All Things Political, vol 3.1
More thoughts on immigration...
I just read a Ruben Navarrette article on the proposed immigration legislation in the Senate. In the spirit of full disclosure, I should say upfront that this post is motivated mostly by my (increasing) hatred of Mr. Navarrette, and not by my feeling that I have any more immigration-related thoughts worth sharing. Having put that out there...
1) I was first introduced to Mr. Navarrette while reading an article he wrote about how unfair it is that people still get to pronounce the word wetback when it's not okay to pronounce the words nigger or, apparently, faggot. If those words are reduced to the n-word and the f-word, then, he says, wetback should be reduced to the w-word.
Ordinarily, I would be more diplomatic about this. But since I hate him, I'm going to go ahead and say I find his argument incredibly stupid. Especially because the primary examples he gives to support it are instances of people who pronounce the word while emphasizing that it should never be used as a slur against anyone (i.e. Rosie O'Donnell pronounced it when she was criticizing someone on national television for using it as a slur.)
The other reason it irks me is that I find all the letter-words - the n-word, the f-word, and, I guess, the w-word - quite ridiculous. Hearing fully grown adults talk about "the n-word" makes me feel like we're all a bunch of 5 year-olds referencing the a-word, the sh-word and all the other grown-up words we're not allowed to say. I also think its disingenuous and inaccurate to go on tv and say So-and-So called Such-and-Such an n-word. No, So-and-So called Such-and-Such a nigger, and So-and-So should get his ass kicked.
2) In this most recent article, responding to critics who say illegal immigration depresses wages for the low-skilled, we get the following:
Memo to the low skilled: "Grow up. Stop complaining. And go get more skills. Then you won't have to suffer the humiliation of being driven out of the market by folks with a sixth-grade education who are here illegally and don't even speak English.
WTF??? If ever I wanted to bash someone over the head with a frikkin' bat. A couple things:
A) There have always been, and will always be, low-skilled workers. And in generations past, those workers could actually command a living wage, not to mention health care and the expectation of retirement benefits. Let's not act like people suddenly got lazy.
B) (And even my Libertarian Love Mr. Maher is guilty of this one...) Let's not act like immigrants are inherently dedicated laborers who dream of picking tomatoes for $2/hour in the dead-ass heat of summer. They don't want those jobs any more than American citizens do. They take them because it's what they can get, and because it's better than starving to death in Mexico. How many second generation Mexican Americans (or legal immigrants) do you know who pick tomatoes for a living? (Think about it.) Nobody with a green card is trying to pick tomatoes or scrub toilets for less than a living wage, and the ones that do, do it because they have to.
Admittedly, I have a pretty tender soft spot for the working class (they're the backbone of society, blah blah blah). So I don't take kindly to people who tell them to "grow up" and ridicule them for lodging legitimate complaints about their economic options. Also, as an aspiring writer-academic-social commentator, I'm consistently vexed by how it is that people that I think are idiots get syndicated columns in places like cnn.com. But again, those are personal issues.
I just read a Ruben Navarrette article on the proposed immigration legislation in the Senate. In the spirit of full disclosure, I should say upfront that this post is motivated mostly by my (increasing) hatred of Mr. Navarrette, and not by my feeling that I have any more immigration-related thoughts worth sharing. Having put that out there...
1) I was first introduced to Mr. Navarrette while reading an article he wrote about how unfair it is that people still get to pronounce the word wetback when it's not okay to pronounce the words nigger or, apparently, faggot. If those words are reduced to the n-word and the f-word, then, he says, wetback should be reduced to the w-word.
Ordinarily, I would be more diplomatic about this. But since I hate him, I'm going to go ahead and say I find his argument incredibly stupid. Especially because the primary examples he gives to support it are instances of people who pronounce the word while emphasizing that it should never be used as a slur against anyone (i.e. Rosie O'Donnell pronounced it when she was criticizing someone on national television for using it as a slur.)
The other reason it irks me is that I find all the letter-words - the n-word, the f-word, and, I guess, the w-word - quite ridiculous. Hearing fully grown adults talk about "the n-word" makes me feel like we're all a bunch of 5 year-olds referencing the a-word, the sh-word and all the other grown-up words we're not allowed to say. I also think its disingenuous and inaccurate to go on tv and say So-and-So called Such-and-Such an n-word. No, So-and-So called Such-and-Such a nigger, and So-and-So should get his ass kicked.
2) In this most recent article, responding to critics who say illegal immigration depresses wages for the low-skilled, we get the following:
Memo to the low skilled: "Grow up. Stop complaining. And go get more skills. Then you won't have to suffer the humiliation of being driven out of the market by folks with a sixth-grade education who are here illegally and don't even speak English.
WTF??? If ever I wanted to bash someone over the head with a frikkin' bat. A couple things:
A) There have always been, and will always be, low-skilled workers. And in generations past, those workers could actually command a living wage, not to mention health care and the expectation of retirement benefits. Let's not act like people suddenly got lazy.
B) (And even my Libertarian Love Mr. Maher is guilty of this one...) Let's not act like immigrants are inherently dedicated laborers who dream of picking tomatoes for $2/hour in the dead-ass heat of summer. They don't want those jobs any more than American citizens do. They take them because it's what they can get, and because it's better than starving to death in Mexico. How many second generation Mexican Americans (or legal immigrants) do you know who pick tomatoes for a living? (Think about it.) Nobody with a green card is trying to pick tomatoes or scrub toilets for less than a living wage, and the ones that do, do it because they have to.
Admittedly, I have a pretty tender soft spot for the working class (they're the backbone of society, blah blah blah). So I don't take kindly to people who tell them to "grow up" and ridicule them for lodging legitimate complaints about their economic options. Also, as an aspiring writer-academic-social commentator, I'm consistently vexed by how it is that people that I think are idiots get syndicated columns in places like cnn.com. But again, those are personal issues.
Labels: All Things Political
posted by Puff at 4:01 PM
1 Comments:
This cat went all Dinesh D'Souza...
Oh yes, how simple it is for the low/non-skilled to simply go get all these skills...all bootstraps folks, thats all it takes. Really, its THAT simple, apparently.
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