Monday, May 01, 2006
(2:39 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Moderate Voices: Shut the Fuck Up
All the liberal pundits who think that the proposed one-day economic boycott by immigrants will promote "backlash" or will "hurt their cause" need to shut the fuck up. As always, these moderate, sensible voices miss the point of protest entirely: that is, it is completely useless unless it disrupts people's everyday lives. The whole problem, the whole structural issue that has gotten us to this impasse is precisely that people can go about their daily lives without being at all disrupted or interrupted by the demands of exploited immigrants. Right now we're dealing with a situation where:- Congress is debating bills that would turn all illegal immigrants into felons.
- The idea of building a wall across the US-Mexico border is a live option.
The moderation and even-handedness that we need to see in this situation is from the government: acknowledging that these immigrants are an integral part of American society, that they play an absolutely essential role, and that they deserve the exact same treatment as every other human being. Instead, we have the characteristically one-sided, reality-denying, punitive policies that our ruling classes like to throw around in order to appear "tough." Well, enough is enough. This isn't a fucking game -- this is a life-and-death issue, an issue of basic human dignity. Maybe we privileged whites who "would kind of rather not have a war in Iraq if at all possible, please" can afford to have a little sandbox pretend protest -- I'm not sure the immigrant community can. Now it might be the case that this one-day economic boycott and disruptive protest is the worst mistake ever made in the history of the civil rights movement worldwide -- obviously, I'm skeptical, but maybe it is. Part of respecting them as political equals has to be the recognition that this is their call to make, their mistake to make, and that if they make a tactical error, it's not because they failed to listen to the voice of the all-wise moderate sensible white pundits who, in aggregate, have basically been wrong about everything for as long as I can remember.
