Sometimes small incidents tell us a great deal about the world we live in. Some things, it seems, never change. I was waiting for a bus in Kent on Tuesday morning. There was the bus, zooming past the designated stop, screeching to a halt at the crossroad. I ran up to the bus and boarded. I told the driver that I didn’t appreciate what he just did. The driver told me in a rude manner “Well, you got on the bus, didn’t you?” as if I should feel lucky even to be allowed to live. Two white passengers laughed and sneered at my presumption. Observing this, I told them that it was the principle of the thing—I was standing where I was supposed to be, and he deliberately inconvenienced me by not stopping where he was supposed to. They just gestured as if I had some serious mental defect. I said that’s OK, I’ll be contacting Metro, which seemed to get the attention of the driver; as I mentioned in a recent post, rude behavior by drivers is not an infrequent occurrence.
One of the passengers who didn’t see my point, a blonde female, was let off at the corner where the REI headquarters is located; when I worked in Kent, I walked past that place every day for five years. The only people I ever saw entering the place were yuppie-type whites like this person, with one or two Asians to make it seem “diverse.” Anyways, the passenger was quite friendly with the driver as she departed, and why not? This was not a proper stop—the next stop was actually across the street; the driver, it seems, bought her good will by breaking the rules to convenience the favored person, while on the other hand breaking the rules to inconvenience the unfavored person. The next people to get off were two middle-aged blacks; they too “comforted” this “nice” driver who was being annoyed by that presumptuous “Mexican.” I wondered to myself if they thought that standing on “principle” was an insignificant matter during the civil rights movement.
I exited the bus next, or tried to; the driver kept the door shut; at first I thought he was just trying to be an ass by implying I wasn’t going to pay the proper fare. In turn, I pointedly told him that I wasn’t going to pay anything unless he switched the card reader from two-zone to one-zone. After vacating the bus, I turned to look at the driver as he was pulling away, and I saw that he was giving me the evil eye. He wasn’t the only looking at me either: A Kent police car was right behind the bus, and two cops were giving me a stare-down. Oh, I see—the driver contacted the police en-route because there was a “Mexican” causing trouble. The police just drove by—these guys know who I am. I’ve filed more than a few complaints about harassment by them as well.
So what did we learn about this incident? Well, maybe you didn’t learn anything, but I learned—or rather confirmed what I already knew—is that in this day and age people have forgotten how hard it was to fight for human rights, and to maintain them. It seems that those of unfavored groups who stand-up for their humanity are only fit to be nailed down. I’ve discussed many, many times about how Latinos have been portrayed in demeaning terms by the media, local officials, politicians and various nativist organizations, and this has led to a diminishment of simple human decency, as exhibited by this bus driver. Because of the power of dehumanizing propaganda—with no effort by the mainstream media to expose the malevolence behind it—you see “average” people blind to it, being forgetful of the past, and even accepting it as “normal.” This is the world I live in; I have no illusions about it.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
How I make my dull day "exciting"
The other day, a man who waiting at the bus stop outside the terminal told me he would be starting work the next day with the company that currently employs me. He wanted to know I how I liked working there. Interesting question. I suppose it really depends on your situation if you look at this as career or way station to something better. If you are kid who still lives with his or her parents, or just needs any job to pay the bills until a better opportunity pops-up, you might be more susceptible of rapid disillusionment; it is natural for people to complain about their job, but some people—especially the younger ones—believe that there has got to be something better just around the corner. But older people know better; no job is “perfect.”
So I told this person that it’s a job. I’ve worked here for almost four years and like all the other jobs I’ve had, it has become a routine that I do out of habit. I have a journalism degree, but I gave-up on pursuing that occupation long ago, just wanting to find my pond, like Thoreau. The one good thing about my current occupation is that there are the slow periods that allow me time to read and do research, although because of the long hours I am usually too worn-out from insufficient sleep to concentrate on writing. On my “weekends,” I have no interest in partying, boozing, hanging-out or laying on a couch in front of the television set; my principle “relaxation” takes the form of the many hours it takes to compose on this blog; it isn’t much of a life, if truth be known, and it certainly doesn’t pay.
Anyways, at work I spend nearly all of my time outside—and everyone knows about the unstable nature of the weather in and around Seattle. The average rainfall at SeaTac Airport is a shade over 37 inches in a calendar year, but over the past nine months there has already rained 46 inches; during the winter and cool spring the icy winds tend to add considerably to the discomfort. Are we provided sturdy rain gear that doesn’t rip apart after a few days? Um--no. Too expensive. You can buy your own gear, if it conforms to company “standards,” meaning color and logo. We were recently told that we could not wear hoods, even during torrential rain showers. They say it is because a hood blocks your peripheral vision when you are driving around in an uncovered tug; it may in reality be because since a large percentage of our employees are non-white, the airline is concerned that customers might think that the place is being run by street gangs. Last week I overheard the following conversation between the station manager and a zone manager that went more-or-less like this:
SM: Do you pay attention to what people are wearing?
ZM: What?
SM: I see people wearing clothing that is not the correct color.
ZM: I don’t notice what people are wearing. When I talk to them, I look them in the eye.
SM: I saw someone wearing a hood—a black hood.
ZM: Um, OK. I’ll keep an eye on that.
I couldn’t suppress a chuckle, but when I went back outside I noticed an employee wearing a grey hood; I asked him if he knew he was out-of-uniform, and he looked at me as if I was trying be some kind of jerk. I recounted the gist of the conversation I had just heard, and preferring to err on the side of caution, the employee removed his hood.
The question is how do you maintain moral in an environment of low pay and poor benefits? One must confess that the atmosphere has changed in the past year or so. There are more rules and regulations, many that seem merely cosmetic, and much fewer instances of expressions of gratitude. I remember in the past when we had company picnics at the lake; last year they had a “picnic” at the airport. Since it was my day off, I came in civilian clothes; even though I couldn’t enter the AOA in the first place without going through the security door drill, there were Port police and security people hanging out at the picnic, and they made me feel like I didn’t belong there. It sure made me feel “appreciated.” There was a time when prior management did consider morale-boosting an important part of the “mission”; now, if you work Christmas (as I have the past four), you can look forward to a slim piece of pumpkin pie.
Now, there is the potential for advancement in this company, particularly if you don’t like to mingle with the “little people” or have an inflated sense of self. One guy who was promoted to civilian clothes after only a few months with the company is someone I regard as an airheaded flake; but then again, my view is that competency is not a particular priority in OPS. But given the number of people who quit every year (just to give you an idea, despite the fact that I’ve been working with the company for less than four years, I’m already in the top twenty of “seniority” out of several hundred employees). Since I like to think of myself as a writer just trying to survive, I’ve discovered that in order to mentally get myself through the day, I have to find a way to self-motivate. I mentioned in a previous post that I enjoy doodling with number, statistics and averages; thus my job of hauling cargo carts is perfectly suitable to this endeavor, since I deal with such variables as days, weeks and quantities.
Last year, the most cargo carts I handled in one day was 91, and 257 in a four-day week. Surpassing those figures would form the basis of my goals this year. Both of these of these numbers appeared to have been flukes, however, because I only reached as many as 80 in one day a half-dozen times, and no more than 242 in a week on three other occasions. Nevertheless, I always approached each week as if the possibility existed that I might exceed the single day or single week total. I clocked-in early to make certain that I had enough time to run the earliest carts; if I didn’t, then it was likely that the people working the early flights would retrieve the carts themselves, thus diminishing my goal. I wasn’t being paid for additional hour I worked each week, but it didn’t concern me: It was the goal that I set for myself that did. Then one day someone decided that no one was permitted to clock-in earlier than six minutes, which frustrated me because I inevitably was going to miss at least a half-dozen carts every morning, and I had no chance of attaining the goals I had set for myself.
Then in the middle of this past April, something remarkable occurred. After months of piddling numbers, one day I ran 93 carts, a new record. The next day, 89 carts—the third highest single-day total—and 268 for the week, another record. The following week, it was 97 in one day, and 290 for the week. Although the following weeks saw rather fewer carts, their totals were still in the top-ten all-time. The numbers were back up the following four weeks, but in no way threatening the single day and single week totals. Still, I was running 20 percent more carts than even during the busiest period last year, and for the first time I perceived the possibility of cracking the 100 cart barrier in one day, and 300 in a week. The reason for this optimism, as it turned-out, was not due to a sudden improvement in the economy, but because too much cargo was being bumped-off flights because of incorrectly calculated weights (I told you about OPS), and it lessened the aggravation of re-configuring the cargo that wasn’t loaded, if the carts had fewer items to begin with. Or something like that.
After six disappointing weeks, last week began in impressive fashion; three hours into day one I was already half-way to 100 carts, and by 2/3rd point of the day I had reached what once seemed improbable. By the end of the day, I had tallied 113 carts. I knew from experience that each of the following days would see fewer carts, but with this start 300 carts over four days was possible if not probable. I hoped to reach the 200 cart level by the end of day two, but it ended with a disappointing 80 carts. I would need 107 carts over Saturday and Sunday, and that was unlikely; my hopes had been crushed. My hopes were further diminished when I was told that I could not run carts before I clocked-in. Nevertheless, on Saturday I seemed well on the way of moving at least 70 carts, which I had failed to do all year. My optimism had rebounded—that is until a supervisor conspired against the accomplishment of my goal. During one of the busier periods, I was forced to baggage to fill-in for some guy’s lunch break, because the person who would have done so quit the previous day. For an hour I stewed over all the carts I was being denied to pad my numbers; when I finished the day I could count only 67 carts. I would need 40 carts to reach my ultimate goal of 300 carts in a week; my average Sunday total was only 35, and just thinking about that made me even angrier about what had happened that day.
Sunday morning I was determined that no one and nothing—not the Port police, Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs, those annoying TSAs, UAL goons or even our own unthinking people—was going to stop me from accomplishing my mission. Sunday began auspiciously enough—I was thrilled to see twenty carts already waiting for me; and it only got better. By the half-way point of the day the 300 barrier had been surpassed. I searched for other goals to reach. The most significant one would be reaching the 50 cart mark on Sunday, which I had never done; another was 320 carts for the week—an average of 80 a day, the threshold which constituted a “great” day; and 1,120 carts over a one-month period, an average of 70 carts a day. None of these goals would be “easy,” because Sundays typically “died” in the afternoon. I fumed in frustration at carts being dribbled in now, and how I might fall short because of what occurred the day before; but eventually the 50-cart mark was reach. I was still short of my other goals ten minutes left in my shift; I only needed three carts, but as the minutes stole away, I gave-up hope. But with five minutes left and I was packing-up to leave, I beheld an unbelievable sight: Three carts coming from the warehouse. Oh please let them be something that I could take instead of my relief man. Yes, they’re mine! What a day! 60 carts on a Sunday, 320 for the week, and 1,122 for four weeks! I am happy.
Now that is how I motivate myself to wake-up at 2 AM and not return home until 5 PM, for small change. Being a little crazy sometimes helps.
So I told this person that it’s a job. I’ve worked here for almost four years and like all the other jobs I’ve had, it has become a routine that I do out of habit. I have a journalism degree, but I gave-up on pursuing that occupation long ago, just wanting to find my pond, like Thoreau. The one good thing about my current occupation is that there are the slow periods that allow me time to read and do research, although because of the long hours I am usually too worn-out from insufficient sleep to concentrate on writing. On my “weekends,” I have no interest in partying, boozing, hanging-out or laying on a couch in front of the television set; my principle “relaxation” takes the form of the many hours it takes to compose on this blog; it isn’t much of a life, if truth be known, and it certainly doesn’t pay.
Anyways, at work I spend nearly all of my time outside—and everyone knows about the unstable nature of the weather in and around Seattle. The average rainfall at SeaTac Airport is a shade over 37 inches in a calendar year, but over the past nine months there has already rained 46 inches; during the winter and cool spring the icy winds tend to add considerably to the discomfort. Are we provided sturdy rain gear that doesn’t rip apart after a few days? Um--no. Too expensive. You can buy your own gear, if it conforms to company “standards,” meaning color and logo. We were recently told that we could not wear hoods, even during torrential rain showers. They say it is because a hood blocks your peripheral vision when you are driving around in an uncovered tug; it may in reality be because since a large percentage of our employees are non-white, the airline is concerned that customers might think that the place is being run by street gangs. Last week I overheard the following conversation between the station manager and a zone manager that went more-or-less like this:
SM: Do you pay attention to what people are wearing?
ZM: What?
SM: I see people wearing clothing that is not the correct color.
ZM: I don’t notice what people are wearing. When I talk to them, I look them in the eye.
SM: I saw someone wearing a hood—a black hood.
ZM: Um, OK. I’ll keep an eye on that.
I couldn’t suppress a chuckle, but when I went back outside I noticed an employee wearing a grey hood; I asked him if he knew he was out-of-uniform, and he looked at me as if I was trying be some kind of jerk. I recounted the gist of the conversation I had just heard, and preferring to err on the side of caution, the employee removed his hood.
The question is how do you maintain moral in an environment of low pay and poor benefits? One must confess that the atmosphere has changed in the past year or so. There are more rules and regulations, many that seem merely cosmetic, and much fewer instances of expressions of gratitude. I remember in the past when we had company picnics at the lake; last year they had a “picnic” at the airport. Since it was my day off, I came in civilian clothes; even though I couldn’t enter the AOA in the first place without going through the security door drill, there were Port police and security people hanging out at the picnic, and they made me feel like I didn’t belong there. It sure made me feel “appreciated.” There was a time when prior management did consider morale-boosting an important part of the “mission”; now, if you work Christmas (as I have the past four), you can look forward to a slim piece of pumpkin pie.
