A Day at a North Carolina Tea Party
By Deborah Austin and Cloee Cooper
As a mother, activist and community member from Durham, North Carolina of Mexican, Native American decent, I can personally attest to the racist behavior and remarks at the Tea Parties Against Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants on November 14, 2009. Why is this an important story to share months later? Among many people I know, the white nationalist agenda of today’s anti-immigrant movement is hard to understand. Not surprising considering the debate we see unfolding in our media surrounding immigration.
I have been following our nation’s debate closely with the immigration reform bill that Gutierrez recently introduced and the upcoming bill that Schumer intends to introduce. But honestly, how can we have a debate on immigration without noting the bigotry, violence and outright racism of our nation’s leading anti-immigrant groups? I attended the Tea Party on November 14 in Raleigh, NC. I hope that my experience might speak to the doubts that currently clout perhaps the most important debate regarding race in the 21st century. Read more
ALIPAC Dumps Dobbs
Looks like Lou Dobbs is losing fans all around this week. Southern Poverty Law Center’s Larry Keller posted this piece on SPLC’s HateWatch blog yesterday.
Lou Dobbs and Americans for Legal Immigration – ALIPAC – are divorcing, and the parting isn’t amicable. ALIPAC President William Gheen has notified supporters that his organization has withdrawn its support of Dobbs and suspended two websites promoting the former CNN showman for president.
In a lengthy E-mail, the heartsick nativist said it was “painful” to realize he misjudged Dobbs, and that ALIPAC hopes to “put this painful episode behind us.” Gheen added contritely, “We apologize to our supporters for being wrong about Dobbs.”It was a TV interview Dobbs did Nov. 20 on Telemundo’s Al Rojo Vivo that tore the bloom off the ALIPAC-Dobbs romance. Dobbs told interviewer Maria Celeste that “we need the ability to legalize illegal immigrants under certain conditions” and proclaimed himself one of the Latino’s community’s “greatest friends.” Read more
Anti-immigrant Sentiment is Racism
The United States has struggled historically when it comes to race. Slavery and the conquering of North America from the indigenous populations are two examples of how the wealth and prosperity of this country came at the expense of so many others. In both instances, the ‘others’ were people of color.
With immigration coming to the forefront of discussion in the coming year, it is a good time to remember the values this country has always taken pride in: equality, democracy, freedom and rights for all people. While we have yet to see such values come to full fruition, the fight to strive for them has made the United States a starship of civil rights. Read more
Disunity in the Tea Party Movement
When we see the pictures of tea parties on the news or in newspapers across the country, all of the attendees at the events seem to be arguing the same thing. Most of them are middle-aged white Americans who are against Obama and all he stands for. However, when we take a close look at the individuals or certain groups within the tea parties we see that there is actually many differing viewpoints within the movement and it is beginning to lose stability.
On October 31, a branch of the white nationalist organization, Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC), joined a tea party protest in Ripley, Mississippi. The CoCC stressed that “We as conservatives must come together for the good of the America Republic and our Sovereign States. We are fighting to unite the right wing. Stand With The Conservative Movement!” A day later at a tea party in Roanoke County, Virginia, home to notorious white supremacist Bill White, the Council of Conservative Citizens put fliers on cars promoting its organization. This prompted the Roanoke Tea Party to publicly disavow the Council of Conservative Citizens on its website. Read more
A Stunning Denial of Justice in Shenandoah
While the world was glued to flu coverage last week, justice crumbled in tiny Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. The tragedy began almost a year ago when Luis E. Ramirez was beaten to death by a group of white male teenagers. Reports of the attack describe it as racially-motivated and brutal. A report by CNN stated, “After a night of drinking, the teens taunted the undocumented worker with racial epithets, pummeled him to the ground and then kicked him in the head, court documents charge. He died in a hospital two days later.”
The trial for two of Ramirez’s attackers ended on Friday when Derrick Donchak, 19, and Brandon Piekarsky, 17, were acquitted of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and ethnic intimidation. Attorneys for the two attackers argued that Ramirez was in fact the aggressor against the four intoxicated teens. Right. Anyway, the all-white jury seemed to find that pretty plausible and only found Donchak and Pierkarsky guilty of simple assault. Everything about this story, from the investigation to the trial, stinks of old-fashioned collusion, cover-up, and bigotry. Read more
Immigrant Haters Promote Flu Hysteria
Anti-immigrant groups have begun seizing on the Swine Flu scare to spread hateful messages about immigrants. When Flu hysteria started to take hold over the weekend I said ‘wonder how long before hate groups start blaming Latino immigrants?’ The words barely passed my lips before ugly comments were circulating the internet.
William Gheen, head of ALI-PAC is placing the blame for all the American non-deaths at Obama’s doorstep. “The Obama administration’s failure to secure our borders against a possible pandemic is putting American lives at risk at a time when days and hours matter,” said Gheen. “The weak and inadequate “passive surveillance” described during Sunday’s press conference is offensive to the rational mind.” ALI-PAC is the same organization that last month was throwing a tea party tantrum, ironically protesting taxes that pay for things like…drum roll please…border security! Gheen seems to have forgotten what century it is! While ALI-PAC is busy berating the government for not erecting a barbed-wire fence against those pesky desert crossers, wealthy tourists are carrying the flu into the US fresh off their Cancun vacations. Read more
The Term “Anchor Baby” Is a Radical Affront to the Principles of the U.S.A. : Virgil Goode is a Disgrace
By Kyle de Beausset
I’ve come to expect figures like William Gheen of ALIPAC to completely strip an entire subset of people from their humanity with their words. It becomes grating to my ears when an elected official does so. Even more so when they dehumanize the very people they were elected to represent.
Watch the video above to see Republican incumbent Virgil Goode (VA-5th District) debate Democrat challenger Tom Perriello on the “anchor baby situation”. I’ve transcribed a great deal of the video read more
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