“Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls” – Racism or Critical Cultural Commentary?
There is a meme sensation sweeping the internet!! It all started with “Shit Girls Say.” The concept is that someone (often those who are not a member of the group who is being mocked) mocks the things that a group of people stereotypically say. Simple enough . . . and sometimes HILARIOUS.
We’ve got Shit Yogis Say, Shit Girls Say to Gay Guys, Shit Rednecks Say (“Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit!”), Shit White Feminists Say, and Shit Guys Don’t Say (or guys not named Jamie Utt). The meme has had the power to do some great mocking and cultural commentary and to point out some important realities. For instance, Shit Everybody Says to Rape Victims and Part II (WARNING, CAN BE TRIGGERING TO SURVIVORS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE) does a fantastic job of highlighting the ways that survivors of sexual violence are often blamed, shamed, and ignored when they seek help after their trauma.
One of the most popular of these videos is Shit White Girls Say . . . To Black Girls:
This particular take on the meme caused the internet (and particularly the Twitterverse) to EXPLODE. Charges of racism were thrown at the video’s creator, comedian and blogger Franchesca Ramsey. In response, people tried to explain how this is not racism but in fact is trying to highlight the type of racism that Black Women must deal with every day coming from White Women.
Well, on the holiday celebrating the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I was fortunate enough to attend a lecture by Columbia University’s Professor of Psychology, Derald Wing Sue. He went into great detail to explain the concept of microaggressions, described as “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative [identity-based] slights and insults toward people of other [identities].” Wing Sue’s extensive research has highlighted the ways in which these commonplace microaggressions can have profound impacts on the target’s self esteem, health, sense of community, feeling of safety, and more.
To better understand microaggressions, check out a site called “Microaggressions: Power, Privilege, and Everyday Life.” There are numerous examples there of microaggressions and how they are hurtful.
What I love about the language of microaggressions, though, is that is can show people of privilege how it doesn’t take overt hate speech to make a person who has systematically been denied privilege feel lesser or unwelcome. For instance, saying to a Latino or Asian person, “You speak very good English” says to that person (who might or might not have lived here their entire lives) that they are an other. They are not normal and this must be pointed out. This is similar to calling a young Black man “articulate” or saying “that’s so gay” as an equivalent to something being bad. It send a tiny message to people who identify with the slighted group that they are an other, they are not normal, they are not valuable or welcome.
If someone has to deal with a lifetime of microaggressions, we can see how that can lead to health problems, poor self esteem, and frustration.
So . . . I was going to write a blog all about how the Shit White Girls Say . . . To Black Girls video is a brilliant commentary on microaggressions, but it’s already been written! And written really well!
Thus, since I have a REALLY busy week, for this week’s post, I encourage you to check out “Not Everyone’s Laughing at ‘Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls’” by Tami Winfrey Harris over at Clutch Magazine. She says it better than I ever could!!
So, folks, as we move forward, let’s try to make sure we are careful with our words so as not to perpetuate common microaggressions.
Hijacking the Language and Legacy of Dr. King
Yesterday, on the day honoring the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, a lot of people were posting quotes from Dr. King to Facebook and Twitter. By far, the most commonly posted quote was one from King’s I Have a Dream speech that he delivered on August 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. During that speech, Dr. King said,
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
His sentiment is a powerful one, a sentiment that calls for a different racial reality than he knew as a child or than his children knew. This quote is part of a radical ideology of racial justice that moves past a negative peace of White Privilege and Supremacy to a justice that is only realized through concerted social action.
Out of context, though, White people LOVE this quote.
As someone who regularly takes part in or initiates conversations about race and racial justice, I have been noticing a disturbing trend more and more often lately: people using the words of Dr. King out of context to silence conversations on race.
The conversation usually goes something like this:
Person A: A colorblind ideology is not useful! We need to acknowledge race, its history, and the role it plays in present reality!
Person B: By bringing up race, you’re the one being racist! Race shouldn’t matter! Remember, Dr. King once said that we should “not be judged by the color of [our] skin but by the content of [our] character.
Person A: That’s completely out of context! Dr. King saw race as a reality we must face . . .