Now, there is the potential for advancement in this company, particularly if you don’t like to mingle with the “little people” or have an inflated sense of self. One guy who was promoted to civilian clothes after only a few months with the company is someone I regard as an airheaded flake; but then again, my view is that competency is not a particular priority in OPS. But given the number of people who quit every year (just to give you an idea, despite the fact that I’ve been working with the company for less than four years, I’m already in the top twenty of “seniority” out of several hundred employees). Since I like to think of myself as a writer just trying to survive, I’ve discovered that in order to mentally get myself through the day, I have to find a way to self-motivate. I mentioned in a previous post that I enjoy doodling with number, statistics and averages; thus my job of hauling cargo carts is perfectly suitable to this endeavor, since I deal with such variables as days, weeks and quantities.
Last year, the most cargo carts I handled in one day was 91, and 257 in a four-day week. Surpassing those figures would form the basis of my goals this year. Both of these of these numbers appeared to have been flukes, however, because I only reached as many as 80 in one day a half-dozen times, and no more than 242 in a week on three other occasions. Nevertheless, I always approached each week as if the possibility existed that I might exceed the single day or single week total. I clocked-in early to make certain that I had enough time to run the earliest carts; if I didn’t, then it was likely that the people working the early flights would retrieve the carts themselves, thus diminishing my goal. I wasn’t being paid for additional hour I worked each week, but it didn’t concern me: It was the goal that I set for myself that did. Then one day someone decided that no one was permitted to clock-in earlier than six minutes, which frustrated me because I inevitably was going to miss at least a half-dozen carts every morning, and I had no chance of attaining the goals I had set for myself.
Then in the middle of this past April, something remarkable occurred. After months of piddling numbers, one day I ran 93 carts, a new record. The next day, 89 carts—the third highest single-day total—and 268 for the week, another record. The following week, it was 97 in one day, and 290 for the week. Although the following weeks saw rather fewer carts, their totals were still in the top-ten all-time. The numbers were back up the following four weeks, but in no way threatening the single day and single week totals. Still, I was running 20 percent more carts than even during the busiest period last year, and for the first time I perceived the possibility of cracking the 100 cart barrier in one day, and 300 in a week. The reason for this optimism, as it turned-out, was not due to a sudden improvement in the economy, but because too much cargo was being bumped-off flights because of incorrectly calculated weights (I told you about OPS), and it lessened the aggravation of re-configuring the cargo that wasn’t loaded, if the carts had fewer items to begin with. Or something like that.
After six disappointing weeks, last week began in impressive fashion; three hours into day one I was already half-way to 100 carts, and by 2/3rd point of the day I had reached what once seemed improbable. By the end of the day, I had tallied 113 carts. I knew from experience that each of the following days would see fewer carts, but with this start 300 carts over four days was possible if not probable. I hoped to reach the 200 cart level by the end of day two, but it ended with a disappointing 80 carts. I would need 107 carts over Saturday and Sunday, and that was unlikely; my hopes had been crushed. My hopes were further diminished when I was told that I could not run carts before I clocked-in. Nevertheless, on Saturday I seemed well on the way of moving at least 70 carts, which I had failed to do all year. My optimism had rebounded—that is until a supervisor conspired against the accomplishment of my goal. During one of the busier periods, I was forced to baggage to fill-in for some guy’s lunch break, because the person who would have done so quit the previous day. For an hour I stewed over all the carts I was being denied to pad my numbers; when I finished the day I could count only 67 carts. I would need 40 carts to reach my ultimate goal of 300 carts in a week; my average Sunday total was only 35, and just thinking about that made me even angrier about what had happened that day.
Sunday morning I was determined that no one and nothing—not the Port police, Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs, those annoying TSAs, UAL goons or even our own unthinking people—was going to stop me from accomplishing my mission. Sunday began auspiciously enough—I was thrilled to see twenty carts already waiting for me; and it only got better. By the half-way point of the day the 300 barrier had been surpassed. I searched for other goals to reach. The most significant one would be reaching the 50 cart mark on Sunday, which I had never done; another was 320 carts for the week—an average of 80 a day, the threshold which constituted a “great” day; and 1,120 carts over a one-month period, an average of 70 carts a day. None of these goals would be “easy,” because Sundays typically “died” in the afternoon. I fumed in frustration at carts being dribbled in now, and how I might fall short because of what occurred the day before; but eventually the 50-cart mark was reach. I was still short of my other goals ten minutes left in my shift; I only needed three carts, but as the minutes stole away, I gave-up hope. But with five minutes left and I was packing-up to leave, I beheld an unbelievable sight: Three carts coming from the warehouse. Oh please let them be something that I could take instead of my relief man. Yes, they’re mine! What a day! 60 carts on a Sunday, 320 for the week, and 1,122 for four weeks! I am happy.
Now that is how I motivate myself to wake-up at 2 AM and not return home until 5 PM, for small change. Being a little crazy sometimes helps.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
These guys could be Metro's "driver of the year"
Yesterday, I boarded the 5:46 PM bus for King County Metro Route 150 out of Kent Station. I paid my fare and was about to sit down when the driver, a rotund, balding white man, said something to me. At first I didn’t understand what his issue was, but then he pointed at a cup I was holding. It had no lid on it, that was true, but it was mostly drained of liquid except for some remains of coffee clinging to the ice at the bottom of the cup. The driver told me I had to take it outside. What? I was only going to be on the bus for five minutes, and it was just ice and I wanted to save it. Now some drivers are “nice,” and some are not; some are reasonable, and others are not. You never know what kind of driver you will get. This driver was clearly of the variety whose used his “discretion” to bully people. No, I was told, it had to be covered. OK, I had a plastic bag, so I proceeded to put the cup inside the bag and tied the top, so that it would be “covered.” But no, it was his way or the highway. What an arrogant jerk. I mumbled under my breath “Maybe I should take the next bus,” and proceeded to get off the bus to deposit the cup in the nearby trash can; I intended to get back on the bus since I had already paid the fare. But as I was proceeding thus, the driver shut the door and started driving off; I yelled “You Nazi.” Why? Because Adolf was in there chuckling to himself, apparently quite pleased that he had an opportunity to work out his bigoted angst in a discriminatory fashion.
Every time some “incident” happens on a Metro bus that involves some undisciplined passenger, the local media is quick to make with the “statistics” that make it appear as if buses are full of dangerous and violent people, but the fact is that such “incidents” are quantitatively infinitesimal compared to rude and discriminatory behavior by some Metro bus drivers. It goes beyond a driver sitting at a park-and-ride taking his or her break, and then pulling out several minutes early when they see someone running toward the bus, just because he or she likes exercising the power they are given to be jerks. Metro buses do have an advertisement inside the Route 150 buses providing an anti-discrimination statement given in several Asian languages, but not in Spanish; the problem is that other than the drivers, the people most likely to engage in discriminatory behavior are Asians and white female passengers. The only languages the anti-discrimination statement should be in are the same languages the “ride right” posting is given in: English and Spanish, since Latinos and blacks are the groups most likely to experience discrimination—which shouldn’t be a surprise, since these are also the two groups that experience the greatest amount of discrimination in this society as a whole. And I have more than once heard drivers making disparaging remarks about Latinos—which of course doesn’t surprise me either, since I’ve never seen a Latino bus driver for Metro, and I believe that there is a culture of prejudice (one unfortunately shared by some black as well as white employees) at Metro.
I’ll recap a few—and I emphasize just a “few”—of the “incidents” I’ve experienced:
• When there was still surface bus travel in downtown Seattle, I was waiting at a stop near the public library; I observed with a certain amount of incredulity as a driver apparently decided she didn’t need to stop and pick up that annoying, insignificant person, if it prevented her from getting through that yellow light. I didn’t just stand there and stew; I started running in the direction of the bus, and caught-up to it four blocks away. I asked the red-faced driver “Remember me?”
• There is a stop at 196th and 68th S in Kent. The drivers never stop at the designated stop because it is too difficult to get around the curved curb to move into traffic; why Metro has not moved the stop location to take this into account is beyond my comprehension, and apparently theirs as well. On the other hand, the drivers pick-and-choose where they will stop; if they don’t like the way you look, they stop anywhere except where you are standing. On one occasion I was standing at a spot that was more or less in the vicinity where a driver “typically” stops, but one particular driver decided he really didn’t like me, and not just zoomed past me, but past the “official” stop and proceeded to jump the curved curb because he was driving so fast. When I caught-up to the bus, I gave the driver a long stare, but surprisingly for me I said nothing. When I took my seat, I noticed that the driver was glaring at me from his rearview mirror; I started staring at him back. This continued for several moments, until the driver told me to get off the bus because of my “attitude.” I got off the bus, but I told him I was going to contact Metro about him. This contact resulted in the only apology I ever received out of my many complaints to Metro—except that it wasn’t in regard to this episode, but an addendum: This was the same rude driver who did not read the DOT notices posted at several bus stops informing drivers that a certain road was closed after a certain hour, and they had to take a detour. This driver drove obliviously down that road until he encountered DOT workers who told him he could not go through; he argued with them for ten minutes, apparently because he didn’t want his supervisor to know about his screw-up. Eventually, a Metro supervisor appeared, and because there was no way to make a U-turn, the bus had to be carefully backed up for about a mile; by the time the bus was “back on track,” an hour had passed. I noted in my complaint that this driver never once apologized to passengers for the inconvenience due to his incompetence.
• An incident involving gender politics: I was waiting at a designated stop; there was a female waiting as well, except she didn’t want to be contaminated by me, so she stood some considerable distance away. The bus came by, but instead of stopping at the designated location where I was, the white female driver stopped dead at where the woman was. This is the way I look at this situation: The female passenger-to-be was expressing her prejudice against me, and she should not incur any benefit from it. I walked quickly toward the bus, and got to door before this other person did, but the driver thrust her hand toward me and with that arrogant glee that one might expect from a misandrist, feminist type, forbid me to enter the bus before the female. After I boarded the bus, I informed the driver that I refuse to be shit on regardless of who does it, and discrimination comes in many forms; this seemed to let the air out of her conceited gasbag, and she sort-of apologized when I exited the bus.
• A Latino woman (she appeared to be an indigenous Indian) and I were standing alone at a bus stop in Kent when we saw the bus turn the corner. There were two white people running toward the stop in the same direction as the bus; about 20 yards from the stop the bus driver began an absurd series of starts and stops; I watched incredulously as the driver tried to get the attention of these two people so they could get on the bus before we did. The driver even opened the door to try to nudge them inside, but they ignored the bus and kept walking; in fact, they were not even getting on the bus at all. When I boarded the bus, I asked the driver if he had read the anti-discrimination posting inside the bus—as if it mattered: Metro bus drivers are pretty much allowed to abuse their “authority,” and apparently have no fear that they will be brought to book.
• I was waiting for a bus at a designated stop when the driver zoomed past me and made a dead stop at crosswalk. He let out a passenger and quickly slammed the door shut—except by that time I had caught up to the bus, and my arm was stuck in the door. The driver had driven several feet before he noticed that there was an arm sticking through the door. From the time I boarded to the time I exited ten minutes later, I put the driver on notice that there was no way he was going to get away with this. However, I took pity on him because by then he appeared to be pissing in his pants, and he was apologizing profusely.
Most people probably would just let these things go, because they believe that there is nothing they can do, or they believe that the driver is permitted extraordinary privilege; I on the other hand take nothing lightly, especially when it is wrong. It may be that some Metro bus drivers are venting their frustrations on “easy prey” because of the effects of budget cuts on bus service, which affects their job security. However, they still should remember that they have no livelihood without passengers—most of whom are forced to spend an exorbitant percentage of their take-home pay on bus transport—and from taxpayer contributions. People might look different, but their money is all the same color, and because of that all passengers deserve the same consideration without resort to personal prejudice. Considering how many complaints I have lodged at Metro, that message just isn’t getting through some dull skulls. Oh, and by the way, who is named “Driver of the Year” is not determined by customer satisfaction ratings; it is essentially a popularity contest conducted by fellow Metro employees.
Every time some “incident” happens on a Metro bus that involves some undisciplined passenger, the local media is quick to make with the “statistics” that make it appear as if buses are full of dangerous and violent people, but the fact is that such “incidents” are quantitatively infinitesimal compared to rude and discriminatory behavior by some Metro bus drivers. It goes beyond a driver sitting at a park-and-ride taking his or her break, and then pulling out several minutes early when they see someone running toward the bus, just because he or she likes exercising the power they are given to be jerks. Metro buses do have an advertisement inside the Route 150 buses providing an anti-discrimination statement given in several Asian languages, but not in Spanish; the problem is that other than the drivers, the people most likely to engage in discriminatory behavior are Asians and white female passengers. The only languages the anti-discrimination statement should be in are the same languages the “ride right” posting is given in: English and Spanish, since Latinos and blacks are the groups most likely to experience discrimination—which shouldn’t be a surprise, since these are also the two groups that experience the greatest amount of discrimination in this society as a whole. And I have more than once heard drivers making disparaging remarks about Latinos—which of course doesn’t surprise me either, since I’ve never seen a Latino bus driver for Metro, and I believe that there is a culture of prejudice (one unfortunately shared by some black as well as white employees) at Metro.
I’ll recap a few—and I emphasize just a “few”—of the “incidents” I’ve experienced:
• When there was still surface bus travel in downtown Seattle, I was waiting at a stop near the public library; I observed with a certain amount of incredulity as a driver apparently decided she didn’t need to stop and pick up that annoying, insignificant person, if it prevented her from getting through that yellow light. I didn’t just stand there and stew; I started running in the direction of the bus, and caught-up to it four blocks away. I asked the red-faced driver “Remember me?”
