rise to the “Fortress Europe” moniker that civil, human, labor, religious, and immigrant organizations use in daily, derisive language about the collective mentality driving migration policy.
As Italy has unfortunately demonstrated, anti-immigrant fervor and inhumane immigration policies translate to real violence. Draconian immigration laws in Italy have created this situation. With no opportunities for real integration, Italy’s immigrant communities, some of which have been in the country for generations, are relegated to the vulnerable fringes of society.
Make no mistake, this is the same direction the John Tanton Network is taking the United States.