Immigrants Have Always Dealt With Bullshit

May 1st, 2010 by Jimmy | Posted in History, Politics | No Comments »

The United States is a nation of immigrants, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that immigrants have always been accepted.

Immigrants have always had to fight for their place in America since the colonial times. Anglo-Saxons, “white” people as they used to liked to be called, have always had issues with the newest immigrants coming to the United States.

Africans are the most obvious example of discrimination. Even around the time of the civil war, when slavery was passionately debated, abolition was argued more often as a crutch for planters in the South and as a threat to the family throughout. Few argued that slavery was a crime against the humanity of these people, or even that they were equal. Even Abraham Lincoln, the great ‘liberator’ of the past, believed Africans were greatly inferior to whites; i.e., Lincoln was just as much a racist as most of America was back then (how else would he have been elected?).

Native Americans are another obvious example. Our beloved Andrew Jackson, the face on the twenty-dollar bill, hated, killed, and forced Natives to relocate west of the Mississippi River. Later on as America’s land-lust increased (Manifest Destiny), we would isolate Natives in the west to reservations.

There are others.

The Scots-Irish were loathed in the late 18th century as they came to America after being persecuted in England.

Germans were more welcomed, but that was because they were Protestants. However, they were still inferior.

Which leads to another point: if you were Catholic, yep, you were inferior, scum, dirtbags, a threat to American, etc.

19th century: Scottish, coming to Texas to help build capital building, were hated. Irish, landing in Boston, were wretched drunks. Tejanos, mixed Anglo-Mexicans in Texas, lost their place after Texas became a Republic mostly because of another racial prejudice: being of mixed race, or as they called it, being a ‘hybrid’.

In Bellingham, Washington, the Sikhs were thrown out of town for taking jobs away from the whiteboys.

The Chinese, oh the poor Chinese, were hated in Idaho, Truckee, California, Seattle/Bellingham — basically all over the place. No matter how many lives they gave to help build America, they still weren’t considered Americans.

The Japanese during World War II were thrown into concentration internment camps because they could be spies.

Mexicans, like the Chinese, have always had to deal with Anglo bullshit. Even after Western territories were annexed after the Mexican-American war, Mexicans, now citizens of the United States, weren’t even counted as citizens in the official count for territories to request statehood.

Now fast forward to today and Mexicans are still dealing with Anglo-bullshit. In fact, it could be argued that all ethnic minorities are in some form or another. Just look at all the ‘birthers’ and how they continue pushing this idea that Obama is not a citizen.

In America it seems that ethnic groups have to go through some kind of hazing process before they’re considered legitimately American, and Americans have always felt that newer ethnic groups threaten the American way of life, that they’ll destroy the ‘fabric’ of our society and overload our resources blah blah blah.

So immigrants — yes, come to America as our forefathers/mothers have, but know that we’re going to give you swirlies in our freshly shitted toilets. After that, we’ll consider whether or not you’re worthy of being American.

(I would cite sources, but I just don’t give a damn right now. I’ve just been thinking about immigration and the way immigrants are treated. These issues are complicated and tug on the hearts of any human being who has one. These are people trying to better their lives, yet they’re going about it the wrong way and in the process they’re getting taken advantage of, sometimes into indentured servitude and/or enslavement. I believe better enforcement of our laws (perhaps using our resources for our borders instead of bullshit oil wars) and perhaps a more streamlined process of work-visa and/or citizenship would help prevent some of these crimes against humanity and give better reasons to go through the appropriate process to work in America.

I really have no idea where all this is coming from. Guess I’ve been thinking about it for awhile.)

April 20th, 2010 by Jimmy | Posted in Life, Philosophy, Politics, Sociology | No Comments »

My latest studies in history have been in the topic of slavery in the United States. One fascinating aspect about this era concerns white society in the South in which only one-fourth of the population actually owned slaves; the other three-fourths were yeomen farmers who resented the aristocratic planter society. These yeomen farmers were democratic (well, white male democratic) who strongly supported Andrew Jackson (the icon of the ’self-made man’) and resented the power of aristocratic planters for fear that they wielded too much power and wealth. In politics these farmers would sometimes vote against the planters when it came to economic or infrastructure issues (America: Past and Present, p. 318, 7th ed.)

The author of the text then asks the question “Why, then, did they fail to respond to antislavery appeals that called on them to strike at the real source of planter power and privilege?” (ibid). In other words, if these farmers despised planters, why did the farmers not vote against the planters when it came to slavery? Well, keep in mind that because slave transportation to the United States was outlawed in the first half of the 19th century, thus supply was low, slaves became a symbol of wealth and power. According to the text, a slave could be worth (high value) $1200 (p. 307); now compare that to the yearly salary of a physician at the time: approximately $300 a year. Therefore, to have a slave was put you in the top 25% of society at that time.

Now, besides the fact that keeping a degraded class of human beings below their themselves made them feel better about themselves, yeomen farmers had another reason, which is fascinating:

“One reason was that some nonslaveholders hoped to get ahead in the world, and in the South this meant acquiring slaves of their own. Just enough of the more prosperous yeomen broke into the slaveholding classes to make this dream seem believable. Planters, anxious to ensure the loyalty of nonslaveholders, strenuously encouraged the notion that every white man was a potential master.

Even if they did not aspire to own slaves, white farmers often viewed black servitude as providing a guarantee of their own liberty and independence. A society that gave them the right vote and the chance to be self-sufficient on land of their own encouraged the feeling they were fundamentally equal to the largest slaveholders. Although they had no natural love of planters and slavery, they believed — or could be induced to believe — that abolition would threaten their liberty and independence.” (pp. 318-19)

Interesting, no?

Now here’s the modern relevancy that was brought up in our class discussions: do we not act the same way about celebrities, CEOs, bankers — basically our modern aristocratic class? Granted, this may not apply to everyone, but I think Americans tolerate the bullshit of the wealthy because we hope to become wealthy.

How much bullshit do we tolerate, and say that we despise it and call it bullshit, but in reality we aspire to be like those bullshitters and the ones we despise?

Just some food for thought.

For your health.