• There is a stop at 196th and 68th S in Kent. The drivers never stop at the designated stop because it is too difficult to get around the curved curb to move into traffic; why Metro has not moved the stop location to take this into account is beyond my comprehension, and apparently theirs as well. On the other hand, the drivers pick-and-choose where they will stop; if they don’t like the way you look, they stop anywhere except where you are standing. On one occasion I was standing at a spot that was more or less in the vicinity where a driver “typically” stops, but one particular driver decided he really didn’t like me, and not just zoomed past me, but past the “official” stop and proceeded to jump the curved curb because he was driving so fast. When I caught-up to the bus, I gave the driver a long stare, but surprisingly for me I said nothing. When I took my seat, I noticed that the driver was glaring at me from his rearview mirror; I started staring at him back. This continued for several moments, until the driver told me to get off the bus because of my “attitude.” I got off the bus, but I told him I was going to contact Metro about him. This contact resulted in the only apology I ever received out of my many complaints to Metro—except that it wasn’t in regard to this episode, but an addendum: This was the same rude driver who did not read the DOT notices posted at several bus stops informing drivers that a certain road was closed after a certain hour, and they had to take a detour. This driver drove obliviously down that road until he encountered DOT workers who told him he could not go through; he argued with them for ten minutes, apparently because he didn’t want his supervisor to know about his screw-up. Eventually, a Metro supervisor appeared, and because there was no way to make a U-turn, the bus had to be carefully backed up for about a mile; by the time the bus was “back on track,” an hour had passed. I noted in my complaint that this driver never once apologized to passengers for the inconvenience due to his incompetence.
• An incident involving gender politics: I was waiting at a designated stop; there was a female waiting as well, except she didn’t want to be contaminated by me, so she stood some considerable distance away. The bus came by, but instead of stopping at the designated location where I was, the white female driver stopped dead at where the woman was. This is the way I look at this situation: The female passenger-to-be was expressing her prejudice against me, and she should not incur any benefit from it. I walked quickly toward the bus, and got to door before this other person did, but the driver thrust her hand toward me and with that arrogant glee that one might expect from a misandrist, feminist type, forbid me to enter the bus before the female. After I boarded the bus, I informed the driver that I refuse to be shit on regardless of who does it, and discrimination comes in many forms; this seemed to let the air out of her conceited gasbag, and she sort-of apologized when I exited the bus.
• A Latino woman (she appeared to be an indigenous Indian) and I were standing alone at a bus stop in Kent when we saw the bus turn the corner. There were two white people running toward the stop in the same direction as the bus; about 20 yards from the stop the bus driver began an absurd series of starts and stops; I watched incredulously as the driver tried to get the attention of these two people so they could get on the bus before we did. The driver even opened the door to try to nudge them inside, but they ignored the bus and kept walking; in fact, they were not even getting on the bus at all. When I boarded the bus, I asked the driver if he had read the anti-discrimination posting inside the bus—as if it mattered: Metro bus drivers are pretty much allowed to abuse their “authority,” and apparently have no fear that they will be brought to book.
• I was waiting for a bus at a designated stop when the driver zoomed past me and made a dead stop at crosswalk. He let out a passenger and quickly slammed the door shut—except by that time I had caught up to the bus, and my arm was stuck in the door. The driver had driven several feet before he noticed that there was an arm sticking through the door. From the time I boarded to the time I exited ten minutes later, I put the driver on notice that there was no way he was going to get away with this. However, I took pity on him because by then he appeared to be pissing in his pants, and he was apologizing profusely.
Most people probably would just let these things go, because they believe that there is nothing they can do, or they believe that the driver is permitted extraordinary privilege; I on the other hand take nothing lightly, especially when it is wrong. It may be that some Metro bus drivers are venting their frustrations on “easy prey” because of the effects of budget cuts on bus service, which affects their job security. However, they still should remember that they have no livelihood without passengers—most of whom are forced to spend an exorbitant percentage of their take-home pay on bus transport—and from taxpayer contributions. People might look different, but their money is all the same color, and because of that all passengers deserve the same consideration without resort to personal prejudice. Considering how many complaints I have lodged at Metro, that message just isn’t getting through some dull skulls. Oh, and by the way, who is named “Driver of the Year” is not determined by customer satisfaction ratings; it is essentially a popularity contest conducted by fellow Metro employees.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Seattle needs a credibility check
In recent years, Seattle has received the appellation of “superstar city.” What does that mean? It can’t mean that it has a natural history museum you can lose yourself in on a slow day like there is in New York, Washington D.C. or Chicago; back in the 1980s I laughed at the tiny Los Angeles County museum, but since then it has vastly expanded with an impressive dinosaur skeleton exhibit. To me, that is what a “superstar” city must have. Well, there is the Pacific Science Center, except that outside a traveling temporary exhibit, all the price of your ticket is doing is keeping up the rent on the building, not what’s in it.
No, what “superstar” means in this context is that Seattle is appealing to yuppie and affluent whites. They come here not just because of depressed home prices in a place that outsiders think is a “tourist” city; it took me ten years to go up the Space Needle, and only because my brother wanted to, and having visited the little public aquarium, and the zoo with “natural” exhibits where you’d be fortunate to actually see the animals, the art museum that is as squished inside as it looks outside, I don’t have to see more. Seattle is the kind of place where you have to have money to have a “good time.” They also come to Seattle because it is considered a “white” city—one of the “whitest” in the country—and for a long time one of those “hyper-segregated” cities where what minorities there are were isolated in little “islands,” mainly in the central and southern parts of the city. Seattle likes to call itself a “progressive” town; I call it narcissism.
The Economist recently noted this trend and a portion of its meaning. “By 2010 the islands had largely gone. Seattle and Portland had become ‘smart cities,’ magnets for hordes of young, highly educated and highly paid newcomers, most of them white and childless. Hungry for ‘diversity’ and rushing into relatively rundown black neighborhoods, they snapped up the only housing bargains left. White-owned banks were eager to make loans to yuppies. Tens of thousands of houses were gutted and rebuilt. As gentrification gathered pace, property prices exploded. Black homeowners cashed in, taking their windfalls to the suburbs. Black renters were squeezed out by higher rents.”
The actual thrust of the Economist story concerned "black flight” to the suburbs, although it did not have all its assumptions straight. While some black professionals did vacate inner city neighborhoods for suburbs, the reality was that because of the housing bubble during the Bush administration that inflated property values, the higher property taxes that were then incurred were beyond the means of many black families earning well below the median wage to keep their homes. Also, blacks tended to be charged far higher home finance charges than whites—nearly three times that of whites, according to one study—thus they had little equity, and often had little choice but to “cash in” for what modest amount they could gain when eager white buyers came calling. When the bubble burst, property in previously white-shunned neighborhoods found even more eager developer wanting to take advantage of the situation. These developers who built housing units were supposed to include “affordable” housing and rental units; but with the income of many minority and low-income families far below the median income that the city set as a baseline—that is to say, the poverty range—many long-time residents in the central and southern districts of the city found themselves in a fiscal predicament with no help from city government. While some neighborhoods in the Central District have dropped from 80 percent black forty years ago to 20 percent today, The Economist noted that conditions in the suburbs that blacks are “fleeing” to have not always been what they hoped:
“This is proving a mixed blessing. Well-educated blacks are finding better jobs, bigger houses and newer schools, just as white-flight suburbanites did in previous generations. But many lower-income migrants from the inner cities are finding poverty, crime and poor social services when they arrive in their new homes. In the past decade, poverty has increased more than twice as fast in the suburbs as it has in the cities.”
In the last decade, thousands of affordable rentals units have been either demolished to make room for condominiums, or have seen their rents increased drastically—pricing out low-income renters—or have been simply demolished. I used to live in an apartment (that had seen much better days) on Seneca near downtown Seattle. In 1992, living on something near poverty wages, I was paying $350 a month for the privilege; sure it was a rat and roach-infested closet, but at least its low cost left me a little to live on. In 1998, a finance company bought it from the owners, who could no longer afford its upkeep; I received a notice the following week that the rent was being raised to $650 in two months, then $750 the following month. I had to move out because I couldn’t afford to pay that on my meager wages, but apparently the new management was unable find enough people willing to pay the higher rent for those dilapidated digs; today the apartment building, and an adjacent building, is nothing but a pile of rubble, and has been a pile of rubble since at least 2004.
While the Seattle Times has nibbled at the affordable housing issue to no discernable effect, it has shown a preference to take the side of those who wish to “whiten” the city. For example, in the past six months it took a hammer to mainly black school district officials for real or alleged corrupt practices in assisting schools in minority neighborhoods, and more recently attacking a black church who allegedly received a “sweet deal” from the school district in buying the property of a mostly black school that had recently been closed, in order to keep it “in the neighborhood”—that is the black community. The leading competitor for the property was a largely white and affluent private school; as was going on in the rest of the city, whites with money were simply taking everything. The Times chose to evade the moral issue involved of how the monied people have been allowed by the city to profit from the current economic stresses; so much for being a “progressive” city. Instead, the Times prefers to assault black officials and community leaders without once trying to understand their motivations or concerns in the face of an unequal reality, choosing rather to portray them as corrupt villains--thus allowing readers to evade the moral issues themselves.
No, what “superstar” means in this context is that Seattle is appealing to yuppie and affluent whites. They come here not just because of depressed home prices in a place that outsiders think is a “tourist” city; it took me ten years to go up the Space Needle, and only because my brother wanted to, and having visited the little public aquarium, and the zoo with “natural” exhibits where you’d be fortunate to actually see the animals, the art museum that is as squished inside as it looks outside, I don’t have to see more. Seattle is the kind of place where you have to have money to have a “good time.” They also come to Seattle because it is considered a “white” city—one of the “whitest” in the country—and for a long time one of those “hyper-segregated” cities where what minorities there are were isolated in little “islands,” mainly in the central and southern parts of the city. Seattle likes to call itself a “progressive” town; I call it narcissism.
The Economist recently noted this trend and a portion of its meaning. “By 2010 the islands had largely gone. Seattle and Portland had become ‘smart cities,’ magnets for hordes of young, highly educated and highly paid newcomers, most of them white and childless. Hungry for ‘diversity’ and rushing into relatively rundown black neighborhoods, they snapped up the only housing bargains left. White-owned banks were eager to make loans to yuppies. Tens of thousands of houses were gutted and rebuilt. As gentrification gathered pace, property prices exploded. Black homeowners cashed in, taking their windfalls to the suburbs. Black renters were squeezed out by higher rents.”
The actual thrust of the Economist story concerned "black flight” to the suburbs, although it did not have all its assumptions straight. While some black professionals did vacate inner city neighborhoods for suburbs, the reality was that because of the housing bubble during the Bush administration that inflated property values, the higher property taxes that were then incurred were beyond the means of many black families earning well below the median wage to keep their homes. Also, blacks tended to be charged far higher home finance charges than whites—nearly three times that of whites, according to one study—thus they had little equity, and often had little choice but to “cash in” for what modest amount they could gain when eager white buyers came calling. When the bubble burst, property in previously white-shunned neighborhoods found even more eager developer wanting to take advantage of the situation. These developers who built housing units were supposed to include “affordable” housing and rental units; but with the income of many minority and low-income families far below the median income that the city set as a baseline—that is to say, the poverty range—many long-time residents in the central and southern districts of the city found themselves in a fiscal predicament with no help from city government. While some neighborhoods in the Central District have dropped from 80 percent black forty years ago to 20 percent today, The Economist noted that conditions in the suburbs that blacks are “fleeing” to have not always been what they hoped:
“This is proving a mixed blessing. Well-educated blacks are finding better jobs, bigger houses and newer schools, just as white-flight suburbanites did in previous generations. But many lower-income migrants from the inner cities are finding poverty, crime and poor social services when they arrive in their new homes. In the past decade, poverty has increased more than twice as fast in the suburbs as it has in the cities.”
In the last decade, thousands of affordable rentals units have been either demolished to make room for condominiums, or have seen their rents increased drastically—pricing out low-income renters—or have been simply demolished. I used to live in an apartment (that had seen much better days) on Seneca near downtown Seattle. In 1992, living on something near poverty wages, I was paying $350 a month for the privilege; sure it was a rat and roach-infested closet, but at least its low cost left me a little to live on. In 1998, a finance company bought it from the owners, who could no longer afford its upkeep; I received a notice the following week that the rent was being raised to $650 in two months, then $750 the following month. I had to move out because I couldn’t afford to pay that on my meager wages, but apparently the new management was unable find enough people willing to pay the higher rent for those dilapidated digs; today the apartment building, and an adjacent building, is nothing but a pile of rubble, and has been a pile of rubble since at least 2004.
While the Seattle Times has nibbled at the affordable housing issue to no discernable effect, it has shown a preference to take the side of those who wish to “whiten” the city. For example, in the past six months it took a hammer to mainly black school district officials for real or alleged corrupt practices in assisting schools in minority neighborhoods, and more recently attacking a black church who allegedly received a “sweet deal” from the school district in buying the property of a mostly black school that had recently been closed, in order to keep it “in the neighborhood”—that is the black community. The leading competitor for the property was a largely white and affluent private school; as was going on in the rest of the city, whites with money were simply taking everything. The Times chose to evade the moral issue involved of how the monied people have been allowed by the city to profit from the current economic stresses; so much for being a “progressive” city. Instead, the Times prefers to assault black officials and community leaders without once trying to understand their motivations or concerns in the face of an unequal reality, choosing rather to portray them as corrupt villains--thus allowing readers to evade the moral issues themselves.
Just like old times in Georgia
From “hurt feelings,” bruised egos, and white men and woman arguing about who is the superior being, we go to the grotesque reality of deliberate dehumanization:
“Hordes of grasping, pushing foreigners who are stealing jobs from American workmen and bread from American homes. It is to combat this peril, to preserve and protect standards of living which made American workmen the envy of the world that we, the challengers, have raised our rallying cry, 'America for Americans.' The problems has got beyond the point where the American workman can cope with it alone. He needs guidance, solidarity and expert advise on the subject of protecting his job. We, the challengers, are organized to provide that solidarity and advise. Ours is an organization. It is an organization of which it might be said, ‘He who is not with us is against us.’ The choice, my friends, is a simple one. Do you want our red, white and blue flag replaced by the vile banner of anarchy? The time has come when we must realize what is going on in this great land of ours. When the real, hundred percent American must stop and think.”