Person B: [Interrupts] By bringing race into the conversation, you’re only distracting us from the real conversation we should be having. After all, White people can be discriminated against, but you don’t hear us complaining!
Person A: *Bangs Head Against a Wall*
The problem with this line of thinking is that it divorces the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a symbol from his lived reality as a radical, anti-war, socialist-leaning, anti-racist activist who recognized the intersections of oppression. Instead, he becomes a moderate, race-neutral man on a pedestal whose words can actually be used to argue against programs and actions that might realize social justice.
One of the things that is most striking to me about this issue, though, is that it is not a partisan trend. I find White people on both the left and right using this line of thinking. For instance, a White, leftist #OccupyOakland activist was recently arguing with Jay Smooth on Twitter about the ways in which colorblindness as a value within the movement is being used to silence activists of Color and their concerns. Jay Smooth was trying to make the point that it does not help the movement to have an attitude of, “Put aside our differences for the betterment of the whole.” In fact, that only can create resentment in the movement and doesn’t realize justice.
In response, the White activist had the following to say:
In essence, he was trying to use the words of Dr. King to argue why we should not be divided by race, but this fictionalized Dr. King is not the Dr. King of, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
On the right, I hear a similar logic. The logic from the right is often that conversations about race are, in themselves, racist because they “choose to judge people by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character.”
I saw this hijacking of Dr. King’s legacy clearly from the right in Newt Gingrich’s language on the holiday honoring one of the greatest activists for social justice.
In his speech “honoring” Dr. King, he discusses the Rev. Dr.’s passion, his faith, and his persistence. He asks people to “look forward” and “ask ourselves to what degree can we give to [young people] the same spirit of hope, the same idealism, the same belief in America, the same understanding that salvation comes from faith in God, and that together we can, in fact, create a dramatically better future for all Americans of every background.”
However, in the same day, a day that honors the man who helped lead the Poor People’s Movement, Newt had the following to say:
Not only is the former Speaker of the House of Representatives paternalistic and classist in his language, but he refuses to see how his racially-coded language could be insulting to Black Americans (and for that he received a standing ovation).
It is insane that someone could speak out of one side of their mouth lauding the legacy of an advocate for justice and the poor and out of the other side to put down the poor as lacking work ethic and as desiring food stamps over jobs while equating the nation’s first Black president as “the food stamp president.”
Whether from the left or the right, this sort of language does little more than defend what Dr. King called a “negative peace” where those who are oppressed must “passively accept [their] unjust plight.”
Dr. King had harsh words in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail for White Moderates like @geekeasy2 and Newt Gingrich, words that must give all White people pause:
“I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”
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Check out my post from last year’s Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Celebration: Forsaking the Dream – Reflections on the Vision of Dr. King.
Racism: Fuel for the Immigration Debate Fire
This morning, I opened my inbox to the usual stuff: a slew of work-related emails, my daily deal emails (which I never even read any more . . . I just delete), and an email from Amnesty International asking for donations. Mixed in there somewhere was a rather interesting forward titled, “You Want Liberal . . . Check the Last Photos . . .” Here’s the text and photos from the email:
Maybe we should turn to our history books and point out to people like Mr. Lujan why today’s American is not willing to accept this new kind of immigrant any longer.
Back in 1900 when there was a rush from all areas of Europe to come to the United States, people had to get off a ship and stand in a long line in New York and be documented. Some would even get down on their hands and knees and kiss the ground. They made a pledge to uphold the laws and support their new country in good and bad times.
They made learning English a primary rule in their new American households and some even changed their names to blend in with their new home.
They had waved goodbye to their birth place to give their children a new life and did everything in their power to help their children assimilate into one culture.
Nothing was handed to them. No free lunches, no welfare, no labor laws to protect them. All they had were the skills and craftsmanship they had brought with them to trade for a future of prosperity.
Most of their children came of age when World War II broke out. My father fought along side men whose parents had come straight over from Germany, Italy, France and Japan. None of these 1st generation Americans ever gave any thought about what country their parents had come from. They were Americans fighting Hitler, Mussolini and the Emperor of Japan. They were defending the United States of America as one people.
