Anti-Immigrant Fervor & Hate Crimes

Anti-Immigrant political cartoon from the early 1900s, scape-goating immigrants (Eastern and Southern Europeans and Jews) as harbingers of disease, poverty and anarchy.

In the small Pennsylvania town of Shenandoah this past July, four teenagers beat to death Luis Ramiriz, a Mexican immigrant as they hurled racial taunts. After the teens beat Ramirez, one of them warned an eyewitness, “Tell your Mexican friends to get out of Shenandoah, or you’ll be laying next to him.” Arriving for what she thought would be a job interview, an undocumented worker was met by four men who took turns raping her. If she went to the authorities, they warned, they would have her deported. And just over a week ago, Ecuadorean immigrant Jose Sucuzhanay was walking in New York with his brother when they were attacked by assailants yelling anti-gay and anti-Latino slurs. Jose, a 31-year-old real estate agent, was beaten with an aluminum baseball bat. He died after five days in a coma.

Immigrant hate crimes are nothing new in our history. Whether it was attacks on the Irish in Northern cities, or those same Irish attacking black migrants from the South, scapegoating and violence against immigrants is ingrained in the American psyche. And, as is usually the case, documented or undocumented ("legal or illegal") disappears in a fog of ethno-phobia, where anyone who looks the part becomes prey. No one stops and asks for papers before the attacks commence, which reveals the oft-ignored aspect of anti-immigrant fervor--a distinct racial bias that can quickly escalate into hatred.

The reality is that in a society where immigration nearly always becomes tied to race, where hatred is whipped up into fear and scapegoating, and where media pundits base their ratings on nationalist rhetoric, these types of crimes are an almost inevitable outcome. The ugly truth is, as the editorial staff of La Prensa writes, "Hate does not emerge in a vacuum."

Related articles below.



Anti-Immigrant Fervor Translates to Terror for Women

Melissa Nalani Ross examines the harsh impact punitive immigration laws are having on women.


Railroading Immigrants

Kevin Bacon examines the repercussions, both legal and social, of the criminalization of immigration laws.


Why Is Lou Dobbs Minimizing the Impact of Hate Crimes?

Heidi Beirich of SPLC's Hate Watch, examines the role of media in anti-immigrant fervor and hate crimes.


Immigration Crack-Downs: A Little Bit of History Repeating

Edmundo Rocha of XicanoPwr.com examines the all-too familiar legacy of American anti-immigration policy.

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The Founding Immigrants

Disdain for what is foreign is, sad to say, as American as apple pie, slavery and lynching.--Keith C. Davis

I'm no big fan of the mainstream media when it comes to sensitive topics. Take the immigration debate. Rather than speaking on the issues that surround the subject, too often the media plays into nativism, thinly veiled racism and scape-goating. So when I read a piece in the New York Times this week that featured frank and honest discussion on America's long history of anti-immigrant hysteria, it was a pleasant surprise. Of course, the article would have to come from none other than Kenneth C. Davis, author of the popular "Don’t Know Much About" series. Insightful, Davis manages to say more on the immigration morass in one brief op-ed than all of the punditocracy in their daily reportings.


July 3, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor

The Founding Immigrants

By KENNETH C. DAVIS
Dorset, Vt.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/03/opinion/03davis.html

A PROMINENT American once said, about immigrants, “Few of their children in the country learn English... The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages ... Unless the stream of their importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious.”

This sentiment did not emerge from the rancorous debate over the immigration bill defeated last week in the Senate. It was not the lament of some guest of Lou Dobbs or a Republican candidate intent on wooing bedrock conservative votes. Guess again.

Voicing this grievance was Benjamin Franklin. And the language so vexing to him was the German spoken by new arrivals to Pennsylvania in the 1750s, a wave of immigrants whom Franklin viewed as the “most stupid of their nation.”