Sound vaguely familiar? How about this?
“In mighty multitudes, they have swarmed to our shores to take refuge under the protection of the greatest government on Earth. And how have they rewarded the fine, generous, liberty-loving people who opened to them their hearts, their homes and their horizons of opportunity? I will tell you how. With the basest ingratitude and the vilest of treachery. Spurning American ideals and the sacred principles for which our forefathers fought they have clung tenaciously to their alien doctrines, foreign faiths and un-American morals. Like poisonous vipers, they have patiently bided their time while they've fed on the bosom of our country. Now enriched with the jobs they have chiseled away from Americans and drunk with the power of their stolen prosperity they are plotting to seize control of our government, overthrow our glorious republic and subjugate the American people to their own dastardly designs. Standing alone, you and I are helpless to defend ourselves against this deadly peril. Helpless to protect our homes and families from the menace that threatens. But if we unite with millions of other red-blooded Americans, we are invincible. With fire and sword, we will purge the land of these traitorous aliens and throttle their every deadly scheme till once more, our beloved stars and stripes will wave over a united nation of free, white, 100 percent Americans!”
Changing the “shores” to “borders,” we can hear variations of this rhetoric any day on right-wing talk radio or Fox News; what that really means in effect is that this kind of extremist hate talk has emerged from the cesspool of hate groups to “mainstream” status. The above commentary is from an obscure 1937 film called the “Black Legion” starring Humphrey Bogart, based on the real-life off-shoot of the Ku Klux Klan that had a brief existence during the worst of the Great Depression. Bogart’s Frank Taylor wasn’t really a hater; he just had a bad habit of feeling sorry for himself. He chuckles at the silliness of the secret knocks when he arrives at a Legion meeting; later at his induction, he is obviously uncomfortable reading the violent tripe that is the group’s oath of allegiance. Nevertheless, he at first thrills at the opportunity to vent his frustration about not landing that foreman job given to a more studious immigrant; within the safety of group-think he helps vandalize and burn homes and businesses, and beating anyone who isn’t “100 percent American.” The “grand wizard” of the outfit, perhaps needless to say, can’t wait to expand the Legion’s membership—not for ideological reasons, but because more members means more cash in his pocket from dues and fees. When Taylor’s best friend threatens to expose him and the Legion to the police unless he shapes-up, Taylor—knowing that his new “friends” would kill him if tried to leave the group—arranges for his real friend to be subjected to whipping but instead shoots him when he tries to escape. Taylor is arrested and put on trial for murder; having alienated his wife by lying about his activities, he is no longer concerned about his fate, but the Legion threatens to do harm to his wife and child unless he “cooperates”—meaning keeping quiet about the Legion. In the end, Taylor can’t maintain the pretence and the lies that are breaking his wife’s heart, and exposes all the Black Legion members in the courtroom, there to make sure everything goes according to plan—effectively ending their criminal activities.
What is amazing about this film is not that it was fact-based. The anti-immigrant Black Legion was real. Its activities ranged in several Midwestern states, but principally in Michigan and particularly Detroit; its victims were mostly black, but any white who was an immigrant, religious minority or was engaged in “socialist” or “communist” activities—such as labor rights movements—was also a potential target. The Legion’s anti-labor activities apparently included infiltrating the UAW in order to obtain “inside information” for auto company management. According to a Detroit News historical retrospective on the group, its “oath of allegiance” declared that as native-born white Americans, “We regard as enemies to ourselves and our country all aliens, Negroes, Jews and cults and creeds believing in racial equality or owing allegiance to any foreign potentates. These we will fight without fear or favor as long as one foe of American liberty is left alive.” Interestingly, the Legion set-up a political front—the Wolverine Republican Club—which received support from local Republican politicians, despite the reputation of the “club” engaging in unsavory and often violent acts against the opponents of their preferred candidates. The Legion—as implied in the film—was eventually brought down by the murder of a white man, who was a labor rights activist.
What is remarkable about the film is that in 1936, a film company—Warner Brothers—had decided that the public needed to be educated about the menaces to civilized society in its midst. Not immigrants or racial minorities, but the so-called “100 percent Americans.” These people were not in fact “real” Americans—their refusal to countenance “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” for anyone but themselves was inimical to the American ideal. “Black Legion” was one of many “minor” films during that time that took on what FDR referred to as “fear itself” being perpetrated by the propaganda of the right. Today, we can ask ourselves a different question: Who in the media, whether in film or news reporting, is exposing the real menace to this country, those who inspire fear and hatred toward entire groups deemed “undesirable” and preventing any rational discourse? Outside of a few dedicated groups like the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center, almost no one. The current Tea Party “Movement” is just another of a long, sorry line of racist, anti-immigrant and anti-government groups that have polluted political discourse over the centuries, hiding their extremism behind the façade of clichés provided them by their corporate pay and puppet-masters. The media hasn’t figured it out yet, but the truth will eventually win-out; the question is if by that time will be it too late to avert its destructive course.
Nor has the media or the film industry had the courage to expose to the general public the dangers the country faces from unbridled hatred and the demonization of vulnerable people of whom the vast majority have endured trials and tribulations that few “real” Americans will ever know. The SPL Center reported that there are 319 nativist extremist groups targeting immigrants in 2010. The largest by number of chapters is the Federal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Coalition. On its website, the group warns against the “conquest” of the United States by Latin American. It implies that the entire population of Latin America, which it puts at 550 million, is poised to invade and overwhelm the United States and its meager population of 300 million. Who are these undocumented “hordes” invading the country—most of whom are not from Mexico (although most pass through Mexico) but from Central American countries as well as China, the Middle East, Africa and India? An immigrant from Belize told the Associated Press that their experiences before reaching the U.S. include “running from the military, the authorities, the police and now the criminals…We are just poor people, we’re just passing through. Why do they have to do this to us? I’m not afraid. I’m prepared to die. I’m tired of suffering in this world.” And then many suffer the same after they come to America. These are the people that Pat Buchanan said are “out to destroy America.” The suffering comes not just from past exploitation of Central America by U.S. interests that undermined the interests of indigenous peoples in favor of Euro-elites; as I noted in a prior post, the current violence in Mexico’s drug “industry” is a direct result of the “successful” war against the top Colombian cartels in the 1990s. Like so much of the U.S.’s usually self-serving foreign policy activities, its intervention in Columbia backfired—only making matters worse by bringing the violence closer to home; previous routes used by the Colombians through Florida were obviously much less prone to be the scene of violence, save in the country of origin, far from U.S. shores.
Once in this country, it is question of relativity. Hot on the heels of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law that mandates racial profiling against Latinos, is Georgia’s anti-immigrant H.B. 87, which essentially mirrors the Arizona law. But there is a philosophical difference: In Georgia, it is like the playground bully who beats down a smaller kid just because he doesn’t like him—and then the victim of the beating is suspended from school so he won’t be around to tempt the bully into beating him again.
The Nation recently examined the current climate in Georgia with a story on the emergence of a new version of Jim Crow in which Latinos regardless of legal status are forced to endure—“Juan Crow”: “A racial and political climate in which Latinos' subordinate status in Georgia and in the Deep South bears more than a passing resemblance to that of African-Americans who were living under Jim Crow. Call it Juan Crow: the matrix of laws, social customs, economic institutions and symbolic systems enabling the physical and psychic isolation needed to control and exploit” immigrants. The SPL Center goes further:
“This treatment - which many Latinos liken to the oppressive climate of racial subordination that blacks endured during the Jim Crow era - is encouraged by politicians and media figures who scapegoat immigrants and spread false propaganda. And as a result of relentless vilification in the media, Latinos are targeted for harassment by racist extremist groups, some of which are directly descended from the old guardians of white supremacy…Instead of acting to prohibit and eliminate systematic exploitation and discrimination against Latinos, state and local governments in much of the South have exacerbated the situation. A number of Southern communities, for example, have enacted ordinances designed to limit services to undocumented immigrants and make their lives as difficult as possible, with the ultimate goal of driving them away. In addition, many law enforcement agencies in the South, armed with so-called 287(g) agreements with the federal government, are enforcing immigration law in a way that has led to accusations of systematic racial profiling…We found a population under siege and living in fear - fear of the police, fear of the government and fear of criminals who prey on immigrants because of their vulnerability.”
Since all Latinos are considered “suspect,” the discrimination has been generalized. The top man in perpetrating this spread of race hatred in Georgia is Gov. Nathan Deal. Does this interest cable news outlets like CNN? Of course not; it would rather spend time criticizing a doctored photo of Deal in a Spanish language newspaper, wearing a Nazi uniform. Frankly, my impression was that it fit him just fine.
In 2004, the Center exposed the so-called “Battle of 'Georgiafornia.” While there have been more high profile cases as such as the murder of an immigrant in Shenandoah, PA that involved white “youths” and a cover-up by local police that led to indictments and convictions on civil rights charges, it appears by all accounts that the Georgia’s under-the-radar incidents happen with great frequency. In a lengthy piece written by Bob Moser, stories such as students from a Canton, Georgia high school engaging in their own Black Legion-like activities would seem to be the norm, not the exception. After a string of unexplained beatings and robberies of immigrant laborers, arrests were made after one of the students bragged that he and his gang were “robbing and beating up Mexicans.” According to an assistant police chief, the “Mexicans” were “easy prey.” The difference between the lower-class thugs who made-up the Black Legion and these thugs could not be more stark, however: One was “an heir to one of the county's most powerful (Republican) families.” He was also the president of high school AG club. Another thug was a junior ROTC cadet; still another was an Explorer Scout. These were all “kids” from well-to-do families for whom Latinos had become so dehumanized from media, political and local propaganda that they had become mere animals.
Moser noted that “In the formerly homogenous town of Chamblee, just north of Atlanta, white residents began complaining as early as 1992 about the ‘terrible, filthy people’ standing on their street corners. At a town council meeting, one official infamously suggested that residents set bear traps in their yards to keep the Hispanics at bay. Another councilman wondered aloud whether Chamblee whites should form a vigilante group to scare off the immigrants. In every part of the U.S. where large numbers of Hispanic immigrants have moved, anti-immigration groups have sprung up in protest. But the backlash in Georgia has been fueled not only by these ‘mainstream’ groups, but also by hardcore neo-Nazis, Southern ‘heritage’ activists and white-supremacist hate groups — all of them saying strikingly similar things about the ‘Mexican invasion.’" An “ethnic war” is in the offing—a second Civil War, according to some these fanatics.
A few brave souls recognized that allowing this hate to “mainstream” has dangerous consequences. One of them was State Sen. Vincent Fort, a civil rights activist whose district is a largely black section of Atlanta. Fort supported a group of Latinos seeking to march in Doraville, but were being forced to pay for “police protection.” Fort argued before the city council that the Latino group’s free speech rights were being hindered merely because they were “different.” After some testy—and racially insensitive commentary—the Latino group was eventually allowed to conduct their march, but Fort predicted that “As they start to assert themselves and defend their rights, it won't be pleasant. We know that from the civil-rights movement.”
A civil-rights analyst for the National Council of La Raza was more blunt: "The message sent by these (aforementioned Canton) assaults is already bad enough. If you wake up at 5 a.m. and want to work hard in Georgia, you're putting your life at risk."
The final scene in “Black Legion” had the judge making the following address to the members of the Legion who had just been convicted of murder:
“Furthermore, your idea of patriotism and Americanism is hideous to all decent citizens. It violates every protection guaranteed by the Bill of Rights in our constitution. The Bill of Rights, assuring to us freedom of religious opinion and security of person and property against the attack of illegal and extralegal forces is the cornerstone of true Americanism. And must be jealously guarded if we are to remain a free people. We cannot permit racial or religious hatreds to be stirred up so that innocent citizens become the victims of accusations brought in secrecy. We cannot permit unknown tribunals to pass judgments. Nor punishments to be inflicted by a band of hooded terrorists. Unless all of these illegal and extralegal forces are ruthlessly wiped out this nation may as well abandon its constitution forget its Bill of Rights, tear down its courts of justice and revert to the barbarism of government by primitive violence. This would mean relinquishing everything that civilized man has won by the most prodigious effort over a course of the past five centuries. The American people made their choice long ago. Their blood and their sacrifices secured for us the basic human rights: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Their wisdom built the structure of our democratic form of government expressly to keep sacred and inviolate these same human rights. It is our duty to guard them zealously if we are to remain a nation of free men. As Abraham Lincoln said: "Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is the spirit that prizes liberty as the heritage of all men in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors."
Then, as now, the real threat to country are the cowards who hide their crimes to civilized society behind the façade of “patriotism” and “Americanism.” Who will stand up to them? Mighty few indeed from what I can see.
“Hordes of grasping, pushing foreigners who are stealing jobs from American workmen and bread from American homes. It is to combat this peril, to preserve and protect standards of living which made American workmen the envy of the world that we, the challengers, have raised our rallying cry, 'America for Americans.' The problems has got beyond the point where the American workman can cope with it alone. He needs guidance, solidarity and expert advise on the subject of protecting his job. We, the challengers, are organized to provide that solidarity and advise. Ours is an organization. It is an organization of which it might be said, ‘He who is not with us is against us.’ The choice, my friends, is a simple one. Do you want our red, white and blue flag replaced by the vile banner of anarchy? The time has come when we must realize what is going on in this great land of ours. When the real, hundred percent American must stop and think.”
Sound vaguely familiar? How about this?