When we liberated France, no one in those villages were looking for the French American, the German American or the Irish American. The people of France saw only Americans. And we carried one flag that represented one country. Not one of those immigrant sons would have thought about picking up another country’s flag and waving it to represent who they were. It would have been a disgrace to their parents who had sacrificed so much to be here. These immigrants truly knew what it meant to be an American. They stirred the melting pot into one red, white and blue bowl.
And here we are with a new kind of immigrant who wants the same rights and privileges. Only they want to achieve it by playing with a different set of rules, one that includes the entitlement card and a guarantee of being faithful to their mother country.
I’m sorry, that’s not what being an American is all about. I believe that the immigrants who landed on Ellis Island in the early 1900′s deserve better than that for all the toil, hard work and sacrifice in raising future generations to create a land that has become a beacon for those legally searching for a better life. I think they would be appalled that they are being used as an example by those waving foreign country flags.
I wouldn’t start …. dismantling the United States just yet.
FOR THE WRONG THINGS TO PREVAIL, THE RIGHTFUL MAJORITY NEEDS TO REMAIN COMPLACENT AND QUIET. LET THIS NEVER HAPPEN!
The Cast of Jackass
Bracero Rally, Los Angeles - The Migrant Project by Rick Nahmias
MYTH: Immigrants are a drain on our social services.
FACT: By paying taxes and Social Security, immigrants contribute far more to government coffers than they use in social services.
In its landmark report published in 1997—arguably the most thorough national study to date of immigration’s fiscal impacts—the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that on average, immigrants generate public revenue that exceeds their public costs over time—approximately $80,000 more in taxes than they receive in state, federal and local benefits over their life times.1 This same conclusion was reached in 2007 by the Council of Economic Advisers in their report to the Executive Office of the President where they state that “the long-run impact of immigration on public budgets is likely to be positive,” and agree with the NRC report’s view that “only a forward-looking projection of taxes and government spending can offer an accurate picture of the long-run fiscal consequences of admitting new immigrants.”2Moreover, according to government reports, noncitizens are much less likely than citizens to use the benefits for which they are eligible. For example, immigrants, especially the undocumented, tend to use medical services much less than the average American.3 In fact, the average immigrant uses less than half the dollar amount of health care services as the average native-born citizen.4 Moreover, the claim that immigrants account for high rates of emergency room (ER) visits is refuted by research; in fact, communities with high rates of ER usage tend to have relatively small percentages of immigrant residents.Indeed, most non-citizens are not even eligible for the majority of welfare programs unless they are legal permanent residents and have resided in the United States legally for at least five years. This includes benefits such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), SSI, Medicaid, and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
Likewise, according to Department of Agriculture reports, noncitizens who are eligible for food stamps are significantly less likely to use them than are all other individuals who are eligible for the program. For example, about 45 percent of eligible noncitizens received food stamps in 2002, compared to almost 60 percent of eligible individuals overall.5
Most of the fiscal impact from immigration is felt at the state and local levels. The Council of Economic Advisors points out in its report to the Executive Office of the President that “the positive fiscal impact tends to accrue at the federal level, but the net costs tend to be concentrated at the state and local level,” which bear primary responsibility for providing not only health care but education.6
Still, according to recent studies from a number of cities and states—including the states of Arizona, Texas, Minnesota, California, New York, North Carolina and Arkansas, and cities or counties of Chicago and Santa Clara—while the cost of educating the children of immigrants may be high, the overall economic benefits of immigrants to the states remain positive.7 A University of Illinois study found that undocumented immigrants in the Chicago metropolitan area alone spent $2.89 billion in 2001, stimulating an additional $5.45 billion in total local spending and sustaining 31,908 jobs in the local economy.8
The Udall Center at the University of Arizona found that the fiscal costs of immigrants, starting with education, totaled $1.41 billion in 2004, which, balanced against $1.64 billion in state tax revenue attributable to immigrants as workers, resulted in a fiscal gain of $222.6 million.9 Similarly, in its Special Report about undocumented immigrants in Texas, the Comptroller of Public Accounts found that in 2005, even counting the costs associated with education, “the state revenues collected from undocumented immigrants exceed what the state spent on services, with the difference being $424.7 million.”10
MYTH: Immigrants have a negative impact on the economy and the wages of citizens and take jobs away from citizens.
