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ABOUT ME & THIS SITE
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July 25, 2004Here it is, just over two months since I created this page, and so far only one person has taken the time to sign my guestbook. Imagine my grave disappointment when I discovered that this person is a racist. Perhaps not a cross-burning, lynching, dragging type racist, but a racist nonetheless. In browsing his website, I quickly found out he is anti-immigration, pro-English-only, and anti-affirmative action. Let's take these issues one at a time and discuss them.
Affirmative ActionI understand all of the arguments for and against affirmative action, and I have researched and discussed this subject at great lengths. I do not have the time to go into great detail, nor do I want to bore you, so I will summarize with a couple key points. I support affirmative action. Ideally, I wouldn't. In a perfect world, in a perfect country, the best person would always get the job. Minorities would have the exact same education and employment opportunities and would never be discriminated against. Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect country or a color-blind society. Racism is alive and well in the United States and, consequently, minority groups still have to struggle to get into schools, get into rentals, and get into decent jobs. In a perfect society with true equal opportunity for all, a large publicly-owned corporation ("publicly owned" means you or I can run out and buy stock in that corporation, which would apply for nearly all coprorations) would naturally have the same demographics as the U.S. total civilian labor force as a whole. This would mean a composition of 72.8% white, 10.7% hispanic, 10.5% black, with other minorities filling the rest of the jobs. Unfortunately, corporations most often do not have this personnel makeup, and more often do show a bias towards whites. No publicly-owned corporation should be allowed to practice this kind of discrimination. Those of you who read this who are white might not agree that the need for affirmative action exists, but it does. I find that those with "white privelege" are usually blind to how the white power structure in this nation works to maintain the status quo.
As a postscript, the probability-based quotas have long been removed and affirmative action is merely an anti-discrimination law now. Additionally, affirmative action has statistically benefitted white women the most.
English OnlyThe United States of America has never had an "official" language. For this, I am glad. It is frustrating to hear people all around me complaining how people should "learn the language" or, even worse, to "speak American". How do you define "American" language? According to The Columbia Encyclopedia, at the time of Columbus there were "300 separate tongues native to some 1.5 million Native Americans N of Mexico". Are any of those languages "American"? The number of Native Americans that speak exclusively in a native language is diminishing rapidly, but should they be made to "learn the language" that their oppressors would like to standardize? Assuming, only for the sake of this discussion, they should, should they be taught in an "English-Only" environment? Of course not, no one would expect the average person to pick up, say, Mandarin Chinese in an immersion environment; or for that matter, learn calculus being taught in Mandarin Chinese . Why would we expect anyone to learn English the same way? The most effective teaching goes from what the student knows, in this case their own language, to what they don't know, the new language. Yes, this will require more effort in part of the education system, which bring me to my next point:ImmigrationSo many arguments against immigration, so little time. Let's look at Jim "The destruction of our country is literally taking place with open border policies." Armstrong's arguments specifically:
No one should go without something to eat and a place to live, especially the children.
I agree.
[During the fifties] welfare was around, but most people that I knew was too proud to accept it. Only the most unfortunate wound up there and they didn't enjoy it when they had to take it.
I didn't live during the fifties, so I cannot speak for how the times were then. As for the little over thirty years that I have been around, I haven't met anyone who was proud to accept welfare, nor have I met anyone who enjoyed recieving it.
When you have people coming from countries such as Mexico and other Latin American countries, your talking about people that for hundreds of years have indeed had lives of extreme hardships and unfortunate conditions... ...They are people who are willing to work for almost nothing, and anything meager would seem like a lot to them.
Ok, I will concede that a lot of the immigrants that come here are victims of a poor economy and government.
They know nothing of the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, the Bill of Rights and other historic documents that are of great importance to Americans.
But we do, right? In the Declaration: "all men are created equal" and all people have the inalienable right to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". Of course, if the immigrants take a citizenship test, they will have to know our important historical documents. Then again, do immigrants have these same inalienable rights that our founding fathers cherished so much? Are they equal? By the way, isn't the Bill of Rights part of the Constitution?
Large American Industry, especially, take advantage of this, by building factories along the Mexican border and exploiting the cheap labor. They care nothing about the American Citizen that's trying to support his family, and all of a sudden, is out of a job.
Again, I agree. Wait a minute, I thought Jim said it was the immigrant's fault that U.S. jobs were being exported. Place the blame where it belongs: Bill Clinton, NAFTA, the WTO, the corporations themselves... it's not the Mexican's fault that factories are being built there.
But we can't feed and take care of the whole world, nor should we have to.
Actually, Jim, we can. We choose not to.
I know my site isn't to argue with Jim Armstrong, but his standpoint on these issues are typical for many Americans. So many people have forgotten that ALL of us, aside from the Native Americans, were immigrants at one time in history or another, that once we all stood proud that the U.S. was the "Great Melting Pot" of the world. There is plenty of money in the federal budget to help these unfortunate souls get on their feet and pursue the "American Dream". We, the people, need to demand that the government re-prioritize it's spending. Billions can be saved by cutting waste spending, billions more can be saved by cutting corporate welfare, government handouts to corporations. Even billions more can be saved by re-evaluating our "foreign aid" policies, I recently skimmed through our foreign aid budget and discovered that nearly 4.4 billion dollars is going to other countries to train their military and to buy weapons from us. (My theory is it's a way to indirectly subsidize the defense contractors that so many of W's buddies head.) With all this potential savings, keeping in mind that by re-prioritizing our budget it would not incur new taxes, we could easily welcome any and all people who seek a better life in the United States of America, leaving plenty to socialize health care, properly fund our schools, take care of the elderly and our children for years to come. Welcoming immigrants who seek a better life into our country isn't a new idea, as a reminder, I will leave you with a poem. You might recognize it, it's inscribed on the Statue of Liberty:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame |
