American Dreamers and Racism in America
“American Dreamers” and Racism in America
[from The Tentacle - August 19th 2013]
Please indulge me today, in an effort to superimpose what is now considered “American Dreaming,” along with observations on the state of racism in the current environs.
Arguments persist about what is the “American dream,” who is entitled to it, and also whether racism is diminished since the famous Martin Luther King, Jr., (MLK) “I Have A Dream” speech and the rise of our bi-racial presidency.
Potentially exportable – fully under law – undocumented/illegal -immigrants, recently counted as having been spared the trip back home, amount to about 400,000 according to a lead piece widely syndicated from National Journal by Rebecca Kaplan (August 16).
The new “dreamers” are defined as the young, mostly Mexican children of those coming to America the illegal way, without passport or visa. We are told – as a political consideration – that they one day dream to become American citizens. Maryland will surely help now, with in-state tuition rates, no-questions-asked student enrollment K-12, and free medical help under provisions of Obamacare that will surely be allowed to afford it under a poverty exemption from any contribution.
I assure you the Internal Revenue Service will not be knocking on doors of illegals-havens looking for back dues to America.
Now congratulations to you, as if you agree with any of the postulations above, you are a racist! YOU are the one that MLK, Jr. preached about...
Despite this post-racial Obama Administration, we continue to use racism accusations like a shield, for whatever purpose seems to fit; typically some cause using “fairness” or equality as keywords/code-words. How about “leveling the playing field; that sounds nice, too...
So, the American dream of our recent ancestors has been transformed. It used to be a dream of economic success and ample retirement time to reflect upon it comfortably. A basement railroad set in every pot. A family vacation to see the world’s largest ball of string, or whatever it used to be. Homeownership was a part of it, too. Then they gave that one away – because economic parity became a fairness issue – to everyone, hence the Great Recession...
Now, the “American Dream” is not even reserved only for American citizens any more. Our nation has become some international game show where it’s rigged. You just have to get here to win. Does this concept make me a racist?
Is there no value to patriotism, and pride of American culture, values, and language?
But let’s break it down a bit more specifically now. Has political leadership in America's great cities – by our own citizens – fulfilled anyone’s dream? Examine the quality of life in the Anacostia area of Washington. Of the Cabrini Green projects in Chicago. Camden, New Jersey. Downtown Los Angeles or Boston’s baddest side. Self led by liberal ideology in most cases, today is not a “Great Society” or a war on poverty won, but ghetto. Bankruptcy, stagnation, hopelessness, and an entitlement-social ethic pervade. In short, an economic trap was fully set and worked!
Of course, “you can’t do it by yourself!”….that would require work ethic, creativity, competition, winners and losers and all that.
A Sunday column in The Frederick News-Post by local columnist Jack Topchik (“A Dread, a Bomb, and a Revolution,”) concerning the state of racism concludes with this summary paragraph:
“But equality does not necessarily equate to acceptance. President Obama is vilified daily on right-wing and tea party radio and on the Internet in ways that suggest that it is not his politics but rather the man and his heritage that they abhor. False stereotypes of welfare mothers and lazy Hispanics persist. Yes, we still have a long way to go.”
What do they “abhor,” his skin color, Jack? Quite the unsupported leap on your part...
When empty accusations, unsupported in major publications are left unanswered by a biased publisher, we have surely slid-back to a more racist time, when baiting the people was common practice.
Now, shouldn’t a successful step away from a racist past include more acceptance, and less incendiary rhetoric?
I know we can get along better than this!
posted by Steven R Berryman at 2:46 PM
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