FACT: Immigration has a positive effect on the American economy as a whole and on the income of native-born workers.
In June 2007, the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) issued a report on “Immigration’s Economic Impact.” Based on a thorough review of the literature, the Council concluded that “immigrants not only help fuel the Nation’s economic growth, but also have an overall positive effect on the American economy as a whole and on the income of native-born American workers.”11Among the report’s key findings were that, on average, U.S. natives benefit from immigration in that immigrants tend to complement natives, not substitute for them.Immigrants have different skills, which allow higher-skilled native workers to increase productivity and thus increase their incomes. Also, as the native-born U.S. population becomes older and better educated, young immigrant workers fill gaps in the low-skilled labor markets.12
With respect to wages, in a 1997 study, the National Research Council estimated the annual wage gain due to immigration for U.S. workers to be $10 billion each year13 in 2007 CEA estimated the gain at over $30 billion per year.14 The CEA acknowledges that an increase in immigrant workers is likely to have some negative impact on the wages of low-skilled native workers, but they found this impact to be relatively small and went on to conclude that reducing immigration “would be a poorly-targeted and inefficient way to assist low-wage Americans.”15
In addition to having an overall positive affect on the average wages of American workers, an increase in immigrant workers also tends to increase employment rates among the native-born. According to a Pew Hispanic Center study, between 2000 and 2004 “there was a positive correlation between the increase in the foreign-born population and the employment of native-born workers in 27 states and the District of Columbia.” These states included all the major destination states for immigrants and together they accounted for 67% of all native-born workers.16 California, for example, saw an increase in wages of natives by about four percent from 1990 to 2004—a period of large influx of immigrants to the state—due to the complimentary skills of immigrant workers and an increase in the demand for tasks performed by native workers.17
MYTH: Immigrants—particularly Latino immigrants—don’t want to learn English.
FACT: Immigrants, including Latino immigrants, believe they need to learn English in order to succeed in the United States, and the majority uses at least some English at work.
Throughout our country’s history, critics of immigration have accused new immigrants of refusing to learn English and to otherwise assimilate. These charges are no truer today than they were then. As with prior waves of immigrants, there is a marked increase in English-language skills from one immigrant generation to the next.18 In the first ever major longitudinal study of the children of immigrants, in 1992 Rambaut and Portes found that “the pattern of linguistic assimilation prevails across nationalities.” The authors go on to report that “the linguistic outcomes for the third generation—the grandchildren of the present wave of immigrants—will be little different than what has been the age-old pattern in American immigration history.”19While many first-generation Latino immigrants are unable to speak English, 88 percent of their U.S.-born adult children report that they speak English very well.20 And studies show that the number rises dramatically for each subsequent generation. Furthermore, similar to other immigrants, Latinos believe that they need to learn English in order to succeed in the United States, and believe they will be discriminated against if they don’t.21 Most Latino immigrants (67%) report that they use at least some English at work.22
California’s second-generation immigrants experience a large drop in “low levels of English proficiency” compared to first generation immigrants, from 27% to 6%, and the proportion of immigrants with high levels of English proficiency rises from 49% in the first generation to 79% in the second generation. The proportion of both Asian and Latino immigrants, who speak English exclusively rises from 10% in the first generation to 29% in the second and 94% in the third.23
Notwithstanding the current levels of English language acquisition for the newest wave of immigrants, there is a demand for English language classes that far exceeds the supply and which, if met, would greatly advance immigrants’ integration into American social and cultural life.
MYTH: Immigrants don’t want to become citizens.
FACT: Many immigrants to the United States seek citizenship, even in the face of difficult requirements and huge backlogs that can delay the process for years.
