{"id":14962,"date":"2014-07-08T12:24:22","date_gmt":"2014-07-08T19:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=14962"},"modified":"2014-07-08T12:26:47","modified_gmt":"2014-07-08T19:26:47","slug":"but-but-theyre-illegal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=14962","title":{"rendered":"But, But … They’re ILLEGAL!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Black<\/a>
Elizabeth Eckford, age 15, pursued by a mob at Little Rock Central High School on the first day of the school year, September 4, 1957. (photo credit unknown)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"451815966\"<\/a>
Anti-immigration activist and immigration sympathizer debate during a protest outside of the U.S. Border Patrol Murrieta Station on July 7, 2014 in Murrieta, California. (Photo by Sandy Huffaker\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The parallels between Little Rock in 1957<\/a> and Murrieta today<\/a> should be obvious. The faces of ignorance and intolerance haven’t changed\u00a0much in 57 years.<\/p>\n

One big difference, if you look closely at\u00a0the 1957\u00a0photo,\u00a0is\u00a0the presence of the National Guard. President Eisenhower mobilized hundreds of troops to enforce federal law\u00a0and prevent rule by lynch mob in Little Rock. Yes, Virginia, there once was a time when presidents were courageous.<\/p>\n

I could be wrong, but I don’t remember the media giving the views of white supremacists and pro-slavery advocates as much publicity during the civil rights battles of the 1950s and 60s as they do\u00a0today. Bigots and segregationists\u00a0were generally regarded as marginal figures, with nothing but negativity to contribute to the national debate. With the exception of a few prominent politicians like George Wallace, or grotesque buffoons\u00a0like Lester Maddox, they were pretty much frozen out of the conversation.<\/p>\n

Not so today, when everything’s 50\/50 and if the President makes a statement you have to give equal time to some ignorant shitbird like\u00a0Louis Gohmert\u00a0in the name of “balance.” Maybe that’s why Obama hasn’t acted\u00a0decisively\u00a0against sovereign citizens, redneck militias, self-appointed\u00a0border guards, or mobs of racists at places like the Bundy Ranch and\u00a0Murrieta. You’d think, more than halfway into his second and last term, he’d have nothing to lose by taking a stand. Obviously, you don’t see the big picture. And frankly neither do I.<\/p>\n

I hate jack-booted federal thugs as much as anyone, but if there were ever a time to bring in the troops, this is it. Without sympathizing with them in the least, as far as I can see the federal agencies involved in the latest immigration crisis … Border Patrol, ICE, DHS, etc\u00a0…\u00a0are doing their best to comply with laws and regulations governing apprehending, holding, processing, and eventually deporting illegal immigrants.\u00a0There is a process, and moving these kids to holding centers is, regrettably, part of it.<\/p>\n

The right thinks it has the all-time trump answer to those\u00a0who advocate due process and humane treatment for border crossers. Their answer\u00a0boils down to one word, which apparently must be typed in all caps: ILLEGAL! I was surprised, though, that one of my Facebook friends played that card when I posted the Little Rock photo there. Here’s how he dismissed\u00a0the similarity between\u00a0Elizabeth Eckford\u00a0in 1957 Little Rock and Central American kids coming into the country today: “She was an ILLEGAL immigrant?\u00a0I have no prob with immigrants, just ILLEGAL immigrants.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, lord, where to even start? In 1957, in Arkansas and\u00a0other southern states, it was illegal for Elizabeth Eckford, or any black person, to attend whites-only schools. To sit at drug store lunch counters. To ride\u00a0in the front of the bus. To eat vanilla ice cream on any day other than the 4th of July<\/a>. To fucking vote. Literally illegal … or, as my friend would say, ILLEGAL!<\/p>\n

If the illegality of crossing into the USA without a passport means undocumented brown people are fair game for screaming mobs of vigilantes, then I guess the hate-filled\u00a0white women in the photo at the top of this post were just doing their jobs, right!<\/p>\n

Ask yourself this: would any of this be happening if these ILLEGALS!\u00a0were from Germany or the UK?<\/p>\n

Show some spine, Mr. President. Show some spine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Eisenhower mobilized hundreds of troops to enforce federal law and prevent rule by lynch mob in Little Rock. Yes, Virginia, there once was a time when presidents were courageous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[250,10,64,16,14,8,827],"tags":[1597,1596,1595,1594],"class_list":["post-14962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-wars","category-current-events","category-history","category-media","category-military","category-politics","category-social-media","tag-haters","tag-immigration","tag-integration","tag-race"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14962"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14966,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14962\/revisions\/14966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}