A 'Facebook friend' of mine, well known for his liberal views, posted an entry decrying Arizona's illegal and racist new immigration law. In the course of about a day, many comments were made on his post, and most of them were in praise of the law. Many of those were subtly or overtly hateful toward Mexicans and other Latinos; 'They should have to prove themselves' was typical of many. In the absence of context this would be surprising. People don't normally post hostile comments that fly in the face of the poster's known views when they're friends with that person, even if it's only a Facebook friendship (amongst all other reasons, if they piss the person off they can have the comments deleted, or they can get 'defriended.'). There has to be something going on that makes people think it's quite alright to behave in this manner.
This is thie kind of thing that, thirty years ago, a racist might have said about Blacks, or about an Irishman 150 years ago. In general, though, despite the presence of hate radio personalities like Rush Limbaugh, most people realize that there are significant negative consequences for most public outbursts of this kind. That's not to say that people have universally changed their constructs, just that almost everybody who now thinks those things have the self-preservation skills to keep them to themselves. A few years ago I observed that we had progressed in this country to the point where it was socially acceptable to openly make hurtful jokes about only four groups - mentally disabled people, LGBT people, women, and the obese. I was wrong; Mexicans are also on the list.
When my daughter Alex, who is Mexican, was in high school here in New York City, she had reported that other kids would make Mexican jokes much like people made Polish jokes when I was in high school back in the '70s. The school she attended was perhaps 50% Black and 25% Hispanic, which made the anti-Mexican sentiment all the more startling. If you consider that these ethnicities have also experienced overt discrimination and hostility , it's easy to wonder how this could have ever happened. Looking at things another way, though, it should have been expected.
When one considers that America has had a history of directing hatred at the latest large immigrant group, starting with the Irish in the 1840s, and repeating for the Chinese, Italians, Jews, Puerto Ricans, and others, it is not at all surprising that the current wave of Mexican immigration has provoked a reaction. The usual pattern is that the hatred is most severe amongst the economic groupings just a notch above the bottom.* They fear that they will suffer from competition with the new immigrants for jobs. The fact that much of the Mexican immigration is illegal makes it all the easier for people to be openly hostile as they can cover their racist fears with pious claims of concern for law and order.
Alex is now away at college, finishing up her senior year, and I haven't had a chance yet to talk with her about her feelings on the Arizona law or about how it is affecting her. If I were her, I know that I would be having nightmares about being stopped by police, asked for proof of citizenship, and then thrown in jail, deported, or worse. I know that I would be angry. I know those things because they are in fact happening to me, despite being and looking 'Anglo.'
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* The forced status of Blacks, through slavery, as bottom dwellers on the economic totem pole made it easy for slaveowners to keep poor southern Whites in fear of competition from freed slaves. The New York City race riots during the Civil War were less about anger directed at the rich for their ability to avoid the draft through paying a fee, and more about fear of competition from freed Black slaves according to
a history on the topic I have read.
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cross-posted from my blog on Jeroly.Com