ON ANOTHER INCONVENIENT TRUTH

SOME PESKY FACTS

It's amazing what we're letting slide in the current immigration debate. 

Some of the comments by our representatives in Congress mask barely concealed racism, at a time when history shows one of the key ingredients of America's success is it's "melting pot" heritage (see my earlier post on the issue here).

Here's a quote from the chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus, Tom Tancredo, Republican Congressman from Colorado (from a must read New York Times op-ed piece today by Tony Horowitz):

"Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado, chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus, depicts illegal immigration as "a scourge" abetted by "a cult of multiculturalism" that has "a death grip" on this nation.

"We are committing cultural suicide," Mr. Tancredo claims. "The barbarians at the gate will only need to give us a slight push, and the emaciated body of Western civilization will collapse in a heap."

This comment almost make me want to turn in my Republican Party card.  At the very least it gives me pause as I consider the Party's campaign solicitations for the coming elections.

If the Representative were in the private sector, and responsible for hiring and firing employees, he may be judged by a different set of rules.  But nope, he's a member of Congress, where they apparently get a pass on those rules, written or otherwise.

The op-ed though goes onto to make a great point about how most of us perceive American history, and how we better or for worse gloss over our multi-cultural history.  Here are some relevant excerpts:

"If Americans hit the books, they'd find what Al Gore would call an inconvenient truth. The early history of what is now the United States was Spanish, not English, and our denial of this heritage is rooted in age-old stereotypes that still entangle today's immigration debate.

Forget for a moment the millions of Indians who occupied this continent for 13,000 or more years before anyone else arrived, and start the clock with Europeans' presence on present-day United States soil. The first confirmed landing wasn't by Vikings, who reached Canada in about 1000, or by Columbus, who reached the Bahamas in 1492. It was by a Spaniard, Juan Ponce de León, who landed in 1513 at a lush shore he christened La Florida.

Most Americans associate the early Spanish in this hemisphere with Cortés in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru. But Spaniards pioneered the present-day United States, too. Within three decades of Ponce de León's landing, the Spanish became the first Europeans to reach the Appalachians, the Mississippi, the Grand Canyon and the Great Plains. Spanish ships sailed along the East Coast, penetrating to present-day Bangor, Me., and up the Pacific Coast as far as Oregon."

It's not all just about the Spanish part of our history, but how we view and define ourselves today, as Mr. Horowitz points out:

"ON talk radio and the Internet, foes of immigration echo the black legend more explicitly, typecasting Hispanics as indolent, a burden on the American taxpayer, greedy for benefits and jobs, prone to criminality and alien to our values — much like those degenerate Spaniards of the old Southwest and those gold-mad conquistadors who sought easy riches rather than honest toil. At the fringes, the vilification is baldly racist."

It's a must-read piece in it's entirety, regardless of which side of the debate one may come from.  Recommended.

Comments

[Linda]

Yes this is important too, but it will be completely irrelevent if north of the boarder is just as uninhabitable as south. Maybe all the proud people of Mexico that run away from their beautiful motherland should stand up against thier messed up Government and demand change. Mexico's govenment allows the big US companys to take advantage of Mexicos soft environmental laws and cheap labor for their own profit grabing personal gains. That should be what your angry about. Get your leaders to stop selling out your people and environment. Oh and one other thing birth control and responsible family planning isn't against god's will.

[NOITEMPLE15]

This lecture by Minister Eric Muhammad speaks powerfully to the issue of illegal immigration and ties the Duke rape case and the Cynthia Mckinney incident together with it to place it within the larger context of America's race problem.

It has been deleted by THE WHITE MAN several times due to the truth it speaks to America's race problem and we're sure will be deleted again soon. Get it while you can.

THE BLACK...WHITE...PROBLEM IN AMERICA

4/16/06

THIS LECTURE IS 5.90MB IN SIZE. WITH HIGH SPEED INTERNET, IT WILL TAKE ONLY SECONDS TO DOWNLOAD. WITH DIAL-UP IT COULD TAKE UP TO AN HOUR.

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO BEGIN DOWNLOAD.

http://www.zshare.net/download/the-black-white-problem-in-america-4-16-06-wma.ht ml

MUHAMMAD'S TEMPLE # 15

ATLANTA, GA.

[Christian]

It has been deleted by THE WHITE MAN several times due to the truth it speaks to America's race problem and we're sure will be deleted again soon. Get it while you can.

[Emily]

THE BLACK...WHITE...PROBLEM IN AMERICA
@!!!!!!!!!!!!!