Most immigrants are ineligible to apply for citizenship until they have resided in the U.S. with lawful permanent resident status for five years, have passed background checks, have shown that they have paid their taxes, are of “good moral character, demonstrate knowledge of U.S. history and civics, and have the ability to understand, speak and write English.” In addition, people applying for naturalization have to pay a fee, which increased by 69% in 2007 from $400 to $675, making it much harder for low-income immigrants to reach their dream of becoming Americans.24Despite these barriers, The Pew Hispanic Center’s report on U.S. Census data shows that the proportion of eligible immigrants who have acquired citizenship rose to 52% in 2005, “the highest level in a quarter of a century.”15 In the 2007 fiscal year, DHS received 1.4 million citizenship applications—nearly double from last fiscal year 26—and between June and July of 2007, naturalization applications increased 350% compared to last year.27 In his testimony to Congress, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director, Emilio Gonzalez, referred to this increase as “unprecedented in the history of immigration services in our nation.”28
Yet, despite the promise by USCIS that backlogs would be eliminated, applications for naturalization can take a year and half to adjudicate and of the 1.4 applications it received in 2007, less than 660,000 have been decided.29
MYTH: Immigrants don’t pay taxes.
FACT: Almost all immigrants pay income taxes even though they can’t benefit from most federal and state local assistance programs and all immigrants pay sales and property taxes.
According to the 2005 Economic Report of the President, “more than half of all undocumented immigrants are believed to be working ‘on the books’…[and]… contribute to the tax rolls but are ineligible for almost all Federal public assistance programs and most major Federal-state programs.” According to the report, undocumented immigrants also “contribute money to public coffers by paying sales and property taxes (the latter are implicit in apartment rentals).”30All immigrants (legal and undocumented) pay the same real estate taxes and the same sales and other consumption taxes as everyone else. The University of Illinois at Chicago found in 2002 that undocumented immigrants in the Chicago metro area spent $2.89 billion annually from their earnings and these expenditures generated $2.56 billion additional spending for the local economy.31
Legal immigrants pay income taxes and indeed many undocumented immigrants also pay income taxes or have taxes automatically withheld from their paychecks—even though they are unable to claim a tax refund, Social Security benefits or other welfare benefits that these taxes support. In the Chicago metro area for example, approximately seventy percent of undocumented workers paid payroll taxes, according to the University of Illinois study from 2002.32 In the Washington Metro Region, immigrants paid the same share of the region’s overall taxes (18 percent) as the rest of the population (17.4 percent), according to a 2006 Urban Institute study.33 This study also points to the fact that immigrants’ tax payments support both local and state services in addition to the federal government.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) holds that undocumented immigrants “account for a major portion” of the billions of dollars paid into the Social Security system—an estimated $520 billion as of October 2005.34 The SSA keeps a file called the “earnings suspense file” on all earnings with incorrect or fictitious Social Security numbers and the SSA’s chief actuary stated in 2005 that “three quarters of other-than-legal immigrants pay payroll taxes.”35 Their figures show that the suspense file is growing by more than $50 billion a year, generating $6 to 7 billion in Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes.
MYTH: Immigrants send all their money back to their home countries instead of spending money here.
FACT: Immigrants do send money to family members, making it possible for more people to stay in their home countries rather than migrating to the United States. Importantly, sending remittances home does not keep immigrants from spending money in the United States.
It’s true that remittances are the biggest sources of foreign currency for most Latin American countries and surpass any amount of foreign aid sent by the U.S. The money sent by immigrants to their family members allows many people to stay in their home countries who might otherwise feel compelled to migrate to the U.S.And while 51 percent of Latino immigrants send remittances home,36 they are spending their money in the United States as well. In fact, a 1998 study found that immigrants become net economic contributors after 10 to 15 years in the U.S.37
In addition to paying taxes and Social Security, immigrants spend money on goods and services in the United States. A study of Latino immigrants in California found significant gains in home ownership between those who had been in this country for ten years (16.4 percent are homeowners) and those who had been here for over thirty years (64.6 percent).38 Furthermore, a 2002 Harvard University study of U.S. Census data found that there were more than 5.7 million foreign- born homeowners in the United States.39 The study found that foreign-born new homeowners are buying their homes by saving more than native-born homebuyers and stretching their incomes more.
While homeownership nationally was approximately 69% in 2006, it was 60% for Asians and 50% for Latinos—each group with large immigrant populations and therefore greater impediments to obtaining bank loans.40 Although homeownership is largely correlated with legal status in the U.S., undocumented immigrants are also buying into the “American Dream” of homeownership in some of the most expensive housing markets in the country.41
MYTH: Immigrants bring crime to our cities and towns.
