Comments on: African-American Coalition Provides Cover to Nativist Lobby

By: Aron

Aron — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 16:11:11 +0000

Sam, care to provide any evidence for that absurd claim?

By: Sam Molloy

Sam Molloy — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 14:56:42 +0000

Because, Aadilia, they commit most of the crimes. This is not to say the system could not be improved. Violent crimes with specific victims are in my mind very different than simple drug possession, small time dope dealing and failure to pay child support and parking tickets.

By: aadila

aadila — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 20:48:10 +0000

Sam if our judicial system works pretty well — as you claim — why is the high-school-to-prison pipeline populated principally by African Americans and Hispanic inmates, the same people Tanton wishes to pit one against the other?

Agreed, compassion does not imply self blame. It implies knowing the victims of the right wing war on the prison population could be you.

By: Erika

Erika — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 11:36:21 +0000

Dan, don’t be silly – if the right wing ultimately has their way and brings back the Gilded Age there would be no need to bring in illegal immigrants because there would be plenty of native born Americans willing to work for barely subsidiance wages in jobs that would have a strong chance of killing you. Some of them even openly call for abolishing education and bringing back child labor. Remember also that they ultimately want to ban women from being able to work outside of the home with the possible exception of being a prostitute (which if you recall prostitution used to be called “white slavery” and would still be “illegal” to assure exploitation of the victims but like in the Gilded Age the corrupt police forces would be bribed and look the other way).

There is no need for “illegal” immigration when its perfectly legal to exploit everyone.

By: Erika

Erika — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 11:28:28 +0000

Sam, many people who were serving time were drug addicts who were “selling crack” or “meth” to maintain their addiction. Others just happened to engage in the same sort of behavior which millions of others engage in but happened to be the wrong race and income level. some people in prison committed no crime – and happened to be the wrong race at the wrong place and time. Yes, DNA evidence has lessened the dependence on eye witness testimony (which turns out to be extremely inaccurate) but there are still many people (and guess what race they tend to be) who are still in prison wrongly convicted of rape or robbery based upon the victim picking the wrong guy. In these older cases there is often no DNA evidence available. Others are serving draconian sentences for minor property crimes – like the guy i saw get sentenced to 4 years in prison for stealing a bag of candy worth $1 – and many of them were also drug addicts. Others have serious mental illnesses and received no treatment on the outside.

rather than condemning prisoners or seeing them as less than human we as society should say “there but for the Grace of God go i” – or whatever the athiest equivilent of it is. in my case, i know that is true – as i’ve said before, i was a very bad girl when i was in high school – had i been poor and/or black and likely a male (or even less attractive – one of the lesser known prejudices of our male dominated justice system is that it favors attractive girls and women) i may well have ended up on the school to prison pipeline myself (i definitely would have ended up in juvenile detention). instead, i wasn’t even arrested and i’m now an attorney – and even though i worked in a public defenders office for a very brief time, i still was able to see the class bias, racism and even sexism (although contrary to what the men’s rights bozos will tell you, the real sexism comes from the male dominated judicial system favoring young attractive female defendants – and that is the one form of prejudice that goes across racial and class lines) still present in this system.

By: Linnea

Linnea — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 22:20:23 +0000

Why am I not surprised by this? FAIR (what an oxymoronic name!) has proved to be quite the slippery bunch. I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them.

By: Sam Molloy

Sam Molloy — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 15:14:22 +0000

Aadila, it is not compassion to blame yourself for other people breaking the law and serving time. It is sick. Compare them to the immigrants that travel hundreds or thousands of miles with just the clothes on their backs and wornout shoes, just to get a job. They broke no laws except crossing the border and sometimes carrying a backpack of pot one time to earn their freedom. I believe our judicial system works pretty well, but the normal odds of getting caught means the people in prison usually committed numerous crimes, hurting a lot of people, before they were finally incarcerated. There are improvements that could be made to our education system, but things like lowering behavior standards because of one group’s high rate of suspension has not worked. Once again, false compassion. In Georgetown, Ky. Where the Toyota plant is located, there is very little crime because everyone has a job of some kind waiting for them the minute they get out of high school. Even if they drop out they can change truck tires at the truck stops. This points to better solutions than anything the Government can come up with.

By: Bill

Bill — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 14:12:09 +0000

I am not at all suprised that there are African-Americans who are concerned about the….browning-racist of America. After all since all homo-sapiens are equal it should not be surpising that there are a…..tiny minority of African-Americans who incorrectly(?) fear that they(persons of color-non-African Americans)are stealing “our jobs”.

By: Sam Molloy

Sam Molloy — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 04:01:51 +0000

Dan, I believe you are exactly right.

By: concernedcitizen

concernedcitizen — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 00:14:23 +0000

Well I agree that education is very important and that overall our society has a great lack of it leading to the breeding grounds of some of the worse we have to offer up as “alleged” human beings.

But there are those who get caught up innocently in a system and they do desire to lift themselves up by their own bootstraps.

At least there are many Universities online now offering free courses and some provide certificates if the course is successfully completed.

It’s not much but its something.

By: aadila

aadila — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 21:10:25 +0000

Sam, I am not surprised that survivors of the world’s largest confinement, torture and state-sanctioned rape industry would be in no condition to return to society under conditions reminiscent of bond slavery. Parolees need more than job opportunities upon release: they need education, job skills, substance abuse/psychological treatment, and a new sense of self — while still in prison. That’s hard to provide when the state cannot even manage to observe the basic human rights of detainees. America’s high-school to prison pipeline is not famous for rehabilitation, but it does seem pretty good at guaranteeing those who do go out alive end up going right back in.

By: Dan Zabetakis

Dan Zabetakis — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 20:43:51 +0000

” The real question is will the bill being pushing through Congress hurt African-Americans?”

Neither. The small number of people eligible for citizenship under this program won’t make any difference in any demographic.

What this law will do, and what I assume it is intended to do, is increase the demonization of the next generation of illegal immigrants.

Agriculture, construction and a few other industries _depend_ on exploitable labor. Thus they need illegal immigration. Therefor illegal immigration will continue, but with more punitive restrictions and less public sympathy.

Once we have granted citizenship to some immigrants, we will be able to really hammer the next illegals. Racists and nativists will love it, and corporations love exploitable labor that has no legal recourse.

By: Publium

Publium — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 18:51:21 +0000

OK, so BALA is a front for FAIR. The real question is will the bill being pushing through Congress hurt African-Americans? Does immigration in general hurt of help African-Americans?

By: Sam Molloy

Sam Molloy — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 17:23:20 +0000

A pilot program in ‘Bama to replace exiled immigrants with recent parolees who could not find work, to harvest crops. This effort was a massive failure, with the vast majority not even finishing one day of work. In Kentucky immigrants do “Tobacco Work”, brought in under legal contracts. I’m in pretty good shape but from what I hear I could not do that work. Something to consider however are robots being developed by the Israelis and beginning to be used in Europe that can harvest crops. A basic small wheeled chassis carries any of various machines, one of which can visually discern a ripe strawberry from a nonripe one, and gently pick it without smashing it.