About the same time, a Lutheran minister named Henry Muhlenberg, himself a recent arrival from Germany, worried that “the whole country is being flooded with ordinary, extraordinary and unprecedented wickedness and crimes. ... Oh, what a fearful thing it is to have so many thousands of unruly and brazen sinners come into this free air and unfenced country.”

These German masses yearning to breathe free were not the only targets of colonial fear and loathing. Echoing the opinions of colonial editors and legislators, Ben Franklin was also troubled by the British practice of dumping its felons on America. With typical Franklin wit, he proposed sending rattlesnakes to Britain in return. (This did not, however, preclude numerous colonists from purchasing these convicts as indentured servants.)

And still earlier in Pennsylvania, the Scotch-Irish had bred discontent, as their penchant for squatting on choice real estate ran headlong against the colony’s founders, the Penn family, and their genteel notions about who should own what.

Often, the disdain for the foreign was inflamed by religion. Boston’s Puritans hanged several Friends after a Bay Colony ban on Quakerism. In Virginia, the Anglicans arrested Baptists.

But the greatest scorn was generally reserved for Catholics — usually meaning Irish, French, Spanish and Italians. Generations of white American Protestants resented newly arriving “Papists,” and even in colonial Maryland, a supposed haven for them, Roman Catholics were nonetheless forbidden to vote and hold public office.

Once independent, the new nation began to carve its views on immigrants into law. In considering New York’s Constitution, for instance, John Jay — later to become the first chief justice of the Supreme Court — suggested erecting “a wall of brass around the country for the exclusion of Catholics.”

By 1790, with the United States Constitution firmly in place, the first federal citizenship law restricted naturalization to “free white persons” who had been in the country for two years. That requirement was later pushed back to five years and, in 1798, to 14 years.

Then, as now, politics was key. Federalists feared that too many immigrants were joining the opposition. Under the 1798 Alien Act — with the threat of war in the air over French attacks on American shipping — President John Adams had license to deport anyone he considered “dangerous.” Although his secretary of state favored mass deportations, Adams never actually put anybody on a boat.

Back then, the French warranted the most suspicion, but there were other worrisome “aliens.” A wave of “wild Irish” refugees was thought to harbor dangerous radicals. Harsh “anti-coolie” laws later singled out the Chinese. And, of course, the millions of “involuntary” immigrants from Africa and their offspring were regarded merely as persons “held to service.”

Scratch the surface of the current immigration debate and beneath the posturing lies a dirty secret. Anti-immigrant sentiment is older than America itself. Born before the nation, this abiding fear of the “huddled masses” emerged in the early republic and gathered steam into the 19th and 20th centuries, when nativist political parties, exclusionary laws and the Ku Klux Klan swept the land.

As we celebrate another Fourth of July, this picture of American intolerance clashes sharply with tidy schoolbook images of the great melting pot. Why has the land of “all men are created equal” forged countless ghettoes and intricate networks of social exclusion? Why the signs reading “No Irish Need Apply”? And why has each new generation of immigrants had to face down a rich glossary of now unmentionable epithets? Disdain for what is foreign is, sad to say, as American as apple pie, slavery and lynching.

That fence along the Mexican border now being contemplated by Congress is just the latest vestige of a venerable tradition, at least as old as John Jay’s “wall of brass.” “Don’t fence me in” might be America’s unofficial anthem of unfettered freedom, but too often the subtext is, “Fence everyone else out.”


Kenneth C. Davis is the author of “Don’t Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned.”

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Media News Roundup- Sunday June 10th to Sat June 16th

Keeping an eye on the failing Fourth Estate and looking for some TRUTH in journalism.

Media plays disingenuous about roots of recent Palestinian conflict between Fatah and Hamas. MSNBC has day long discussion on immigration, featuring only conservatives. Bright spot of the week: Democracy Now's Amy Goodman Talks "Vulture Funds" with BBC Reporter.


