Something tells me Republicans can't keep a straight face when they read those words on the Statue of Liberty. The GOP could care less about the less fortunate among us, and just the thought of having to help the "wretched" must send chills up their spines. As evidence, consider their recent track record: NO to health care reform. YES to protecting Wall Street. And perhaps the most egregious example is Arizona, where they recently passed an immigration bill that makes them look more like a police state than a democracy.
And don't forget the Tea Party. Republicans have gone out of their way to promote and defend these people because they're primarily white, wealthy men - a.k.a. their base.
The GOP may claim they don't have a double-standard when it comes to race in this country, but Alternet asks us to imagine this: What If the Tea Party Were Black?
Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters — the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protesters — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? ...You get the picture. Republicans have a double-standard, and so do tea party members. How else to explain their silence about Arizona's immigration law? I'd like to hear them answer this question that someone asked over at Washington Monthly:
Imagine that a rap artist were to say, in reference to a white president: “He’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Because that’s what rocker Ted Nugent said recently about President Obama.
Shouldn't the tea party crowd be having a cow over this new immigration bill that Arizona just passed? Doesn't that sound like big government tyranny to them? Giving the police the power to demand "papers" from someone just on their own suspicion?I somehow doubt we'll see them marching in the street in defense of their Hispanic brothers and sisters. They only care about their own sorry, white butts. This is what "white privilege is all about" (as anyone who lived through the civil rights era knows only too well):
The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be...Recent events - and votes - tell us who Republicans really represent: White America, the wealthier the better.
(Cross-posted at Blogging for Michigan.)
1 comment:
Heck, the teabaggers will go berserk over any immigration legislation that hints at being anything but security based. What they'll find, though, is that they'll up against a group that is bigger and much better organized than they are: Every city and town in the country with a significant migrant population has immigrant rights nonprofits, lobbying groups, and community organizations. They've formed an effective coalition, too, that can turn out 2-3 people for every one teabagger at a given public event or rally.
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