Salon.com > Xenophobia

GOP: Proudly xenophobic

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:39:00 +0000

The xenophobia has already begun.

Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today urged him to reconsider immigration legislation because of the bombings in Boston. “The facts emerging in the Boston Marathon bombing have exposed a weakness in our current system,” Paul writes. “If we don’t use this debate as an opportunity to fix flaws in our current system, flaws made even more evident last week, then we will not be doing our jobs.”

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), senior Republican senator on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is responsible for an immigration reform bill, is using much the same language – suggesting that the investigation of two alleged Boston attackers will “help shed light on the weaknesses of our system.”

Can we just get a grip? Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a naturalized American citizen. He came to the United States when he was nine years old. He attended the public schools of Cambridge, Massachusetts, not far from where I lived.

Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 23:24:00 +0000

As we now move into the official Political Aftermath period of the Boston bombing -- the period that will determine the long-term legislative fallout of the atrocity -- the dynamics of privilege will undoubtedly influence the nation's collective reaction to the attacks. That's because privilege tends to determine: 1) which groups are -- and are not -- collectively denigrated or targeted for the unlawful actions of individuals; and 2) how big and politically game-changing the overall reaction ends up being.

This has been most obvious in the context of recent mass shootings. In those awful episodes, a religious or ethnic minority group lacking such privilege would likely be collectively slandered and/or targeted with surveillance or profiling (or worse) if some of its individuals comprised most of the mass shooters. However, white male privilege means white men are not collectively denigrated/targeted for those shootings -- even though most come at the hands of white dudes.

Liberal racial hypocrisy

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Since the reelection of President Obama, liberals have made some bold admissions. Commentators like Touré Neblett of MSNBC’s The Cycle have enthusiastically and repeatedly defended the president’s authority to launch drones against anyone, including American citizens, if he suspects that they are “trying to kill us.”

At no point in his several defenses did Touré reconcile his position with once-popular Constitutional precepts that every person should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and know the charges and evidence against him, and have the right to a fair trial. Neither did he explain why ordinary Americans should suspend their longstanding skepticism of politicians in power or withdraw the demand that the president and Congress be accountable for their actions, especially the taking of someone’s life.

British xenophobia on the rise

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 21:17:00 +0000

LONDON, UK — At the Bestco International supermarket on central Edgware Road, British customers can stock up on staples of Twinings tea and HP sauce. Muslims can buy freshly butchered halal chicken, while homesick Poles can buy distinctly non-halal pork kielbasa imported from Silesia.

Browsing local store shelves offers a simple way to gauge the ethnic mix of any London neighborhood. With its eclectic range of East European and Middle Eastern fare, Bestco is typical for catering to the various nationalities that have recently flocked here to forge new lives.

Unscientific as they are, such snapshots reflect a more detailed picture that emerged last month when the government published the results of its first census in a decade. It was a moment in which Britain looked at itself in the mirror — and barely recognized what it saw.