Media Ignores Roots of Recent Palestinian Conflict Between Fatah and Hamas

The recent Civil War in Gaza has been widely reported by the mainstream media. However the story that is most often told is blatantly one-sided and lacking in any context. Since Hamas came to power through democratic elections in 2006, the U.S. and Israel have done all they could to, beat, starve and push the more militant Palestinian faction from power, going as far as to cut-off aid and shooting down any proposals for reconciliation with Fatah. The key reason given for this is the refusal of Hamas to disarm and recognize the state of Israel--a crime somehow far greater than Israel's 40-year occupation and an apartheid system that routinely destroys Palestinian infrastructure, cuts off water and electricity as a tactic of war, carries out extra-judicial assassinations and more. Following the White House administration line, the present conflict is presented by the mainstream press as the inevitable outcome of the "violence-prone" Hamas government. According to most U.S. news outlets there are definite "good" and "bad" guys here, with Fatah becoming America's allies and Hamas serving as intractable enemies. Yet As Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifadah stated on the June 15th Democracy Now, "What we've seen is really a direct result of the Bush doctrine. Since January 2006 when Hamas won the legislative election fair and square, the United States refused the election result and it has been arming several Palestinian militias, particularly those controlled by the Gaza warlord, Mohammed Declan." The arming of Fatah by the U.S. and Israel, noted as recently as this past May in major newspapers, has been all but buried in more recent news accounts--portraying the U.S. and Israel as disinterested observers rather than powerful state actors stirring the pot of conflict.

For Seven Hours, MSNBC Hosted Only Conservatives and Reporters to Discuss Immigration

The conservative bent towards the immigration debate in the mainstream media is now well known. On stations like FOX News, Bill O'Reilly opines that pro-immigrant activists "hate America, and they hate it because it's run primarily by white, Christian men." On the same channel Paul Gibson warned white Americans to "Make more babies" because in "[t]wenty-five years ... the majority of the population [will be] Hispanic." On the more mainstream CNN, host Lou Dobbs has made a name for himself through incessant attacks on "illegal immigrants," going as far as to say they will bring in leprosy. So it may not be too surprising that after the defeat of the flawed immigration bill, most mainstream news sources went straight to conservatives for opinions, with little or no time devoted to pro-immigrants rights activists or advocates. MSNBC proved to be a case in point:

From Media Matters:

During the seven hours of the June 11 edition of MSNBC Live (9 a.m.-4 p.m. ET), 15 segments aired about immigration or the Senate immigration bill, none of which featured a Democratic or progressive commentator. Indeed, in nine of the 15 segments, the anchor interviewed a conservative anti-immigration activist who had opposed the bill -- including six separate solo interviews with MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan. The remaining six segments consisted of two panels with Buchanan and conservative activist and Manhattan Institute senior fellow Tamar Jacoby (who, alone among the guests, favored the recent immigration bill), an interview with Congressional Quarterly immigration reporter Michael Sandler, an interview with MSNBC terrorism analyst Joe Cantamessa, and two reports from MSNBC congressional correspondent Mike Viqueira.

With such biased media coverage perhaps it's little wonder then that the entire discussion on immigration has been caught up in nativist rantings and fearmongering, stalling the needed debate as quickly as the doomed bill.

Bright Spot of the Week

Democracy Now's Amy Goodman Talks "Vulture Funds" with BBC Reporter

As with most anything dealing with the negative effects of global financial institutions, trade agreements and neoliberal policies, the mainstream media has neglected a massively important story surrounding the aptly named "vulture funds." Riding the coat-tails of so-called "aid" promised by the G-8, “vulture funds” are companies which buy up third world debt at low prices (like your average collection agency) and then sue those countries for the full value and more. Democracy Now's Amy Goodman has been one of the few reporters to cover this important story, but can do so only through European journalists like the BBC's Greg Palast. Palast exposed the case of one vulture fund, Donegal International owned by US resident Michael Sheehan, which was forcing collection of $40 million from the African country Zambia after buying one of its debts for $4 million. The story was so explosive that when it reached the ears of Congressman John Conyers, Chairman of the US House Judiciary, and Don Payne, head of the Africa Committee, who were listening to Democracy Now on the way to a White House meeting, they immediately pressed the matter with the President. Such incidents beg the question, would our politicians perform better if they were at least better informed by our news media?

