2007-05-31

Get in there, Kid

I made the big time today, batting third on Altercation in the Correspondence Corner. Altercation is a great blog because it is everything one looks for in a blog - a fearless desire to take opinions on the issues of the day. More often than not, I find myself in agreement with the author, but my comment today was on an area of disagreement: border fences.

I cannot think of a more useless device than a border fence. If the Great Wall of China did not prevent the Mongols from making it down for some tea; if the Maginot line
did not prevent the Germans from stopping by to hang out along the Seine and smoke those long, thin cigarettes - what makes anyone think a border fence will prevent people displaced by American trade policy from coming here to get the jobs they need to support their families?

I have noting against immigrants - illegal or otherwise. In fact, I despise the term "illegal immigrant". As a former slave, I know what it means to define people as illegal (although is a "nonperson" just a completely separate category all together?). Nevertheless, it all means the same thing at the end of the day: white people have decided that it is okay to treat a specific class of people as though they were worth less than themselves. And lets be clear here, that is what "illegal immigration" is all about: identifying for the country just who can be paid under the table, who can be dismissed without concern and who can we feel free to discuss as though what motivates them is an entirely separate set of human emotions - ones unique from those that drive "us" the "real" humans.

Instead of building fences at border crossings, we should be seeking ways to remove borders; political borders are imaginary constructs anyway, designed and implemented as control mechanisms by the mighty against the powerless.

Sphere: Related Content