“In mighty multitudes, they have swarmed to our shores to take refuge under the protection of the greatest government on Earth. And how have they rewarded the fine, generous, liberty-loving people who opened to them their hearts, their homes and their horizons of opportunity? I will tell you how. With the basest ingratitude and the vilest of treachery. Spurning American ideals and the sacred principles for which our forefathers fought they have clung tenaciously to their alien doctrines, foreign faiths and un-American morals. Like poisonous vipers, they have patiently bided their time while they've fed on the bosom of our country. Now enriched with the jobs they have chiseled away from Americans and drunk with the power of their stolen prosperity they are plotting to seize control of our government, overthrow our glorious republic and subjugate the American people to their own dastardly designs. Standing alone, you and I are helpless to defend ourselves against this deadly peril. Helpless to protect our homes and families from the menace that threatens. But if we unite with millions of other red-blooded Americans, we are invincible. With fire and sword, we will purge the land of these traitorous aliens and throttle their every deadly scheme till once more, our beloved stars and stripes will wave over a united nation of free, white, 100 percent Americans!”
Changing the “shores” to “borders,” we can hear variations of this rhetoric any day on right-wing talk radio or Fox News; what that really means in effect is that this kind of extremist hate talk has emerged from the cesspool of hate groups to “mainstream” status. The above commentary is from an obscure 1937 film called the “Black Legion” starring Humphrey Bogart, based on the real-life off-shoot of the Ku Klux Klan that had a brief existence during the worst of the Great Depression. Bogart’s Frank Taylor wasn’t really a hater; he just had a bad habit of feeling sorry for himself. He chuckles at the silliness of the secret knocks when he arrives at a Legion meeting; later at his induction, he is obviously uncomfortable reading the violent tripe that is the group’s oath of allegiance. Nevertheless, he at first thrills at the opportunity to vent his frustration about not landing that foreman job given to a more studious immigrant; within the safety of group-think he helps vandalize and burn homes and businesses, and beating anyone who isn’t “100 percent American.” The “grand wizard” of the outfit, perhaps needless to say, can’t wait to expand the Legion’s membership—not for ideological reasons, but because more members means more cash in his pocket from dues and fees. When Taylor’s best friend threatens to expose him and the Legion to the police unless he shapes-up, Taylor—knowing that his new “friends” would kill him if tried to leave the group—arranges for his real friend to be subjected to whipping but instead shoots him when he tries to escape. Taylor is arrested and put on trial for murder; having alienated his wife by lying about his activities, he is no longer concerned about his fate, but the Legion threatens to do harm to his wife and child unless he “cooperates”—meaning keeping quiet about the Legion. In the end, Taylor can’t maintain the pretence and the lies that are breaking his wife’s heart, and exposes all the Black Legion members in the courtroom, there to make sure everything goes according to plan—effectively ending their criminal activities.
What is amazing about this film is not that it was fact-based. The anti-immigrant Black Legion was real. Its activities ranged in several Midwestern states, but principally in Michigan and particularly Detroit; its victims were mostly black, but any white who was an immigrant, religious minority or was engaged in “socialist” or “communist” activities—such as labor rights movements—was also a potential target. The Legion’s anti-labor activities apparently included infiltrating the UAW in order to obtain “inside information” for auto company management. According to a Detroit News historical retrospective on the group, its “oath of allegiance” declared that as native-born white Americans, “We regard as enemies to ourselves and our country all aliens, Negroes, Jews and cults and creeds believing in racial equality or owing allegiance to any foreign potentates. These we will fight without fear or favor as long as one foe of American liberty is left alive.” Interestingly, the Legion set-up a political front—the Wolverine Republican Club—which received support from local Republican politicians, despite the reputation of the “club” engaging in unsavory and often violent acts against the opponents of their preferred candidates. The Legion—as implied in the film—was eventually brought down by the murder of a white man, who was a labor rights activist.
What is remarkable about the film is that in 1936, a film company—Warner Brothers—had decided that the public needed to be educated about the menaces to civilized society in its midst. Not immigrants or racial minorities, but the so-called “100 percent Americans.” These people were not in fact “real” Americans—their refusal to countenance “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” for anyone but themselves was inimical to the American ideal. “Black Legion” was one of many “minor” films during that time that took on what FDR referred to as “fear itself” being perpetrated by the propaganda of the right. Today, we can ask ourselves a different question: Who in the media, whether in film or news reporting, is exposing the real menace to this country, those who inspire fear and hatred toward entire groups deemed “undesirable” and preventing any rational discourse? Outside of a few dedicated groups like the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center, almost no one. The current Tea Party “Movement” is just another of a long, sorry line of racist, anti-immigrant and anti-government groups that have polluted political discourse over the centuries, hiding their extremism behind the façade of clichés provided them by their corporate pay and puppet-masters. The media hasn’t figured it out yet, but the truth will eventually win-out; the question is if by that time will be it too late to avert its destructive course.
Nor has the media or the film industry had the courage to expose to the general public the dangers the country faces from unbridled hatred and the demonization of vulnerable people of whom the vast majority have endured trials and tribulations that few “real” Americans will ever know. The SPL Center reported that there are 319 nativist extremist groups targeting immigrants in 2010. The largest by number of chapters is the Federal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Coalition. On its website, the group warns against the “conquest” of the United States by Latin American. It implies that the entire population of Latin America, which it puts at 550 million, is poised to invade and overwhelm the United States and its meager population of 300 million. Who are these undocumented “hordes” invading the country—most of whom are not from Mexico (although most pass through Mexico) but from Central American countries as well as China, the Middle East, Africa and India? An immigrant from Belize told the Associated Press that their experiences before reaching the U.S. include “running from the military, the authorities, the police and now the criminals…We are just poor people, we’re just passing through. Why do they have to do this to us? I’m not afraid. I’m prepared to die. I’m tired of suffering in this world.” And then many suffer the same after they come to America. These are the people that Pat Buchanan said are “out to destroy America.” The suffering comes not just from past exploitation of Central America by U.S. interests that undermined the interests of indigenous peoples in favor of Euro-elites; as I noted in a prior post, the current violence in Mexico’s drug “industry” is a direct result of the “successful” war against the top Colombian cartels in the 1990s. Like so much of the U.S.’s usually self-serving foreign policy activities, its intervention in Columbia backfired—only making matters worse by bringing the violence closer to home; previous routes used by the Colombians through Florida were obviously much less prone to be the scene of violence, save in the country of origin, far from U.S. shores.
Once in this country, it is question of relativity. Hot on the heels of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law that mandates racial profiling against Latinos, is Georgia’s anti-immigrant H.B. 87, which essentially mirrors the Arizona law. But there is a philosophical difference: In Georgia, it is like the playground bully who beats down a smaller kid just because he doesn’t like him—and then the victim of the beating is suspended from school so he won’t be around to tempt the bully into beating him again.
The Nation recently examined the current climate in Georgia with a story on the emergence of a new version of Jim Crow in which Latinos regardless of legal status are forced to endure—“Juan Crow”: “A racial and political climate in which Latinos' subordinate status in Georgia and in the Deep South bears more than a passing resemblance to that of African-Americans who were living under Jim Crow. Call it Juan Crow: the matrix of laws, social customs, economic institutions and symbolic systems enabling the physical and psychic isolation needed to control and exploit” immigrants. The SPL Center goes further:
“This treatment - which many Latinos liken to the oppressive climate of racial subordination that blacks endured during the Jim Crow era - is encouraged by politicians and media figures who scapegoat immigrants and spread false propaganda. And as a result of relentless vilification in the media, Latinos are targeted for harassment by racist extremist groups, some of which are directly descended from the old guardians of white supremacy…Instead of acting to prohibit and eliminate systematic exploitation and discrimination against Latinos, state and local governments in much of the South have exacerbated the situation. A number of Southern communities, for example, have enacted ordinances designed to limit services to undocumented immigrants and make their lives as difficult as possible, with the ultimate goal of driving them away. In addition, many law enforcement agencies in the South, armed with so-called 287(g) agreements with the federal government, are enforcing immigration law in a way that has led to accusations of systematic racial profiling…We found a population under siege and living in fear - fear of the police, fear of the government and fear of criminals who prey on immigrants because of their vulnerability.”
Since all Latinos are considered “suspect,” the discrimination has been generalized. The top man in perpetrating this spread of race hatred in Georgia is Gov. Nathan Deal. Does this interest cable news outlets like CNN? Of course not; it would rather spend time criticizing a doctored photo of Deal in a Spanish language newspaper, wearing a Nazi uniform. Frankly, my impression was that it fit him just fine.
In 2004, the Center exposed the so-called “Battle of 'Georgiafornia.” While there have been more high profile cases as such as the murder of an immigrant in Shenandoah, PA that involved white “youths” and a cover-up by local police that led to indictments and convictions on civil rights charges, it appears by all accounts that the Georgia’s under-the-radar incidents happen with great frequency. In a lengthy piece written by Bob Moser, stories such as students from a Canton, Georgia high school engaging in their own Black Legion-like activities would seem to be the norm, not the exception. After a string of unexplained beatings and robberies of immigrant laborers, arrests were made after one of the students bragged that he and his gang were “robbing and beating up Mexicans.” According to an assistant police chief, the “Mexicans” were “easy prey.” The difference between the lower-class thugs who made-up the Black Legion and these thugs could not be more stark, however: One was “an heir to one of the county's most powerful (Republican) families.” He was also the president of high school AG club. Another thug was a junior ROTC cadet; still another was an Explorer Scout. These were all “kids” from well-to-do families for whom Latinos had become so dehumanized from media, political and local propaganda that they had become mere animals.
Moser noted that “In the formerly homogenous town of Chamblee, just north of Atlanta, white residents began complaining as early as 1992 about the ‘terrible, filthy people’ standing on their street corners. At a town council meeting, one official infamously suggested that residents set bear traps in their yards to keep the Hispanics at bay. Another councilman wondered aloud whether Chamblee whites should form a vigilante group to scare off the immigrants. In every part of the U.S. where large numbers of Hispanic immigrants have moved, anti-immigration groups have sprung up in protest. But the backlash in Georgia has been fueled not only by these ‘mainstream’ groups, but also by hardcore neo-Nazis, Southern ‘heritage’ activists and white-supremacist hate groups — all of them saying strikingly similar things about the ‘Mexican invasion.’" An “ethnic war” is in the offing—a second Civil War, according to some these fanatics.
A few brave souls recognized that allowing this hate to “mainstream” has dangerous consequences. One of them was State Sen. Vincent Fort, a civil rights activist whose district is a largely black section of Atlanta. Fort supported a group of Latinos seeking to march in Doraville, but were being forced to pay for “police protection.” Fort argued before the city council that the Latino group’s free speech rights were being hindered merely because they were “different.” After some testy—and racially insensitive commentary—the Latino group was eventually allowed to conduct their march, but Fort predicted that “As they start to assert themselves and defend their rights, it won't be pleasant. We know that from the civil-rights movement.”
A civil-rights analyst for the National Council of La Raza was more blunt: "The message sent by these (aforementioned Canton) assaults is already bad enough. If you wake up at 5 a.m. and want to work hard in Georgia, you're putting your life at risk."
The final scene in “Black Legion” had the judge making the following address to the members of the Legion who had just been convicted of murder:
“Furthermore, your idea of patriotism and Americanism is hideous to all decent citizens. It violates every protection guaranteed by the Bill of Rights in our constitution. The Bill of Rights, assuring to us freedom of religious opinion and security of person and property against the attack of illegal and extralegal forces is the cornerstone of true Americanism. And must be jealously guarded if we are to remain a free people. We cannot permit racial or religious hatreds to be stirred up so that innocent citizens become the victims of accusations brought in secrecy. We cannot permit unknown tribunals to pass judgments. Nor punishments to be inflicted by a band of hooded terrorists. Unless all of these illegal and extralegal forces are ruthlessly wiped out this nation may as well abandon its constitution forget its Bill of Rights, tear down its courts of justice and revert to the barbarism of government by primitive violence. This would mean relinquishing everything that civilized man has won by the most prodigious effort over a course of the past five centuries. The American people made their choice long ago. Their blood and their sacrifices secured for us the basic human rights: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Their wisdom built the structure of our democratic form of government expressly to keep sacred and inviolate these same human rights. It is our duty to guard them zealously if we are to remain a nation of free men. As Abraham Lincoln said: "Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is the spirit that prizes liberty as the heritage of all men in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors."
Then, as now, the real threat to country are the cowards who hide their crimes to civilized society behind the façade of “patriotism” and “Americanism.” Who will stand up to them? Mighty few indeed from what I can see.
Hurt feelings and bruised egos
I was listening to National Public Radio the other day when I heard a commentator named Jacki Lyden express dismay that Nobel Prize winner V.S. Naipaul told an interviewer at some British convention that “no woman could ever be his literary match.” He seemed (at least to mainly female listeners) to be dismissive of Jane Austen’s work, claiming that he couldn’t share her “sentimental ambitions, her sentimental sense of the world.” Lyden expressed shock at the “misogynistic” tendencies of this author she claims to have venerated in a past life; Lyden is a writer herself, so we should know that this is also about bruised egos (I must confess that Lyden is one of thousands of such superstars-in-their-own-minds I’ve never heard of). I will first say, however, that it is more than a little presumptuous to say that NO woman could ever be his literary match; frankly I have to confess that while I’ve heard of him, I have no familiarity with Naipaul work, so I wouldn’t know. What I do know is that I don’t feel the lesser because of it. On the other hand, if you would have to ask if Shakespeare would receive the same reaction if he was around today to make such a statement; who then would be the presumptuous one? In regard to Austen and other female British writers of the 19th century, you have to admit it would be a less interesting world without Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights and Frankenstein; they certainly made great movies and television mini-series. Nevertheless, to say that one doesn’t share Austen’s “sentimental sense of the world” is not a criticism, but an observation; looking out at the world today, is it hard to be sentimental about anything, unless you can afford it.