For full story:

Democracy Now's Amy Goodman Talks "Vulture Funds" with BBC Reporter

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Media News Roundup- Sunday May 20th to Sat May 26th

Media News Roundup- Sunday May 20th to Sat May 26th




Keeping an eye on the failing Fourth Estate and looking for some TRUTH in journalism.

Media reports GOP Rep. Boehner's big "cry" but misses his even bigger "lie." News blackout over directive giving the Executive control over other branches of government in the case of a “catastrophic emergency.” Former Bush White House Andy Card's "booing" at UMass graduation reported slightly, but still little news on his role in the hospital drama involving himself, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and a then gravely ill John Ashcroft. Bright spot of the week: Southern Poverty Law Center takes on CNN’s Lou Dobbs for inducing “hysteria” about immigrants—including the charge that they spread diseases like leprosy.


Press Coverage of GOP Rep. Boehner's "Cry" Ignores his "Lie."

During the debate over the Iraq War spending bill this week, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) choked up as he talked about Iraq. In a passionate flurry of words some have called staged theatre, Boehner managed to sob through the following:

I didn't come here to be a congressman -- I came here to do something.... And I think at the top of our list is providing for the safety and security of the American people. That's at the top of our list. After 3,000 of our fellow citizens died at the hands of these terrorists, when are we going to stand up and take them on? When are we going to defeat them?

While this scene was played and written about repeatedly in the press, there was almost no calling into account Boehner's glaringly false comments. Yes, "3,000 of our fellow citizens" died at the hands of terrorists, but none of those perpetrators were from Iraq--which was what the debate in Congress was all about. It has been confirmed (repeatedly, and through varied sources) that there were no links between Iraq and 9/11 except in the now debunked propaganda of the Bush White House and their pro-war allies. For a news press that was so shamefully duped, and perhaps complicit, into helping launch a war based on these mistruths, penance might begin with pointing out this fallacy of an Iraq-9/11 link whenever and wherever it raises its tiresome head.

Media Blackout on “Unitary Executive” Directive

On May 9th the Bush administration released a directive called the Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive. In the event of a “Catastrophic Emergency,” the directive states that the President of the United States will be entrusted with leading the activities to ensure constitutional government. Though it speaks of keeping the other two branches of government intact, it cedes their control to the President. Other than on sites like Digg, a few blogs and foreign news agencies, there has been nearly no reporting on this directive in the mainstream press. Some have stated that the directive is not as “Orwellian” as it seems, and that prior Presidents have enacted similar measures. But given the blatant abuse of the Executive carried out by this White House—from domestic spying to the corruption of the federal judiciary—one would think the media would at the least, in that context, think this story worthy enough to make it on the news...somewhere between the latest round-the-clock coverage of Rosie O’Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

Andrew Card Booed at UMass as his Role in Wire-Tapping Hospital Drama Continues to Go Mostly Unreported

Former White House chief of staff Andrew Card was booed by students as he rose to accept an honorary degree at the University of Massachusetts commencement. Protesters claimed they were angry that Card “lied to the American people in the early days of the Iraq war" and that a "war criminal" should not have been honored at the graduation. This incident didn’t make much of a splash in the way of news coverage, other than some minor soundbites. But more important, this was the second week in which Card’s role in the wire-tapping hospital drama involving himself, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and a gravely ill John Ashcroft went underreported in the mainstream press. As cited last week in this forum, former deputy attorney general James B. Comey's May 15 congressional testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on the matter was like a bizarre tale out of an Oliver Stone film.

Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee that then White House chief of staff Andy Card, along with currently embattled Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, then White House counsel, attempted to pressure the bed ridden Attorney General John Ashcroft, "at his [hospital] bedside ... to approve an extension of the secret NSA warrantless eavesdropping program over strong Justice Department objections even though Ashcroft was seriously ill," and did not have power as the attorney general during his recovery from surgery. Comey described a scene of power struggles at the highest levels of government, in which he was forced to hide behind FBI Director Robert S. Mueller from the men (Card and Gonzales) dispatched from the White House. Ashcroft however would have the final say on the matter. With his wife holding his hand, Comey said “Attorney General Ashcroft then… lifted his head off the pillow and in very strong terms expressed his view of the matter,” refusing to endorse the administrations attempt to legitimize illegal wiretaps placed on American citizens.

Such high stakes drama within the halls of government would be expected to fill the news media headlines for days. But, as of last week, NBC has been about the only television broadcaster to carry the story in depth. So perhaps, in keeping with that tradition of silence, Andy Card’s “booing” was deemed too trivial for mainstream news—lest it lead to a larger story of some serious significance.

Bright Spot of the Week

SPLC Takes on CNN's Lou Dobbs Anti-Immigrant “Hysteria”

Immigration is a complex subject – one that deserves a robust, democratic debate. But there is no room for demagoguery that poisons the discussion with falsehoods and encourages bigotry and racist extremism. That's why the Southern Poverty Law Center is challenging CNN anchor Lou Dobbs to report accurately on this volatile issue and why we wrote an open letter to CNN about his reporting. Unfortunately, Dobbs has used his national platform to spread misinformation about undocumented immigrants while ignoring facts and ideas that do not support his agenda.

Spreading Hysteria- CNN's Lou Dobbs Spreads Anti-Immigrant Lies

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Black America, Immigrant Rights and May Day

Last year, May Day of 2006, saw massive demonstrations by immigrants throughout the US. Contrary to media accounts, while the majority of those marching were Mexican and Central American immigrants, solidarity marches took place in regions as diverse as Chinatown (NY and San Francisco), Haitian communities in Florida and elsewhere. Back then, the immigration furor was heavy. In the black online community, I listened to alot of anger that seemed directed towards Latino immigrants--mostly those of Mexican descent. This mirrored part of an ongoing series of debates in black America, on whether immigration was a detriment, tensions between Mexican-Americans and African-Americans in places like Los Angeles and the reality of black unemployment. Surveying the landscape, I wrote a blog back then to vent against some disturbing trends I was witnessing, as some tried to cloak their obvious bigotry in claims of black solidarity. One year later, as we enter May Day 2007, and the issue of immigration appears again on our radar, I simply repost my musings from 2006... as they may still sadly be relevant.


Two weeks ago in California, a black "homeless" activist by the name of Ted Hayes led what he termed a "Black Minute Men" group in a march to protest illegal immigrants. He was met by pro-immigrant activists, black and latino. After a shouting match, a fight broke out between the two groups. News cameras enthusiastically filmed the melee which made national headlines. According to Hayes, a Republican, the influx of illegal workers are a prime reason for homelessness in America.

Allegedly Hayes viewed it all as such a threat, that he approached the vigilante white Minute Men of Arizona and New Mexico who regularly patrol the borders. These militia groups are thought to be outgrowths of the 1977 Klan Watch, sponsored by David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan. Hayes has invited gang members from Los Angeles to join him, the white milita groups and his own grouping in their attempts to keep illegals from crossing the border

So here we are in 2006--with black homeless activists belonging to a party that regularly cuts funding to the poor, enticing other poor blacks to join groups with direct or indirect ties to white supremacist groups to keep poor people from crossing the border from Mexico to steal American jobs. Hayes has called illegal immigration the biggest threat to blacks in America since slavery.

That's it. Stop the world for a second. I need to get the hell off.

The following is written to Ted Hayes, who would have us make Faustian pacts to undefined ends. It's meant for all those black folks I've talked to in the past few weeks who in their justified fears and frustrations, have reached nevertheless unjustified conclusions. It's to the xenophobic black folks who now seem to flood online boards, comment spaces and groups, who seem to revel in the chance to vent personal hatreds that are far divorced from politics.

