Racists with Power

Racists are so consumed by the sentiment of hate that they are left with little imagination to generate creative and effective ideas that would help them complete tasks that are entrusted to them. If we add to this the mental structure of a belief in the existence of absolute right (which, of course, is theirs), it is difficult for alternative solutions to be heard.

This has happened to the North American racists and worse yet, to the Republican leaders and politicians that hold positions of power and have important responsibilities in the fight over current immigration.

The list of these characters is long. Of course, at the top is the woman who governs Arizona, Jan Brewer. But very closely following her are characters such as Texas Governor Rick Perry and Sarah Palin, ex-governor of Alaska and defeated U.S. vice presidential candidate. In the first case, the sadly famous law SB 1070 promoted by Brewer has forced the U.S. federal government to take matters into their own hands, setting the rest of the bureaucratic network in motion as well and provoking a favorable resolution of judicial power.

In Perry’s case, with his rebuffs, threats and decisions, new challenges are opened for Barack Obama, as well as for the administration of President Calderón. The governor of Texas has requested federal reinforcement of the military intervention on the border, increasing the number of National Guard personnel and demanding emergency actions to prevent organized crime from “overwhelming” the border.

It would be good to remind this governor that two out of the four safest cities in the United States are Austin and El Paso, both in Texas and the latter located right on the border, adjacent to Juarez.

One would also have to tell him that recent studies by the Woodrow Wilson Center, a prestigious think tank, have concluded that immigration is not a factor that influences the insecurity index. On the contrary, states such as Arizona (full of immigrants) have a safety index greater than half of the states in the union.

Finally, the case of Palin only serves to provide evidence of Republican opportunism to exploit the false nationalist sentiments of a large conservative middle class that furthermore is poorly educated and does not have incentives to feel very proud of their country. To her misfortune, the hypocrisy of the politicians in this sense became evident awhile ago, when Sen. McCain exhibited his true reactionary position in relation to this matter.

On the other hand, it is alarming that with so many educated Mexicans living in practically every important city in the United States, there is no articulated strategy to have a presence in the different media spaces that tackle the matter. Hundreds of potential spokesmen should be giving messages daily about the aspects and hard facts of immigration, but they simply have not appeared.

The most worrying thing is the absence of well-balanced information, which exacerbates the radical sentiments and ideologies of the hundreds of irregular groups that are in fact operating on the border.

Amid all this, it is prudent to remind the Obama administration to search for less aggressive alternatives and to encourage a different discourse for the good of everyone — one to be started and run more efficiently — and to start searching as soon as possible.