More Persecuted Than Thou

Guy #1- Man, I'd take the holocaust over slavery any day. At least you got it over with quick if they made you take a shower!

Guy #2- Hell no, bruv, being a (US) slave was just kinda like camping. And at least you mostly got to live through your entire life.

OK, so maybe it's a stretch, but you get the picture-- what you suffered through is always worse than what everyone else has experienced. It's as if every group wants the prize for having suffered the greatest injustice.

Shall we continue . . . .

Person #3- those gay people can hide their gay-ness, so why are they complaining about inequality. I'll take being gay over (choose an ethnicity) ________ any day! I can't hide my ______-ness!

So I've gotta admit that this is one that I've mostly heard from "African Americans" as to why the concerns of one minority group are not as legitimate as those of another. Huh?! First of all, there's no history of gay oppression (like Slavery). I mean gay people only appeared on the scene afte the whole civil rights struggle, right. They shouldn't be trying to piggyback and share the spoils of what WE fought for. How dare they compare their struggle to ours. I mean there were laws banning who WE could marry; We were discriminated against in the workplace. People even turned a blind eye to someone dragging us off and killing us strictly due to our color. And we didn't CHOOSE to be black! They've never had to endure such civil rights violations stemmiing from the lifestyle they choose-- they all just live happily in San Francisco and run around with those rainbow flags! So like I said, I'll take gay ofer black anytime. They've got it easy!

There are other examples of groups focusing just on those issues that impact them/not understanding  others' plights:

• Trayvon-- given that no one should be stalked and murdered for walking down the street, black folks are (understandibly) SO up in arms on this. But shouldn't "those people" be just as angry when a black person shoots another person from Africa? Or when an african american, or hispanic/latino, or asian, or white purposefully kills someone, regardless of race. I didn't see anyone out marching over the Sikh temple killings! If we have the energy to march and protest for "one of ours," we're just beign complacent when we don't expend such energy fighting for others. Because guess what, if we correct it on one front, the benefit will likely extend to more than those directly involved-- it's called PRECEDENT
• (Perhaps far-fetched, but) a "radical" gay person-- the other minority groups have all of these protections (marriage, employment, housing, etc.). What about us? I'll take being a Vietnamese immigrant any day over being gay. They've got it so much easier
• And those illegal immigrants-- they just come waltzing over the border and use our schools, social services, etc. Coming to the US must just be like some kind of damn holiday for them!

How about we all fight to educate and correct all injustice, including that which we suffer(ed)? As long as we're all waging our separate campaigns, that just keeps us focused on our own little worlds. Injustice anywhere should be addressed, especially by anyone whose group may (or has in the past) be susceptible to an erosion of rights. Let's see, that would be all . . . . women, muslims (well, we've got to have someone to demonize), immigrants, jews, latinos, gays, blacks, etc. Imagine if all these pendejos got on the same page!? But I bet you'll still have women who vote for Akin (I mean those Democrats' values are just all whacky), and black folks who are weary of muslims (guess how many black  muslims there are; now how do you choose?) and poor latinos fighting against poor blacks (I guess that keeps both of those groups preoccupied and not paying any attention to how they BOTH being pissed on!)

The more people who are aware of whatever the injustice, the better. It's just more easy and convenient to focus on our own. Many groups may have legitimate gripes. The one we should all be on board and fighting for is the Native Americans. We victims of whatever past transgression we suffered are all here squatting on their land, granted some of us not by our own choosing. Sarcasm aside, the Native Americans pretty much have us all beat and should qualify as the most persecuted (than thou).

The Good 'Ole (not Ole') Immigration Debate- w/ a Twist

I'm not sure how many of you heard about the (black) kid getting gunned down by the (Mexican) pandillero in Central L.A. a month or so ago. The victim was a (american) football star at L.A. High School, and I believe a 17 yr old junior.

People were understandably up in arms due to the shooting, but even moreso because the alleged shooter was reportedly in the country illegally and had VERY recently been released from jail. This comes at a time of some states passing tough (anti) immigration measures, I assume largely out of feeling that the Federal government is not doing enough about it. The LAPD has had a policy, Special Order 40, related to it's authority and intent to question an individual's immigration status. S.O. 40 reads, "officers shall not initiate police action with the objective of discovering the alien status of a person."

The story has been reported in the L.A. Times a fair amount, most recently today: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-specialorder17apr17,0,6757309.story. One result of the crime is that the high schooler's parents are trying to get the L.A. City Council to act to alter or rescind S.O. 40. In another recent L.A. Times article, the website let readers post their opinions on the issue. As you can imagine, there were comments all over the spectrum, but if I recall, it was about 75/25 for posts favoring cracking down in illegal immigrants. If I can find a link to the posts, I will past it here.

Anyway, all of those posts made me feel like adding my 2 cents. The prpoblem was that my 2 cents was more like $20 in length, and it wouldn't fit into the alloted space. Thus, I post if here for all of you to read:

It seems to me that many who are posting here against illegal immigration are tending to generalize and target their comments toward hispanics. In the US southern border states, hispanos may comprise a large portion of the immigrants, both legal and illegal. However, that still does not justify sweeping generalizations. Think about how you like (and how accurate are) most of the generalizations about a group to which you belong, be it black, republican, texan, muslim, etc.
I do understand the frustration coupled with illegal immigrants committing crimes, especially violent crimes. However, that frustration should apply equally to anyone who commits a crime.
If we separate violent "illegals" from the non-violent, I have yet to see a post that hits at the crux of the problem, with a few execptions-- ECONOMICS. If you lived in Country X, making $500/year, and you heard that you could make $500/week doing the SAME thing in Country Y, what would you do?? Of course, we would not ALL immigrate, but many of us would jump at the chance to earn multiples of our normal wages for our same hard work. It's like going the the UK and earning the same amount you make in the US for doing the same work-- guess what, these days you would have 2x as many dollars, just like that! What would you do if your salary was suddenly doubled, let alone quintupled or 50X'ed?? Of course it is not so feasible for someone in the US to skip across the border to the UK.
This border osmosis, driven by labor supply-and-demand, exchange rates, and the relative economic health of neighboring countries is not unique to North America. Other countries have similar immigration dynamics/issues-- Chile with Peruanos, and the UK with some former Eastern Block countries. If they were able, most people in the world would choose to make lots more MONEY for doing the same thing-- for the most part, we all want the best for our families and ourselves.
This is not all to say that illegal immigration is o.k., but that if you truly want to solve wat you feel is a problem, you must first look at the root cause. And illegal immigration will not just stop because we crack down on it- it largely boils down to supply and demand- look at how well prohibition went and the current war on (all other) drugs is going. I mean I never hear of anyone using drugs these days. Take it from a former, temporaryily-illegal immigrant-- don't worry, it wasn't in the US!

So, enough venom aimed at illegal (read "hispanic") immigrants already.


I do find it ironic that the article quotes Chief Bratton as saying, "If you are an illegal immigrant out there and basically you are obeying the law and you are not preying on others, you don't have anything to fear from the Los Angeles police in terms of us approaching you solely on the belief you are here illegally." I think the Chief needs to look up the word illegal or we need to relabel the term. :)