First off, the real threat to blacks since slavery isn't undocumented workers. It's not the people who have been providing us with cheap goods for the past few decades. It's not the people who clean up after us. It's not the people that have funneled some $7 billion into Social Security that they'll never see. It's not the people who labor in the shadows and whom economists say the Clinton era boom of the 1990s would have been impossible to achieve without.

The real biggest threat to blacks (and everyone else) since slavery--and not to mention *during* slavery, as it was the raison d'etre)--has been unchecked capitalism. Unchecked capitalism is what brought black bodies here across the seas, and what decimated native populations. Unchecked capitalism caused the US to initiate a war of aggression against Mexico in 1846, and literally steal Texas, California and other territories, thus setting up where the borders would be to make one "legal" or "illegal." Unchecked capitalism has allowed for the exploitation of peoples and pits them against each other, while the rich dine in fine style.

Human beings don't voluntarily leave their homes, culture and all they've ever known to take low paying jobs in foreign lands where they are treated like thrash. They do so when they are forced out of their livelihoods. And we need look no further than NAFTA and now CAFTA, neoliberal trade agreements pushed by the US that enrich the corporatocracy (elites in varied countries who have no national allegiances save to their own wealth) while destroying jobs, infrastructure, agriculture in foreign countries. Immigration from Mexico has more than doubled as NAFTA has put hundreds of thousands of farmers into dire poverty. And its not just there; it's happening throughout the globe. People are angry at the poor and desperate for ignoring artificial fluid boundaries in search of survival? What do we expect them to do? Starve? I assure you that if the continent of Africa was directly South of us, we'd be welcoming Achmed and Kwasi to labor in the shadows for us rather than Maria and Jose.

That unchecked nature of globalization without any safeguards to protect the least among us is at the heart of this issue. It's what pushes US jobs overseas where others can be exploited, forced to work in the only jobs available once the IMF gets done ruining their economic infrastructure. We're only now feeling the pinch that the world has been experiencing. Case in point, this Iraq colonial misadventure has currently run up a bill of 320 billion! That would have been enough to fortify Social Security (which again, all those "illegals" have contributed some $7 billion to), give free healthcare, create millions of jobs, fund *all* the nation's schools and more. Whilst we bicker about "illegals," $200 million a *day* goes to the Iraqi mishap---that's $6 billion a month, to White House tied contractors like Halliburton and the shadow army Blackwater!

$6 BILLION A MONTH! THAT'S OUR MONEY THEY'RE STEALING!

And we're sitting here grumbling about some poor family barely making it and picking grapes that we greedily consume without care until we see that family in the local emergency room? We're not even demanding to know why the head of Exxon (after his leaving bonus) will have made $144,000 *a day* in salary while there are homeless and struggling and working poor in our streets? We're not even demanding *better* paying jobs! Or *better* education for job training? Instead we're demanding that "illegals" step aside so WE can bend over the barrell and show that we can take it like pros?

Ironically it's the undocumented workers who are now waging the fight WE should be waging, should have been waging. They're saying, "make us legal so you can't exploit us like you've been doing for the last 20 yrs." They're saying, "We want better job security and rights and more pay." And in the meantime, we're angry at THEM? Has everyone lost their friggin minds!? Did Martin Luther King Jr. not die in the midst of leadig a POOR PEOPLE'S march? Have we become so blinded by our individualistic consumerism that we can't see who's screwin' us in the dark?

To the Ted Hayes of the world, as long as we decide to pick fights with the exploited rather than tackle that 800 lb gorilla of untamed global capitalism that is sitting on all our chests, then some form of near slavery is exactly where we'll all be. And if we're all so foolish--black, brown, red, white, yellow and all else--to fall for this divisive trick again, to squabble for crumbs in a proverbial race to the bottom, while the powerful continue to rape us and then offer false hugs, then maybe...sadly...we all deserve our miserable lot.

Happy May Day.