I have to confess that outside one or two historical works, I’ve never read any book written by a woman, not due to prejudice but because they never seem to author anything within the sphere of my interests; a large quantity works by women seem to have appeal only to those who are supposed to “understand” its narrow and often self-serving personal politics. Self-empowerment and “spiritual” tomes? I say get a life. The novels and historical works I prefer to read address some grand or universal moral question, and the novels of this stripe tend to be the recognized classics; I have no patience for the petty and personal, which I find dishonest and hypocritical. I confess that when I was younger I liked reading action/thriller fiction, but over time I outgrew childish pleasures; there was the real world to contend with.
I can’t read books about serial victimization and simplistic black-and-white conclusions that infuses so much literature (fiction or non) written by women. It’s bone-dull and untruthful. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to say that? It is the truth. I won’t read a biography of Thomas Becket that paints a picture of a “saint,” whose struggle with Henry II was about based on purely religious motivations. That would not only be a dull story, and it would be a false one: Becket, who spent most of his life engaged in worldly interests, was less concerned with doing God’s work than in refusing to be Henry’s pliant tool—the lust for power, independent of the crown, was Becket’s principal concern. The tragedy was that there was no compromise from either side. Even a story seemingly as cut-and-dry as the Dreyfus Affair is not without some measure of ambiguity; the French generals who seemed incomprehensibly set on being blind to justice were not bad men. Having been initially convinced of Dreyfus’ guilt, they believed the “honor” of the army was at stake, particularly given the still fresh memory of its humiliating defeat at the hands of Bismarck’s Prussia.
What is the “alternative?” Books like Kate Millett’s tome on the Sylvia Likens murder, which I recently discussed? Women reviewers on Amazon may think her “stream of consciousness” victimology musings are “truth,” but that only goes to show that she (and they) cannot be trusted with dispassionate elucidation of facts. Millett practically claimed have an out-of-body understanding of Likens’ experience and yet also sought to justify Gertrude Baniszewski’s horrifying actions. I may not be female, but I can say I have (slightly) greater understanding of the situation than Millett ever would. I remember arriving at school one morning when I encountered a teacher on a staircase; she expressed concern about where those welts around my neck came from; I told her that the school bus I was on had an accident, and I had gotten a whiplash. I was sent to a hospital and given a neck brace; the “amusing” part of this story was that it was all a lie, which I was prone to engage in because I never experienced any positive result from the truth until after I left home. I’ll leave the context of this story to the imagination.
The same distrust holds for any account of the life of Margaret Sanger, the patron “saint” of the abortion movement; the truth is that she was no “saint”—she was a racist and class bigot who saw abortion as a means to keep the “undesirable” population to a minimum; philosophically, she was even more extreme than the Nazis, whose euthanasia policy targeted those allegedly with mental and physical handicaps—while Sanger would target the presumably healthy offspring of racial minorities, the poor and supposedly inferior European “races.” I’ve already talked about Winnie Mandela, who is being feted in opera and film as some sort of “saint” as well. The truth was that she turned from symbol of the anti-Apartheid movement to a greedy, power-mad megalomaniac with a tendency to violence—the exact opposite of what her former husband would become. It all comes down to a matter of trust; it is alright to have a bias, but it must be tempered with the recognition of facts that might offer a different conclusion. This is true not just of non-fiction, but fiction as well; Voltaire’s Candide may have had a “pure” soul, but Voltaire was too cynical of the reality of human nature to allow for a dishonest caricature. More than once, the “sweet-tempered” Candide engaged in what could charitably be referred to as simple murder.
Back to the NPR story, Lyden complains that Naipaul dismissed a book by his former publisher as evidence that women have a "narrow view of the world, since she is inevitably not a complete master of the house." Since when is it “misogynist” to simply re-state what feminists and women’s studies departments have been saying for years? Haven’t we been told again and again, ad nauseam, that we live in a “patriarchal” society that oppresses women? If it were not “true,” then the radicals would have nothing to talk about. I wouldn’t say that women writers having a narrow us-against-them view of the world that does not take into account that women are far from morally and ethically pure is necessarily bad from a commercial point of view, if women like reading that kind of thing. But it does mean it is a narrow, one-sided perspective where it is difficult to discover truth. If the New York Review of Books recognizes this, then so be it. Lyden quoted a female writer critical of the alleged “misogyny” of the Review who said "Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything." I tried for several minutes to deduce logic from that statement, but was forced to abandon the project. The first two statements have not been true for a very long time, and because they are not true, the third statement can just as easily—perhaps more so—be applied to books written by women, which in fact account for the majority of books being published each year. Filling the alleged “knowledge gap” in the female experience while ignoring contextual considerations and facts that hinder a preconceived conclusion doesn’t “prove” anything, either—except the “hubris” of that author.
For quite a long time, the term “misogyny” has thrown around a lot. Sometimes it is applied when a man makes a statement that is taken as a negative stereotype (positive stereotypes are, of course, heartily approved of). But more often they are used to ward off uncomfortable facts. The other day there was blurb in the Seattle Times sports page about some question and answer session with a women’s soccer player named Hope Solo. The accompanying photo showed a blonde woman striking a haughty, tough guy pose. Nothing wrong with that—it’s a typical athlete pose. The problem was that it struck too close to an uncomfortable truth. In a match against Brazil several years ago, the coach of the U.S. soccer team decided to use Brianna Scurry as the goalkeeper instead of Solo; Scurry was the older, more experienced player who had had success in prior years. What was Solo’s reaction? She sulked, gave-off bad vibes, refused to support the team and sat by herself like any selfish prima donna. Her juvenile, destructive behavior negatively affected psychologically the team, which lost the match. It is worth noting that Scurry is black; one wonders if the arrogant Solo—whose actions mirrored her name to the detriment of the team—would have taken it better if she was white. How did the Times report the story? It portrayed Solo as a "victim" who went through an "ordeal." Her behavior could be explained by her “competitiveness,” not her belief in her racial superiority. Outside commentators were, however, less generous, since it was clear that her conduct was the very definition of unsportsmanlike.
Is it “misogynistic” as well to point out such things as how feminist columnist Bonnie Erbe urged Barack Obama—after he had essentially locked-up the Democratic nomination—to step aside in favor of her preferred candidate because “whites wouldn’t vote for him?” Does she mean white women like Harriet Christian, of “inadequate black man” infamy? How about the USA Today reporter who did not ask Eleanor Smeal to explain her “racism against white women” comment? How come it’s the Southern Poverty Law Center that has to tell us about Laine Lawless? Back in 2006, the Center reported how this former “high priestess” of a lesbian outfit called the “Sisterhood of the Moon,” and present anti-immigrant fanatic, was providing “advice” to local neo-Nazis on how to terrorize and harass “Mexican” children. The Center recently offered an update on her activities, including a photo of her burning a Mexican flag; despite her denials, she still has neo-Nazi connections, recently attended a talk by Holocaust denier David Irving, and is one of the few people still defending Shawna Forde. Forde—a Washington native who was active in an unstable way in the anti-immigrant Minuteman movement—was sentenced to death earlier this year after her conviction in the home invasion murder of a Latino man and his 9-year-old daughter. Curiously, the Seattle Times—which frequently publishes stories designed to inflame passions against Latinos—printed nothing about this latest “twist.”
There is nothing I despise worse than hypocrisy, and I won’t let hypocrites to dissuade me from being troubled by it, regardless who is guilty of it. As long as the purveyors of this hypocrisy are not only encouraged but applauded for their “truth,” I will continue at take the opportunity to every now and again to poke at the narcissism and conceit of it all.
I have to confess that outside one or two historical works, I’ve never read any book written by a woman, not due to prejudice but because they never seem to author anything within the sphere of my interests; a large quantity works by women seem to have appeal only to those who are supposed to “understand” its narrow and often self-serving personal politics. Self-empowerment and “spiritual” tomes? I say get a life. The novels and historical works I prefer to read address some grand or universal moral question, and the novels of this stripe tend to be the recognized classics; I have no patience for the petty and personal, which I find dishonest and hypocritical. I confess that when I was younger I liked reading action/thriller fiction, but over time I outgrew childish pleasures; there was the real world to contend with.
I can’t read books about serial victimization and simplistic black-and-white conclusions that infuses so much literature (fiction or non) written by women. It’s bone-dull and untruthful. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to say that? It is the truth. I won’t read a biography of Thomas Becket that paints a picture of a “saint,” whose struggle with Henry II was about based on purely religious motivations. That would not only be a dull story, and it would be a false one: Becket, who spent most of his life engaged in worldly interests, was less concerned with doing God’s work than in refusing to be Henry’s pliant tool—the lust for power, independent of the crown, was Becket’s principal concern. The tragedy was that there was no compromise from either side. Even a story seemingly as cut-and-dry as the Dreyfus Affair is not without some measure of ambiguity; the French generals who seemed incomprehensibly set on being blind to justice were not bad men. Having been initially convinced of Dreyfus’ guilt, they believed the “honor” of the army was at stake, particularly given the still fresh memory of its humiliating defeat at the hands of Bismarck’s Prussia.
What is the “alternative?” Books like Kate Millett’s tome on the Sylvia Likens murder, which I recently discussed? Women reviewers on Amazon may think her “stream of consciousness” victimology musings are “truth,” but that only goes to show that she (and they) cannot be trusted with dispassionate elucidation of facts. Millett practically claimed have an out-of-body understanding of Likens’ experience and yet also sought to justify Gertrude Baniszewski’s horrifying actions. I may not be female, but I can say I have (slightly) greater understanding of the situation than Millett ever would. I remember arriving at school one morning when I encountered a teacher on a staircase; she expressed concern about where those welts around my neck came from; I told her that the school bus I was on had an accident, and I had gotten a whiplash. I was sent to a hospital and given a neck brace; the “amusing” part of this story was that it was all a lie, which I was prone to engage in because I never experienced any positive result from the truth until after I left home. I’ll leave the context of this story to the imagination.
The same distrust holds for any account of the life of Margaret Sanger, the patron “saint” of the abortion movement; the truth is that she was no “saint”—she was a racist and class bigot who saw abortion as a means to keep the “undesirable” population to a minimum; philosophically, she was even more extreme than the Nazis, whose euthanasia policy targeted those allegedly with mental and physical handicaps—while Sanger would target the presumably healthy offspring of racial minorities, the poor and supposedly inferior European “races.” I’ve already talked about Winnie Mandela, who is being feted in opera and film as some sort of “saint” as well. The truth was that she turned from symbol of the anti-Apartheid movement to a greedy, power-mad megalomaniac with a tendency to violence—the exact opposite of what her former husband would become. It all comes down to a matter of trust; it is alright to have a bias, but it must be tempered with the recognition of facts that might offer a different conclusion. This is true not just of non-fiction, but fiction as well; Voltaire’s Candide may have had a “pure” soul, but Voltaire was too cynical of the reality of human nature to allow for a dishonest caricature. More than once, the “sweet-tempered” Candide engaged in what could charitably be referred to as simple murder.
Back to the NPR story, Lyden complains that Naipaul dismissed a book by his former publisher as evidence that women have a "narrow view of the world, since she is inevitably not a complete master of the house." Since when is it “misogynist” to simply re-state what feminists and women’s studies departments have been saying for years? Haven’t we been told again and again, ad nauseam, that we live in a “patriarchal” society that oppresses women? If it were not “true,” then the radicals would have nothing to talk about. I wouldn’t say that women writers having a narrow us-against-them view of the world that does not take into account that women are far from morally and ethically pure is necessarily bad from a commercial point of view, if women like reading that kind of thing. But it does mean it is a narrow, one-sided perspective where it is difficult to discover truth. If the New York Review of Books recognizes this, then so be it. Lyden quoted a female writer critical of the alleged “misogyny” of the Review who said "Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything." I tried for several minutes to deduce logic from that statement, but was forced to abandon the project. The first two statements have not been true for a very long time, and because they are not true, the third statement can just as easily—perhaps more so—be applied to books written by women, which in fact account for the majority of books being published each year. Filling the alleged “knowledge gap” in the female experience while ignoring contextual considerations and facts that hinder a preconceived conclusion doesn’t “prove” anything, either—except the “hubris” of that author.
For quite a long time, the term “misogyny” has thrown around a lot. Sometimes it is applied when a man makes a statement that is taken as a negative stereotype (positive stereotypes are, of course, heartily approved of). But more often they are used to ward off uncomfortable facts. The other day there was blurb in the Seattle Times sports page about some question and answer session with a women’s soccer player named Hope Solo. The accompanying photo showed a blonde woman striking a haughty, tough guy pose. Nothing wrong with that—it’s a typical athlete pose. The problem was that it struck too close to an uncomfortable truth. In a match against Brazil several years ago, the coach of the U.S. soccer team decided to use Brianna Scurry as the goalkeeper instead of Solo; Scurry was the older, more experienced player who had had success in prior years. What was Solo’s reaction? She sulked, gave-off bad vibes, refused to support the team and sat by herself like any selfish prima donna. Her juvenile, destructive behavior negatively affected psychologically the team, which lost the match. It is worth noting that Scurry is black; one wonders if the arrogant Solo—whose actions mirrored her name to the detriment of the team—would have taken it better if she was white. How did the Times report the story? It portrayed Solo as a "victim" who went through an "ordeal." Her behavior could be explained by her “competitiveness,” not her belief in her racial superiority. Outside commentators were, however, less generous, since it was clear that her conduct was the very definition of unsportsmanlike.
Is it “misogynistic” as well to point out such things as how feminist columnist Bonnie Erbe urged Barack Obama—after he had essentially locked-up the Democratic nomination—to step aside in favor of her preferred candidate because “whites wouldn’t vote for him?” Does she mean white women like Harriet Christian, of “inadequate black man” infamy? How about the USA Today reporter who did not ask Eleanor Smeal to explain her “racism against white women” comment? How come it’s the Southern Poverty Law Center that has to tell us about Laine Lawless? Back in 2006, the Center reported how this former “high priestess” of a lesbian outfit called the “Sisterhood of the Moon,” and present anti-immigrant fanatic, was providing “advice” to local neo-Nazis on how to terrorize and harass “Mexican” children. The Center recently offered an update on her activities, including a photo of her burning a Mexican flag; despite her denials, she still has neo-Nazi connections, recently attended a talk by Holocaust denier David Irving, and is one of the few people still defending Shawna Forde. Forde—a Washington native who was active in an unstable way in the anti-immigrant Minuteman movement—was sentenced to death earlier this year after her conviction in the home invasion murder of a Latino man and his 9-year-old daughter. Curiously, the Seattle Times—which frequently publishes stories designed to inflame passions against Latinos—printed nothing about this latest “twist.”