FACT: Immigrants are actually far less likely to commit crimes than their native-born counterparts. Even as the undocumented population has increased in the United States, crime rates have decreased significantly.
According to a 2000 report prepared for the U.S. Department of Justice, immigrants maintain low crime rates even when faced with adverse social conditions such as low income and low levels of education.42Although incarceration rates are highest among young low-income men and many immigrants arriving in the U.S. are young men with low levels of education, incarceration rates among young men are invariably lower for immigrants than for their native-born counterparts. This is true across every ethnic group but the differences are especially noticeable among Mexicans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans, who constitute the majority of undocumented immigrants in the United States. Even in cities with the largest immigrant populations, such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami, violent and non-violent crime rates have continued to decline.43
Even after taking into account higher deportation rates since the mid 1990′s, and reviewing the 1980 and 1990 censuses, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ascertained that, “18-40 year-old male immigrants have lower institutionalization rates than the native born each year…and by 2000, immigrants have institutionalization rates that are one-fifth those of the native born.”44 In fact, according to the NBAR study, the newly arrived immigrants are particularly unlikely to be involved in crime.
Cities like Hazleton, Pennsylvania have tried to blame a new wave of immigrants for a supposed rise in crime. Yet, Hazleton’s own crime statistics taken from the Pennsylvania State Police show that overall crime in the city has decreased and is now less than half of the national average.45
MYTH: Most immigrants are undocumented and have crossed the border illegally.
FACT: Two thirds of immigrants are here lawfully—either as naturalized citizens or in some other lawful status. Moreover, almost half of all undocumented immigrants entered the United States legally.
According to the Pew Hispanic Center, one third of all immigrants are undocumented, one third have some form of legal status and one third are naturalized citizens. This applies to immigrants from Latin America as well as others.46Almost half of all undocumented immigrants entered the United States on visas that allowed them to reside here temporarily—either as tourists, students, or temporary workers. This means they were subject to inspection by immigration officials before entering the country,47 and became undocumented only when their visas expired and they didn’t leave the country.
MYTH: Weak border enforcement has led to high rates of undocumented immigration. We should increase enforcement and build a wall around our border.
FACT: Increased border security and the construction of border fences have done little to curb the flow of immigrants across the United States border. Instead, these policies have only succeeded in pushing border crossers into dangerous and less-patrolled regions, and increased the undocumented population by creating an incentive for immigrants not to leave.
Building a wall along the entire 2000-mile southern U.S. border would be prohibitively expensive. According to a study by the Cato Institute, rather than acting as a deterrent to those attempting to cross the border, increased enforcement has only succeeded in pushing immigration flows into more remote, less patrolled regions, resulting in a tripling of the death rate at the border and decreased apprehensions, and creating a dramatic increase in taxpayer money spent on making arrests along the border (from $300 per arrest in 1992 to $1,200 per arrest in 2002).48Furthermore, increased border enforcement has actually increased the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. at any one time. The increased risk and cost to immigrants of crossing the border has resulted in fewer undocumented immigrants returning to their home countries for periods of time as part of the decades-long circular migration patterns that characterize undocumented immigration from Mexico up until the 1990s. Instead, immigrants stay in the United States for longer periods of time, often choosing to immigrate their families to avoid longer periods of separation.49
The Secure Fence Act of 2006 directed the Department of Homeland Security to construct 850 miles of additional border fencing. According to a report by Congressional Research Services, the San Diego fence, combined with increased border patrol agents in the area, succeeded in decreasing border crossing in that region, but at the same time there is considerable evidence that the flow of illegal immigration has shifted to the more remote areas of the Arizona desert, decreasing the number of apprehensions and increasing the cost.50
Race, Listening, and The Good Men Project
Rather than hosting this week’s piece here on Change From Within, I am actually going to be sending my readers over to The Good Men Project.
I was recently published over at GMP with a piece entitled, “Listening is the Root of Justice.“
Here’s a quick excerpt from the piece:
In his piece resigning from The Good Men Project, Hugo Schwyzer put it this way, “Power conceals itself from those who possess it. And the corollary is that privilege is revealed more clearly to those who don’t have it.” As a person of privilege, I know that I cannot see all of the ways that my identity silences other voices, and I cannot see the ways that my privilege works to empower me while disempowering others.
