Fifty years after Martin Luther King, Alabama is once again at the forefront of legislation that one can only hope will spawn a new wave of civil disobedience. All around the country state governments and local authorities are cracking down on what we have come to call "illegal immigration" Forcing police to work as deputized INS agents. Just this week Gov. Patrick of Massachusetts said he would refuse to sign onto a federal program that would run immigration checks on people who were arrested, and deport them if they were illegals.
Interestingly enough the word Illegal has a Sarah Palinesque quality to it (changing to meet popular demand). We've been hoodwinked into thinking that the "rule of law" is the highest authority, even over Human conscience - I assure you it is not. The status of Illegal immigrant was largely a construct of the 1920's when what was popularly refered to then as the "Asian Exclusion Act" was instituted primarily to keep Chinese and Japanese out of America. Given the strong anti-asian sentiment that led to the the internment of Japanese Americans during world war two and the Veitnam war, the Asian question of race is one that this country still refuses to address.
These miriad of anti-immigration laws restricted immigration to this country by any ethnic group that was not already represented within the United States. These laws were bolstered again in the thirties and forties in order to keep Jews out of the good ol' USA. IN fact no country in the world was willing to accept the Jews. Hitler saw himself largely as doing the entire world a favor... and we are not excused for the fact that we forced boatloads of Jews to sit in harbors and sent them away (as did most western nations of the time).
Today we claim that many Mexicans are illegals, that many Brazilians, Haitians, Cape Verdeans; all here to seek a chance to advance in life, are illegal. But this question of race stems directly from a ethnocentric racism that says that America is for Americans, not the tired weary hungry masses yearning to breath free. If we ask Sarah Palin, maybe she'll explain why that wasn't meant to include non-americans; but I digress.
The fact is most of us are immigrants, or descendants of immigrants, and if we're lucky, they came here before there were quotas. If my grandfather hadn't stayed in the US under dubious legal standing most of his life, I wouldn't be here today.
In the Bible there are dozens of references to God's demand that we care for the widow the orphan and the foreigner among us. Ezekiel 22 explains that God's judgment was being poured out on Israel because not only did they have a lack of concern for the widow orphan and foreigner, Ezekiel says that they were actively trying to defraud and extort them. God looked for a man who would stand in the gap, being righteous (just like Abraham pleading for Sodom and Gomorrah) but he found none.
Many people cite Romans 13, that God has instituted authorities over us... as proof that we should obey the laws of our country, but would you obey a law that said that you did not have the right to pray? would you obey a law that made you call your leader a God? would you obey a law that forbade you to care for a widow? an orphan? then why a foreigner?
Interestingly enough the word Illegal has a Sarah Palinesque quality to it (changing to meet popular demand). We've been hoodwinked into thinking that the "rule of law" is the highest authority, even over Human conscience - I assure you it is not. The status of Illegal immigrant was largely a construct of the 1920's when what was popularly refered to then as the "Asian Exclusion Act" was instituted primarily to keep Chinese and Japanese out of America. Given the strong anti-asian sentiment that led to the the internment of Japanese Americans during world war two and the Veitnam war, the Asian question of race is one that this country still refuses to address.
These miriad of anti-immigration laws restricted immigration to this country by any ethnic group that was not already represented within the United States. These laws were bolstered again in the thirties and forties in order to keep Jews out of the good ol' USA. IN fact no country in the world was willing to accept the Jews. Hitler saw himself largely as doing the entire world a favor... and we are not excused for the fact that we forced boatloads of Jews to sit in harbors and sent them away (as did most western nations of the time).
Today we claim that many Mexicans are illegals, that many Brazilians, Haitians, Cape Verdeans; all here to seek a chance to advance in life, are illegal. But this question of race stems directly from a ethnocentric racism that says that America is for Americans, not the tired weary hungry masses yearning to breath free. If we ask Sarah Palin, maybe she'll explain why that wasn't meant to include non-americans; but I digress.
The fact is most of us are immigrants, or descendants of immigrants, and if we're lucky, they came here before there were quotas. If my grandfather hadn't stayed in the US under dubious legal standing most of his life, I wouldn't be here today.
In the Bible there are dozens of references to God's demand that we care for the widow the orphan and the foreigner among us. Ezekiel 22 explains that God's judgment was being poured out on Israel because not only did they have a lack of concern for the widow orphan and foreigner, Ezekiel says that they were actively trying to defraud and extort them. God looked for a man who would stand in the gap, being righteous (just like Abraham pleading for Sodom and Gomorrah) but he found none.
Many people cite Romans 13, that God has instituted authorities over us... as proof that we should obey the laws of our country, but would you obey a law that said that you did not have the right to pray? would you obey a law that made you call your leader a God? would you obey a law that forbade you to care for a widow? an orphan? then why a foreigner?