There is nothing I despise worse than hypocrisy, and I won’t let hypocrites to dissuade me from being troubled by it, regardless who is guilty of it. As long as the purveyors of this hypocrisy are not only encouraged but applauded for their “truth,” I will continue at take the opportunity to every now and again to poke at the narcissism and conceit of it all.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Immigration: the neverending story
National Public Radio recently aired a story about yet another one of those dirty little secrets about the immigration debate. 30 of the 36 legislative co-sponsors of Arizona’s anti-immigrant SB 1070 had received money and direction from another one of those under-the-radar right-wing organizations, this time called ALEC—the American Legislative Exchange Council. Twenty-one of those co-sponsors are active members of the group. It’s not easy finding out what exactly ALEC is pushing until they actually help draft laws; on their website they have a list of pet projects, but the details are somewhat obscure, because you have to be an “approved” member to find out. That is to say, you have to be a legislator or businessperson with the proper political “credentials.”
What does ALEC have to do with immigration policy? Some of their membership are in the private prison industry. What is it that they hope to achieve? To build new prison facilities. To fill them with “criminals?” According to an Arizona city manager quoted in the NPR story, a man who resembled a car salesman pitched him a scheme to build a new prison in his neighborhood—to be filled with women and children who were undocumented immigrants. The prison pitchman boasted that he could keep the prison filled indefinitely, and there would be lots of money in it for the city, based on the per diem per inmate charged to the state. How could this largesse be maintained? “Because prison companies like this one had a plan — a new business model to lock up illegal immigrants. And the plan became Arizona’s immigration law,” according to NPR.
There were a lot of other hands in drafting SB 1070 (like the ironically acronymed FAIR), but the people who stand to gain the most from this law are not the “good” people of Arizona, but the members of ALEC in the private prison business; Russell Pearce, the right-wing extremist in the Arizona legislature and prime mover of anti-immigrant laws, is apparently ecstatic that these private companies could come to Arizona and make hundreds of millions in profits off taxpayers while public services go wanting (this brings to mind a comedy called “Johnnie English” starring Rowan Atkinson; John Malkovich played an evil Frenchman in the private prison business, scheming to turn Britain into the repository for all the “scum” of Europe).
One may ask if in an alleged government of the people, by the people and for the people if businesses running government is democratic or even “republican.” Ask in vain. An ALEC representative baldly claimed to NPR that private companies not only do get to write bills that directly profit them, but that they should. “Yeah, that’s the way it’s set up. It’s a public-private partnership. We believe both sides, businesses and lawmakers should be at the same table, together.” Where are “the people” at this table? It’s their money going into the pockets of corporations with almost no benefit to themselves.
The ironic thing about all of this is that beyond the federal government’s refusal to address immigration save as a law enforcement issue and dehumanize undocumented workers in a way that justifies anything done against them, the private prison industry has no incentive to push for immigration reform. If anything, it directly profits from the continuation of illegal immigration, which is just another factor in the nonsense that is the immigration “debate.” When it comes to human trafficking, this is where the real money is at; American corporations don't need to be taught anything from foreign amateurs.
***********************************************************
Thom Hartmann—“number one” in progressive talk radio, or so he says—should be commended for enlightening his listeners on a variety of topics, and vigorously “debating” right-wing cliché-mongers. There are some issues, however, where he is takes the populist-mob position. The other day I heard him assert that the U.S. was in danger of becoming a Third World country--like Mexico, of course. This “Third World” claim isn’t new; Republicans and mainstream white supremacists like Pat Buchanan have been making this comparison for years. I used to post comments on Hartmann’s daily blog, before my access was blocked; apparently there is a limit to free speech even on a “progressive” site, particularly in regard to the causes of illegal immigration and by association Latinos in general—second only to the political right as the top “threat” to the country in the “progressive” mind. I usually kept to the script on most issues listeners were commenting on, but once the issue of immigration came-up, I was frequently disheartened by the small-mindedness and even purposeful ignorance of what I was reading (or listening to from Hartmann).
All the prevailing myths—they don’t pay taxes, they’re taking YOUR job, they’re driving down wages, jobs are all going to Mexico because of NAFTA—were treated as much as fact as on any right-wing media outlet. I tried to explain to these closet bigots that the tax issue does not stand-up to close scrutiny (although Barack Obama to his discredit used it in his recent immigration speech), and that illegal immigration was caused by pervasive racial discrimination in Mexico (the stratification of Mexican society between Euro-elites and everyone else is quite clear merely by watching Spanish language television), labor shortages in many sectors of the American economy (particularly with the explosion of the middle class jobs after World War II, and the fact even admitted by the recent Westat study that “unauthorized” immigrants are much more mobile than native laborers), the failure to reform the work visa program to address the labor shortage issue, the subsidization of American farmers both before and after NAFTA which led to many Mexican small farmers being forced off their land in search of work elsewhere, and the fact that wages were being driven down much more by price competition from China and other Asian countries. Furthermore, the anti-immigrant sentiment always eventually seeped into anti-Latino territory, if only by “association.”
Hartmann’s “Third World” comparison is only true in the sense that like in the U.S., racial inequality is pervasive; Mexico itself is virtually two separate states in a societal sense. The difference in Mexico is that the practice of inequality is done openly, and the Euro-elites rarely feel obligated to even address the issue. The U.S. also shares responsibility for the drug violence in the country, and not just because of the lax laws on firearms (Arizona, as we’ve learned, is one of the states that have zero “common sense” gun laws). The U.S., after all, is the world’s biggest market for illegal drugs. And as in many inner-city communities where jobs are scarce, the drug “economy” is virtually the only “reliable” employment in town.
***********************************************************
Fox News, the Seattle Times and other media outlets dived head-first into the claim made in the recently published Westat study on the veracity of the E-Verify system—an on-line tracking device to check the legal status of individuals who apply for work—that it missed “unauthorized workers” half the time. I, on the other hand, actually read the study, and found its conclusions wanting, when not contradictory and usually completely confusing. Currently only a relative handful of companies use it, and from that Westat examined a fraction as a sample in which to study “in-depth” its accuracy. While the study claims that E-Verify’s accuracy has improved since its last report card, it still allegedly has a 54 percent inaccuracy in regard to detecting “unauthorized” workers, which could have included workers from Asia or Europe who over-stayed their work permits or visas—not necessarily the stereotypical “illegal immigrant.”
During the 2006-2008 time frame under scrutiny, employers sent in 1,500,000 names to E-Verify. Out of all of these, 1,246 employee records were reviewed and employees interviewed. Even if employees identified for review were no longer employed and were no longer living at an indicated address, the researchers tried to hunt them down, questioning neighbors or landlords; one suspects that Westat was targeting people they assumed to be illegal immigrants—most likely those who had Spanish names—and these assumptions would be used in their final conclusions, regardless of factual information. If potential interviewees were reluctant to talk, a $25 “incentive” was offered in exchange for cooperation. Fifty-five of the interviews were conducted in Spanish; this does not necessarily mean the interviewees didn’t speak at least some English or should be automatically assumed to be illegal, but just a comfort level in communicating. After all, most recent Eastern European and Asian immigrants (who apparently everyone believes are all here legally, which is not true) generally prefer to converse in their native tongues. Some interviews were conducted by phone, since some workers lived in areas “that the interviewer was not comfortable visiting.” Between the lines, one detects the intent to pursue and harass a particular targeted group (can’t we guess who that might be).
The report admitted that its undersized sampling might not lead to accurate assessments:
“The high nonresponse rates and small sample size for the employer sample did not permit development of weights that would permit reliable estimates of the population from which they were drawn. Since the record review and worker onsite samples were selected from the employer samples, these estimates must also be considered unreliable for population estimates. Therefore, unweighted counts are presented in the report. These results cannot be generalized to the entire population of E-Verify employers and workers and thus should be viewed as the results of qualitative case studies.”
That, course, did not stop the researchers from turning those very generalizations into “facts” for media-ready fodder for the right and the “populist” mob. A little magic dust here, and some hocus-pocus there, and voila:
“The transaction data were subjected to extensive cleaning routines to delete cases that were transmitted in error (e.g., when the employer realized that a typographical error had been made or when the same case was mistakenly transmitted more than once) and to correct situations in which it appeared that the employer had improperly resubmitted cases to SSA as if they were new cases. Although not all errors can be detected by such cleaning programs, the resulting database is a truer reflection of actual case processing for analysis purposes than the original database was.”
Although the “error” rate for native-born citizens barely registered, that for non-native born citizens and legal immigrants accounted for a majority of the initial errors in the E-Verify system; Many if not most of these errors were due to 21 percent of all employer records having input errors, and the failure of federal record keepers to take into account changed immigrant status (sort of like credit reports). But not to worry, because
“Since there are assumed to be a much larger number of workers with employment authorization than workers without employment authorization, the total inaccuracy rate, which can be viewed as a weighted average of two types of inaccuracy rates, is much closer to the inaccuracy rate for workers with employment authorization.”
Whatever you say, whatever that is.
A great many assumptions and complicated-looking mathematical equations are used in the study; no one is supposed to be able to understand them—particularly politicians and journalists—but the more indecipherable, the more “credible,” somehow. After all, someone smarter than you came-up with this hogwash. However, Westat didn’t merely rely on confusing mathematical equations:
“Between April and June 2008, approximately 130,000 noncitizen cases were initially found to be work authorized. In approximately 3,700 of these cases (3 percent), employers requested additional verification of the work-authorized decision through the E-Verify system. Among these questionable cases, 135 cases had a final finding of FNC or unauthorized to work. These 135 cases represent 0.1 percent of all cases initially found work authorized by E-Verify. These cases were presumably erroneously determined to be work authorized initially, but their final finding was correct. However, given the amount of employer lack of familiarity and/or noncompliance with procedures that are more widely publicized than this one, it is reasonable to believe that for each case in which the employer requests additional verification, there are several similar cases in which employers did not request additional verification when it would have been reasonable to do so.”
In other words, in order to come-up with a politically more “acceptable” number, Westat comes right out and admits that it assumes that the information it is getting from employers is incorrect, so it is fudging the numbers on its own. Out of all this confusion, Westat estimates that 54 percent of unauthorized workers are not caught by E-Verify. The researchers admit that this is only a guess, suggesting a “plausible” range of 37 to 64 percent. How it reaches this guess is, as we have seen, subject to made-up “facts.” Take this statement in the report: “The Pew Foundation’s estimate of unauthorized workers in the labor force is most likely an underestimate according to the Director of Homeland Security.” Of course we are supposed to believe the paranoids over at DHS, whose principle occupation is justifying why they exist, like promoting frame-up projects to snare “terrorists” who didn’t know they were.
According to the report, out of the 1.5 million verification notices sent by employers, 5,000 U.S. citizens came back as a “tentative noncomfirmation” by E-Verify. According to the report, only 20 percent of employees or employers contested the false TNC; the reasons why most of these were not contested were the following:
"Contesting a Tentative Nonconfirmation is not encouraged because the process required too much time; providing assistance to employees who contest a Tentative Nonconfirmation is an excessive burden on staff; contesting a Tentative Nonconfirmation is not encouraged because employment authorization rarely results; establishing employment authorization has become a burden because there are so many Tentative Nonconfirmations; work assignments must be restricted until employment authorization is confirmed; pay is reduced until employment authorization is confirmed; training is delayed until after employment authorization is confirmed."
What does all that mean? Just more reasons why not to trust the conclusions of the Westat report.
***********************************************************
Meanwhile, with all this convenient fodder for bigots and paranoids, and the Obama administration now targeting businesses instead of individuals just in time for the 2012 election season, the Immigration Policy Center has just released a report critical of the stupidity of Arizona’s (and by default, Georgia’s) new immigration laws and their negative short and long-term impacts on the economy of the state. As suggested above, Arizona would rather forgo tax revenue, labor and consumerism to help drive the economy from undocumented workers, and spend taxpayer money locking-up women and children for private profit; nobody should ever say that racial prejudice makes any sense. The Center noted that some political elements in California are also considering such laws as Arizona’s, and addressed the foolishness of them in the following language:
“Our analysis finds that the economic and fiscal consequences of widespread deportation for California and L.A. County would be even more devastating than in Arizona. When undocumented workers are taken out of the economy, the jobs they support through their labor, their consumption, and their tax payments disappear as well. Particularly during a time of profound economic uncertainty, the type of dislocation envisioned by harsh immigration enforcement policies runs directly counter to the public interest.” The Center quantified the negative effects of wholesale deportation as such:
Deportation effects on California:
• Decrease total employment by 17.4 percent
• Eliminate 3.6 million jobs
• Shrink the state economy by $301.6 billion
• Reduce state’s tax revenues by 8.5 percent
If all undocumented workers were legalized in California, the effect would be far from catastrophic:
“Conversely, our analysis shows that legalizing the undocumented population in California and L.A. County would yield significant economic benefits. Based on the historical results of the last legalization program under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, similar program would increase wages not only for immigrants but also for their native-born co-workers. This would generate more tax revenue and more consumer and business spending, supporting additional jobs throughout the state and L.A. County economies.” The effect of legalization in California would be the following:
• Add 633,000 jobs
• Increase labor income by $26.9 billion
• Increase tax revenues by $5.3 billion
Thus if California followed Arizona and Georgia's lead of “mass expulsion,” it lead to a “self-destruction” of the California and L.A. county economy. One may recall that this disastrous path was tried in California before by Gov. Pete Wilson, who some voters mistook for a “moderate.” It is pointed out that the simple-minded “debate” on the negative effects of immigration—legal or not—fails to take into account that not only do illegal immigrants pay taxes, they are also consumers. The Center’s figures estimate that undocumented immigrants in California contribute $2.6 billion in taxes to state government now (interestingly, California has recently reported a surge in unexpected tax revenue—from increased income among the wealthy; the bottom 80 percent of the work force continue to lose ground relative to inflation).