Thus, when criticized for my language, the space I am taking up, or for the ways in which my actions reveal my privilege, my first response needs to be to listen. No matter how defensive that statement makes me, I need to listen. No matter how much I would like to retort with a story about how I’m not as privileged as the other is assuming, I need to listen.
Listening is the root of justice.
I encourage you to head over to GMP to read the piece, and if you’re up for a real challenge, wade into the comments.
CFW’s 2011 Year in Review
After spending a little time this morning going through my blog and looking back over some of what I had written this year, I thought it would be fun to do a little recap of my top posts from the year.
Thus, without further ado, here are
The Top Posts of 2011 from Change From Within
10. The tenth most visited post that I authored in 2011 was one I wrote after visiting the Sand Creek Massacre Memorial in southeastern Colorado – Cultural Amnesia: The Sand Creek Massacre. Though it is perhaps easiest to forget that we live on the lands of a genocide, we must never forget what has happened in our own back yards.
9. The 9th most popular publication that I wrote in 2011 was in response to the oh-so-common idea espoused among White folks that because of the election of Barack Obama, we now live in a post-racial society. I posit, though, that Post Racial = More Covert in Our Racism.
8. The 8th post popular post on my site was also the most popular post among our White Supremacist buddy over at Unamusement Park who decided to hijack the comments section for his White Supremacist ramblings. The blog, though, was a reposting of a profound piece by Ewuare Xola Osayande in a critique of Tim Wise (and other White Anti-Racist activists such as myself). On White Anti-Racist Activists by Equare Xola Osayande
7. Coming in at number 7 is one of my posts that was republished at the Good Men Project. My Take On Sex was a response to a young man who was interested to hear my perspective on sex and relationships, as he couldn’t find many perspectives outside of the Christian one he heard in his church community. The comments section also turned into a rousing debate on abortion, a debate that is still continuing. I would love to see some comments from more of my readers!
6. Rounding out the latter half of the Top 10 is a piece that ruffled some feathers locally and got some national traction in the #Occupy movement. Occupy Denver has a Race Problem criticized the local iteration of the #Occupy movement in its lack of responsiveness to the needs of communities of color. It posited that if Occupy Denver doesn’t work to be more inclusive, it will quickly become irrelevant, something I fear is happening.
5. The 5th most popular post on Change From Within in 2011 is one that still saddens me incredibly. It was my last-minute plea to join in the multitude of voices trying to stop the execution of Troy Davis. Injustice Anywhere: Stop the Murder of Troy Davis called on my readers to join in the activism that ultimately failed to save the life of a man who was convicted of a murder he very likely didn’t commit.
4. The 4th most popular post was another repost blog from White Anti-Racist activist Tim Wise that I posted right before attending the White Privilege Conference in Minneapolis, MN. Tim Wise and White Privilege reposted one of Wise’s pieces where he critiques the racism often present on the American Left.
3. It’s notable that the 3rd most visited post I authored in 2011 was only written on the 1st of December, and it holds the record for the most single-day hits on Change From Within. Profitable Objectification: The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show problematizes the perspective from which the “fashion show” is presented and how this can not only affect women’s body image but can drastically impact the way that men see women.
2. The second most visited blog that was published on Change From Within in 2011 addressed the issue of immigration and the English-Only movement in the U.S.. “Speak American” – Multilingualism and the English-Only Movement looked at the ways that English-Only as a mindset and policy is not only unconstitutional but actually works to the detriment of the United States and its citizens.
1. Finally, the single most popular blog post of 2011 was authored January 26, 2011. It’s Not Just Rap – Misogyny in Music looks at the way that violent misogyny is not a problem solely in rap music, as often asserted, but is actually simply a problem in MUSIC. From Kanye West to Avenged Sevenfold, from NoFX to Trace Adkins, misogyny is rampant in our music culture, and it’s time for us to do something about that!
Thank you to all my readers for helping to make 2011 such an incredibly successful year at Change From Within. I look forward to what 2012 will bring, but in the mean time, HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Did your favorite post not make the list? Feel free to post in the comments!
