http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2009/12/08/minutemen-and-klansmen/ United We Stand Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:51:34 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2009/12/08/minutemen-and-klansmen/comment-page-1/#comment-26461 Jamie Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:59:41 +0000 http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/?p=3442#comment-26461 This was an interesting article. Thanks! This was an interesting article. Thanks!

]]> http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2009/12/08/minutemen-and-klansmen/comment-page-1/#comment-25821 sallyd Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:24:31 +0000 http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/?p=3442#comment-25821 Many people are trying to appeal to people you're talking about, but far too often it is by legitimizing certain arguments or social arrangements. For instance, in a speech by David Bacon recently, he argued that our economy would collapse, and who would clean all the office buildings, if all the undocumented immigrants were to disappear. Even the argument that migrants are forced to come to the US because of economic conditions tends to legitimize the border itself, as though to excuse the illegal crossing of a border, there needs to be an unconquerable force such as poverty on the other side. Meanwhile indigenous people want/need to cross the border both ways because of family or cultural reasons and they have to deal with the repercussions. Yet what I'm getting at is that the border is illegitimate no matter who is involved. While I agree that we need to appeal to these people in question, in doing so we need to be careful about how we do so on their terms. Ultimately we'll have to challenge them on their racism, and yes, help them to see the ways in which their loyalty to whiteness undermines the ability to do anything about the elites they feel threatened by. How to do this? I'm not quite sure. Many people are trying to appeal to people you’re talking about, but far too often it is by legitimizing certain arguments or social arrangements. For instance, in a speech by David Bacon recently, he argued that our economy would collapse, and who would clean all the office buildings, if all the undocumented immigrants were to disappear.
Even the argument that migrants are forced to come to the US because of economic conditions tends to legitimize the border itself, as though to excuse the illegal crossing of a border, there needs to be an unconquerable force such as poverty on the other side. Meanwhile indigenous people want/need to cross the border both ways because of family or cultural reasons and they have to deal with the repercussions. Yet what I’m getting at is that the border is illegitimate no matter who is involved.
While I agree that we need to appeal to these people in question, in doing so we need to be careful about how we do so on their terms. Ultimately we’ll have to challenge them on their racism, and yes, help them to see the ways in which their loyalty to whiteness undermines the ability to do anything about the elites they feel threatened by. How to do this? I’m not quite sure.

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