Yet misinformation passing for “truth” continues unabated, and reality takes a back seat to politics and racial paranoia. When will it stop? When racial prejudice stops, which will probably be never as long as the human species exists.
What does ALEC have to do with immigration policy? Some of their membership are in the private prison industry. What is it that they hope to achieve? To build new prison facilities. To fill them with “criminals?” According to an Arizona city manager quoted in the NPR story, a man who resembled a car salesman pitched him a scheme to build a new prison in his neighborhood—to be filled with women and children who were undocumented immigrants. The prison pitchman boasted that he could keep the prison filled indefinitely, and there would be lots of money in it for the city, based on the per diem per inmate charged to the state. How could this largesse be maintained? “Because prison companies like this one had a plan — a new business model to lock up illegal immigrants. And the plan became Arizona’s immigration law,” according to NPR.
There were a lot of other hands in drafting SB 1070 (like the ironically acronymed FAIR), but the people who stand to gain the most from this law are not the “good” people of Arizona, but the members of ALEC in the private prison business; Russell Pearce, the right-wing extremist in the Arizona legislature and prime mover of anti-immigrant laws, is apparently ecstatic that these private companies could come to Arizona and make hundreds of millions in profits off taxpayers while public services go wanting (this brings to mind a comedy called “Johnnie English” starring Rowan Atkinson; John Malkovich played an evil Frenchman in the private prison business, scheming to turn Britain into the repository for all the “scum” of Europe).
One may ask if in an alleged government of the people, by the people and for the people if businesses running government is democratic or even “republican.” Ask in vain. An ALEC representative baldly claimed to NPR that private companies not only do get to write bills that directly profit them, but that they should. “Yeah, that’s the way it’s set up. It’s a public-private partnership. We believe both sides, businesses and lawmakers should be at the same table, together.” Where are “the people” at this table? It’s their money going into the pockets of corporations with almost no benefit to themselves.
The ironic thing about all of this is that beyond the federal government’s refusal to address immigration save as a law enforcement issue and dehumanize undocumented workers in a way that justifies anything done against them, the private prison industry has no incentive to push for immigration reform. If anything, it directly profits from the continuation of illegal immigration, which is just another factor in the nonsense that is the immigration “debate.” When it comes to human trafficking, this is where the real money is at; American corporations don't need to be taught anything from foreign amateurs.
***********************************************************
Thom Hartmann—“number one” in progressive talk radio, or so he says—should be commended for enlightening his listeners on a variety of topics, and vigorously “debating” right-wing cliché-mongers. There are some issues, however, where he is takes the populist-mob position. The other day I heard him assert that the U.S. was in danger of becoming a Third World country--like Mexico, of course. This “Third World” claim isn’t new; Republicans and mainstream white supremacists like Pat Buchanan have been making this comparison for years. I used to post comments on Hartmann’s daily blog, before my access was blocked; apparently there is a limit to free speech even on a “progressive” site, particularly in regard to the causes of illegal immigration and by association Latinos in general—second only to the political right as the top “threat” to the country in the “progressive” mind. I usually kept to the script on most issues listeners were commenting on, but once the issue of immigration came-up, I was frequently disheartened by the small-mindedness and even purposeful ignorance of what I was reading (or listening to from Hartmann).
All the prevailing myths—they don’t pay taxes, they’re taking YOUR job, they’re driving down wages, jobs are all going to Mexico because of NAFTA—were treated as much as fact as on any right-wing media outlet. I tried to explain to these closet bigots that the tax issue does not stand-up to close scrutiny (although Barack Obama to his discredit used it in his recent immigration speech), and that illegal immigration was caused by pervasive racial discrimination in Mexico (the stratification of Mexican society between Euro-elites and everyone else is quite clear merely by watching Spanish language television), labor shortages in many sectors of the American economy (particularly with the explosion of the middle class jobs after World War II, and the fact even admitted by the recent Westat study that “unauthorized” immigrants are much more mobile than native laborers), the failure to reform the work visa program to address the labor shortage issue, the subsidization of American farmers both before and after NAFTA which led to many Mexican small farmers being forced off their land in search of work elsewhere, and the fact that wages were being driven down much more by price competition from China and other Asian countries. Furthermore, the anti-immigrant sentiment always eventually seeped into anti-Latino territory, if only by “association.”
Hartmann’s “Third World” comparison is only true in the sense that like in the U.S., racial inequality is pervasive; Mexico itself is virtually two separate states in a societal sense. The difference in Mexico is that the practice of inequality is done openly, and the Euro-elites rarely feel obligated to even address the issue. The U.S. also shares responsibility for the drug violence in the country, and not just because of the lax laws on firearms (Arizona, as we’ve learned, is one of the states that have zero “common sense” gun laws). The U.S., after all, is the world’s biggest market for illegal drugs. And as in many inner-city communities where jobs are scarce, the drug “economy” is virtually the only “reliable” employment in town.
***********************************************************
Fox News, the Seattle Times and other media outlets dived head-first into the claim made in the recently published Westat study on the veracity of the E-Verify system—an on-line tracking device to check the legal status of individuals who apply for work—that it missed “unauthorized workers” half the time. I, on the other hand, actually read the study, and found its conclusions wanting, when not contradictory and usually completely confusing. Currently only a relative handful of companies use it, and from that Westat examined a fraction as a sample in which to study “in-depth” its accuracy. While the study claims that E-Verify’s accuracy has improved since its last report card, it still allegedly has a 54 percent inaccuracy in regard to detecting “unauthorized” workers, which could have included workers from Asia or Europe who over-stayed their work permits or visas—not necessarily the stereotypical “illegal immigrant.”
During the 2006-2008 time frame under scrutiny, employers sent in 1,500,000 names to E-Verify. Out of all of these, 1,246 employee records were reviewed and employees interviewed. Even if employees identified for review were no longer employed and were no longer living at an indicated address, the researchers tried to hunt them down, questioning neighbors or landlords; one suspects that Westat was targeting people they assumed to be illegal immigrants—most likely those who had Spanish names—and these assumptions would be used in their final conclusions, regardless of factual information. If potential interviewees were reluctant to talk, a $25 “incentive” was offered in exchange for cooperation. Fifty-five of the interviews were conducted in Spanish; this does not necessarily mean the interviewees didn’t speak at least some English or should be automatically assumed to be illegal, but just a comfort level in communicating. After all, most recent Eastern European and Asian immigrants (who apparently everyone believes are all here legally, which is not true) generally prefer to converse in their native tongues. Some interviews were conducted by phone, since some workers lived in areas “that the interviewer was not comfortable visiting.” Between the lines, one detects the intent to pursue and harass a particular targeted group (can’t we guess who that might be).
The report admitted that its undersized sampling might not lead to accurate assessments:
“The high nonresponse rates and small sample size for the employer sample did not permit development of weights that would permit reliable estimates of the population from which they were drawn. Since the record review and worker onsite samples were selected from the employer samples, these estimates must also be considered unreliable for population estimates. Therefore, unweighted counts are presented in the report. These results cannot be generalized to the entire population of E-Verify employers and workers and thus should be viewed as the results of qualitative case studies.”
That, course, did not stop the researchers from turning those very generalizations into “facts” for media-ready fodder for the right and the “populist” mob. A little magic dust here, and some hocus-pocus there, and voila:
“The transaction data were subjected to extensive cleaning routines to delete cases that were transmitted in error (e.g., when the employer realized that a typographical error had been made or when the same case was mistakenly transmitted more than once) and to correct situations in which it appeared that the employer had improperly resubmitted cases to SSA as if they were new cases. Although not all errors can be detected by such cleaning programs, the resulting database is a truer reflection of actual case processing for analysis purposes than the original database was.”
Although the “error” rate for native-born citizens barely registered, that for non-native born citizens and legal immigrants accounted for a majority of the initial errors in the E-Verify system; Many if not most of these errors were due to 21 percent of all employer records having input errors, and the failure of federal record keepers to take into account changed immigrant status (sort of like credit reports). But not to worry, because
“Since there are assumed to be a much larger number of workers with employment authorization than workers without employment authorization, the total inaccuracy rate, which can be viewed as a weighted average of two types of inaccuracy rates, is much closer to the inaccuracy rate for workers with employment authorization.”
Whatever you say, whatever that is.
A great many assumptions and complicated-looking mathematical equations are used in the study; no one is supposed to be able to understand them—particularly politicians and journalists—but the more indecipherable, the more “credible,” somehow. After all, someone smarter than you came-up with this hogwash. However, Westat didn’t merely rely on confusing mathematical equations:
“Between April and June 2008, approximately 130,000 noncitizen cases were initially found to be work authorized. In approximately 3,700 of these cases (3 percent), employers requested additional verification of the work-authorized decision through the E-Verify system. Among these questionable cases, 135 cases had a final finding of FNC or unauthorized to work. These 135 cases represent 0.1 percent of all cases initially found work authorized by E-Verify. These cases were presumably erroneously determined to be work authorized initially, but their final finding was correct. However, given the amount of employer lack of familiarity and/or noncompliance with procedures that are more widely publicized than this one, it is reasonable to believe that for each case in which the employer requests additional verification, there are several similar cases in which employers did not request additional verification when it would have been reasonable to do so.”
In other words, in order to come-up with a politically more “acceptable” number, Westat comes right out and admits that it assumes that the information it is getting from employers is incorrect, so it is fudging the numbers on its own. Out of all this confusion, Westat estimates that 54 percent of unauthorized workers are not caught by E-Verify. The researchers admit that this is only a guess, suggesting a “plausible” range of 37 to 64 percent. How it reaches this guess is, as we have seen, subject to made-up “facts.” Take this statement in the report: “The Pew Foundation’s estimate of unauthorized workers in the labor force is most likely an underestimate according to the Director of Homeland Security.” Of course we are supposed to believe the paranoids over at DHS, whose principle occupation is justifying why they exist, like promoting frame-up projects to snare “terrorists” who didn’t know they were.
According to the report, out of the 1.5 million verification notices sent by employers, 5,000 U.S. citizens came back as a “tentative noncomfirmation” by E-Verify. According to the report, only 20 percent of employees or employers contested the false TNC; the reasons why most of these were not contested were the following:
"Contesting a Tentative Nonconfirmation is not encouraged because the process required too much time; providing assistance to employees who contest a Tentative Nonconfirmation is an excessive burden on staff; contesting a Tentative Nonconfirmation is not encouraged because employment authorization rarely results; establishing employment authorization has become a burden because there are so many Tentative Nonconfirmations; work assignments must be restricted until employment authorization is confirmed; pay is reduced until employment authorization is confirmed; training is delayed until after employment authorization is confirmed."
What does all that mean? Just more reasons why not to trust the conclusions of the Westat report.
***********************************************************
Meanwhile, with all this convenient fodder for bigots and paranoids, and the Obama administration now targeting businesses instead of individuals just in time for the 2012 election season, the Immigration Policy Center has just released a report critical of the stupidity of Arizona’s (and by default, Georgia’s) new immigration laws and their negative short and long-term impacts on the economy of the state. As suggested above, Arizona would rather forgo tax revenue, labor and consumerism to help drive the economy from undocumented workers, and spend taxpayer money locking-up women and children for private profit; nobody should ever say that racial prejudice makes any sense. The Center noted that some political elements in California are also considering such laws as Arizona’s, and addressed the foolishness of them in the following language:
“Our analysis finds that the economic and fiscal consequences of widespread deportation for California and L.A. County would be even more devastating than in Arizona. When undocumented workers are taken out of the economy, the jobs they support through their labor, their consumption, and their tax payments disappear as well. Particularly during a time of profound economic uncertainty, the type of dislocation envisioned by harsh immigration enforcement policies runs directly counter to the public interest.” The Center quantified the negative effects of wholesale deportation as such:
Deportation effects on California:
• Decrease total employment by 17.4 percent
• Eliminate 3.6 million jobs
• Shrink the state economy by $301.6 billion
• Reduce state’s tax revenues by 8.5 percent
If all undocumented workers were legalized in California, the effect would be far from catastrophic:
“Conversely, our analysis shows that legalizing the undocumented population in California and L.A. County would yield significant economic benefits. Based on the historical results of the last legalization program under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, similar program would increase wages not only for immigrants but also for their native-born co-workers. This would generate more tax revenue and more consumer and business spending, supporting additional jobs throughout the state and L.A. County economies.” The effect of legalization in California would be the following:
• Add 633,000 jobs
• Increase labor income by $26.9 billion
• Increase tax revenues by $5.3 billion
Thus if California followed Arizona and Georgia's lead of “mass expulsion,” it lead to a “self-destruction” of the California and L.A. county economy. One may recall that this disastrous path was tried in California before by Gov. Pete Wilson, who some voters mistook for a “moderate.” It is pointed out that the simple-minded “debate” on the negative effects of immigration—legal or not—fails to take into account that not only do illegal immigrants pay taxes, they are also consumers. The Center’s figures estimate that undocumented immigrants in California contribute $2.6 billion in taxes to state government now (interestingly, California has recently reported a surge in unexpected tax revenue—from increased income among the wealthy; the bottom 80 percent of the work force continue to lose ground relative to inflation).
Yet misinformation passing for “truth” continues unabated, and reality takes a back seat to politics and racial paranoia. When will it stop? When racial prejudice stops, which will probably be never as long as the human species exists.
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