Date: Wednesday, August 11, 2010, 5:32 am
By: Tonyaa Weathersbee, BlackAmericaWeb.com
According to Sen. Lindsey Graham (above), hordes of pregnant Latinas continue to cross the border illegally to “drop a child."
By all accounts, this ought to be a wake-up call for black Republicans – especially those inclined to carry the racially-tainted water of its Tea Party wing.
Lately, some prominent GOPers have been calling for a repeal of the 14th Amendment. You know, the part of the Constitution that says that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens and have all the rights of citizenship.
That amendment was passed to nullify the Dred Scott decision, which held that black people could not be U.S. citizens. Some Republicans, however, want to white that part of the document out because, apparently, too many brown people are taking advantage of it.
According to Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, hordes of pregnant Latinas continue to cross the border illegally to “drop a child” in U.S. hospitals just so their children can make it easier for them to enter the country.
To such Republicans, a right that has long been enshrined in the Constitution – a document that they and their Tea Party brethren claim to hold sacred – is now nothing more than a loophole that could ultimately usurp them politically.
There’s no question that illegal immigration is a problem. But the fear that Graham expressed is one that is based more on stereotype than fact.
According to research gathered by Politifact.com, many of the expectant mothers who come in illegally from Mexico to give birth do so because they want access to decent hospital care, not to necessarily get citizenship rights for their child.
And besides some temporary benefits such as food stamps and WIC and maybe a delayed deportation, giving birth to a child in the United States doesn’t automatically confer any special rights to the mother.
Which brings me back to why, if they had any instincts or sense of history, this business about repealing or reworking the 14th Amendment ought to force black Republicans to rethink their allegiance to that party.
They ought to rethink being part of a party with leaders who are so guided by stereotypes that they’d champion something so extreme as to jettison a part of the Constitution that guaranteed black people their rights – just to stop brown people from coming here.
If GOP lawmakers want to change the law of the land because brown people are benefiting from it, then their next logical question should be: Who’s next?
I don’t think one has to look far for clues.
Ever since the nation’s first black president was sworn into office, the right-wing fear mongering machine has been humming at high gear. That machine spawned the Tea Party movement.
It’s a movement whose members don’t see Barack Obama’s ascendancy to the presidency as a testament to participatory democracy – something that is enshrined in the Constitution – but as the undeserved triumph of a bunch of black people and other people of color who, by exercising their right to vote, usurped some white people’s expectations of privilege.
They are the people who talk about “taking their country back,” as if those black and brown people who overwhelmingly supported Obama aren’t a part of it.
That’s why it was no surprise when Tom Tancredo, the former GOP congressman from Colorado, told the first mass meeting of the Tea Party that people ought to have to pass literacy and civics tests in order to vote.
Having such tests would mean jettisoning the 1965 Voting Rights Act – one of the many acts that gave black people their freedom.
Link
-VG
By: Tonyaa Weathersbee, BlackAmericaWeb.com
According to Sen. Lindsey Graham (above), hordes of pregnant Latinas continue to cross the border illegally to “drop a child."
By all accounts, this ought to be a wake-up call for black Republicans – especially those inclined to carry the racially-tainted water of its Tea Party wing.
Lately, some prominent GOPers have been calling for a repeal of the 14th Amendment. You know, the part of the Constitution that says that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens and have all the rights of citizenship.
That amendment was passed to nullify the Dred Scott decision, which held that black people could not be U.S. citizens. Some Republicans, however, want to white that part of the document out because, apparently, too many brown people are taking advantage of it.
According to Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, hordes of pregnant Latinas continue to cross the border illegally to “drop a child” in U.S. hospitals just so their children can make it easier for them to enter the country.
To such Republicans, a right that has long been enshrined in the Constitution – a document that they and their Tea Party brethren claim to hold sacred – is now nothing more than a loophole that could ultimately usurp them politically.
There’s no question that illegal immigration is a problem. But the fear that Graham expressed is one that is based more on stereotype than fact.
According to research gathered by Politifact.com, many of the expectant mothers who come in illegally from Mexico to give birth do so because they want access to decent hospital care, not to necessarily get citizenship rights for their child.
And besides some temporary benefits such as food stamps and WIC and maybe a delayed deportation, giving birth to a child in the United States doesn’t automatically confer any special rights to the mother.
Which brings me back to why, if they had any instincts or sense of history, this business about repealing or reworking the 14th Amendment ought to force black Republicans to rethink their allegiance to that party.
They ought to rethink being part of a party with leaders who are so guided by stereotypes that they’d champion something so extreme as to jettison a part of the Constitution that guaranteed black people their rights – just to stop brown people from coming here.
If GOP lawmakers want to change the law of the land because brown people are benefiting from it, then their next logical question should be: Who’s next?
I don’t think one has to look far for clues.
Ever since the nation’s first black president was sworn into office, the right-wing fear mongering machine has been humming at high gear. That machine spawned the Tea Party movement.
It’s a movement whose members don’t see Barack Obama’s ascendancy to the presidency as a testament to participatory democracy – something that is enshrined in the Constitution – but as the undeserved triumph of a bunch of black people and other people of color who, by exercising their right to vote, usurped some white people’s expectations of privilege.
They are the people who talk about “taking their country back,” as if those black and brown people who overwhelmingly supported Obama aren’t a part of it.
That’s why it was no surprise when Tom Tancredo, the former GOP congressman from Colorado, told the first mass meeting of the Tea Party that people ought to have to pass literacy and civics tests in order to vote.
Having such tests would mean jettisoning the 1965 Voting Rights Act – one of the many acts that gave black people their freedom.
Link
-VG
I didn't write the got damn story nor did I write the title. Not my fault republicans kicking you to the curb.