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The Haps'

Bloggin' is tedious work. And I'm not on here enough to dedicate a lot of writing. So instead, think I'll just post and link some of my favorite stories of the week. And borrowing from that bogus tv station FOX News, I'll sexxy up the headlines for you:

African Babies- The Hottest Hollywood Accessory- Buy Your Own!
Worst Congress Ever!
Gay "Curer" Says Africans Better Off As Slaves!
White Hate Groups Recruit Blacks!
American Fascism On the Rise!

Check the HEADLINES and enjoy.


African Babies- The Hottest Hollywood Accessory- Buy Your Own!

Okay, so maybe that title is a bit cynical. The fracas over Madonna's adoption of a Malawian baby opened the world up to the orphanage problem in varied regions of Africa, where overall there are some 12 million parent-less children due to the HIV-AIDS pandemic, crushing poverty and in some places, war. While orphans in the thousands are adopted in the US from very "whiter" Eastern Europe and "at lease closer to white" China, darker skinned children from Africa are a trickle. That there are those like Madonna and Angelina Jolie willing to step up and offer humanitarian assistance is noble. However... there is something eeirly bizarre when these very white celebrities from the inner depths of the corporatist, neo-liberal, western neo-colonial world, can swoop into Africa on airships from across the sea, disrupt local laws, and trade/barter their power to the corrupt and the greedy in exchange for miniature black bodies. That the West, whose fortune has long been built on the labor of Africa, and later its resources, can now become the saviors of its youth, makes it seem as if cosmic karma has taken a holiday or has a perverse sense of humor. But...there we are. Best case scenarios- all these adopted African kids grow up to form a new Pan-African Congress and use their celebrity inherited Western wealth to rewrite the order of global trade.

Interesting factoid #456: African boys were once all the rage in 17th to 18th century European royal courts, where they would be adopted as decorative pets
Ibrahim Petrovich Gannibal, great-grandfather to the famous giant of Russian literature Alexander Pushkin, was such a figure--an "Ethiopian" slave adopted by Peter the Great and whose godmother was the Queen of Poland.

Western Celebrities and African Babies: Humanitarianism or Ego Trippin'

According to Robert Sandall of the UK's Sunday Times, "any foreign journalist wishing to enter the country during their sojourn had to be approved, in writing, by the Brangelina partnership - Terrified of offending their new celebrity colonial overlords, the Namibian Government agreed. It also imposed a no-fly zone over the Burning Shore resort for the duration of their six-week stay, and declared the day of the birth a national holiday."

The Worst Congress Ever!

Matt Taibbi for the Rolling Stone gives us some insight into what might be the worst Congress ever… well I suppose the Congress that oversaw slavery, manifest destiny over indigenous lands, lynching, Jim Crow, the colonial mishaps in the Philippines, etc. actually can be called some of the worst Congresses ever… but I guess the title fits if you mean within these times. And what's with the Burkina Faso slight? Hey! They have great film festivals in Burkina Faso! Anyway, excerpt from article and link below.

Time to Go! Inside the Worst Congress Ever

These past six years were more than just the most shameful, corrupt and incompetent period in the history of the American legislative branch. These were the years when the US parliament became a historical punch line, a political obscenity on par with the court of Nero or Caligula - a stable of thieves and perverts who committed crimes rolling out of bed in the morning and did their very best to turn the mighty American empire into a debt-laden, despotic backwater, a Burkina Faso with cable.

Africans Better Off as Slaves?

As I always like to say, give a right-wing nut job enuff rope, and they will hang themselves. Or perhaps, in this case... lynch somebody. What's good about the following article, is that it pulls back the veil on who and what these people seeking to "cure gays" are actually about. Their motives are hardly pure, or even naïve. And for all my fellow black heterosexuals who take an odd obsession and pleasure in gay-bashing, best watch who you get in bed with…all puns intended.

'Gay Curer' Psychologist Claims Africans 'Better Off' As Slaves

A prominent member of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is under fire for publishing an essay in which he argues that Africans were fortunate to have been sold into slavery, and the civil rights movement was "irrational."…"Africa at the time of slavery was still primarily a jungle… Life there was savage … and those brought to America, and other countries, were in many ways better off."…The movement's leaders and their close allies at Christian Right powerhouses like Focus on the Family have failed to condemn Schoenwolf's inflammatory arguments.

Strange Alliances: The New Black Face of White Supremacy

Speaking of getting in bed with the wrong people… From the Southern Poverty Law Center who tracks hate groups, comes this tidbit. I wrote before about the nutty self-proclaimed "Black Militia" who was seeking an alliance with the white supremacist derived Minute Men Militias—united in their mutual hatred of those terrible undocumented immigrants upon whose backs the 1990s economic boom took place, and whose money has shored up Social Security in the $billions. Well, looks like I was spot on. Only dissent I have with this article is the brief and casual attempt to link black nationalist rhetoric that speaks out against white racist hegemony to this madness—a very poor and undeserving analogy. Other than that blip, a great article:

Smokescreen: Black Anti-Immigration Groups Align with White Supremacists

It's the second day of the second annual "Unite to Fight" conference, a Memorial Day weekend gathering of anti-immigration hard-liners. Earlier, as speaker after speaker railed off venomous rants about Mexican invaders, Reconquista and Aztlan (conspiracy theories about alleged Mexican plans to reconquer the southwestern United States), Anderson sat with his wife in the shadows of the back row of the Cashman Center auditorium. But now that it's his turn on the mic, the roly-poly, bow-tied orator is lighting up his audience of 200 or so mostly middle-aged and elderly white guys, who clap harder, stand longer, and whistle louder for Anderson than for anyone else on the agenda. This might have something to do with the fact that Anderson is one of only a tiny handful of African-Americans at this predominately white conference -- and the only black speaker. The implied message of his presence and enthusiastic reception is crystal clear: "How can we be racist? Our beloved keynote speaker is black."

From Normal to Hyper Normal: The Rise of American Fascism

Okay, so this one gets deeper. Fascism. The word is tossed around so carelessly we often forget what it means. What we're agreed upon however is that its something that comes from elsewhere, and is at best a foreign ideology. Stan Goff is a retired veteran of the US Army Special Forces, and he proposes differently. In an uncomfortable fact for most Americans, he points out that for the majority of this country's existence, common tenets of fascism like white supremacy, anti-feminist ideals and elite corporatist control were the norm rather than the exception. Groups like the KKK weren't aberrations. The brutal conquest and occupation of the Philippines by American forces wasn't a foreign policy anomaly. The denial of the vote to women wasn't a bizarre blip in an otherwise freedom driven culture. Rather these were just extreme versions of the American normal, what he terms hypernormal. What has been abnormal has been the progressive push in the US that culminated in the Civil Rights and Women's movements, and socialist styled borrowed policies to create some equity of wealth an offset the oligarchy inherent in a capitalist structured society. Goff however warns that in our recent culture of marrying militarism with patriarchal masculinity and whiteness—especially with the so-called War on Terror—we may be moving to make America's unsavory normal traits into the hypernormal, and walking down the road to fascism, without even realizing it.

American Fascism on the Rise

White supremacy as a belief has evolved out of the practice of people in power, who defined themselves as white as a way of differentiating themselves from those over whom they wielded that power… until the dismantling of Jim Crow in the South, white supremacy was a norm, and before the Civil War, slavery was a norm. White supremacy was so normal in 1964 that after the defeat of Goldwater, the Republican Party adopted thinly veiled racist appeals to attract white voters who felt betrayed by the reluctant Democratic Party support for civil rights legislation. Openly racist public officials like Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott, even after their affiliations with white supremacist organizations were publicized, continued to be elected. The Republican appeals to white supremacy were cloaked as opposition to welfare, as "states rights," and as concern about "crime." As late as 1999 the Republican-controlled House of Representatives blocked a vote to condemn the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist organization with whom then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott had close ties.

How normed does something have to be before we can say it is normal?"

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