Fear of brown people
Public opposition to the naturalization of undocumented Mexican immigrants has been disguised as concern over national security, but it's really been driven by fervent xenophobia and racist wordviews. The ongoing cover-up of this fact is finally going up in smoke, thanks to the flap over a Spanish-language recording of "The Star-Spangled Banner."Do everyday Americans truly give a rat's ass what any musicians do with their interpretations of our national anthem? Up to this point it seemed the song had already been done in every conceivable style-- as jazz instrumental, backed by a drum machine, sung by rock and blues musicians, and recorded as a Gospel hymn. It's probably been performed with dueling banjos. But our President cares deeply about the latest artistic threat to Francis Scott Key's Greatest Hit. "I think the national anthem ought to be done in English," he said today in the Rose Garden, then added, "I think people who want to be citizens of this country ought to learn English"-- a statement of such individual hypocrisy from President Lil' Abner that it threatened par with his global lectures on human rights.
The Spanish-language recording of the anthem is the work of a British record producer named Adam Kidron, who's calling it an ode to the millions of immigrants seeking a better life in the United States. It's hard not to also see and hear echos of historical precedent in U.S./British relations. During the American Revolution, the lyric of Britain's anthem "God Save the Queen" gave way to "My Country, 'tis of Thee" in the colonies.
The border issue, as a whole, has demonstrated that Jim Crow is alive and well in America. It has provided political cover for the Haters on right-wing radio, the internet, and even in our Congress. U.S. Rep. Steve King of Iowa sent a letter to newspapers this week pronouncing that an Hispanic economic boycott such as Monday's National Day Without Immigrants meant "there would be no one to smuggle across our border the heroin, marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamines that plague the United States...The lives of 12 U.S. citizens would be saved who otherwise die a violent death at the hands of murderous illegal aliens each day... Our hospital emergency rooms would not be flooded... Eight American children would not suffer the horror as a victim of a sex crime." Not surprisingly, this type of rhetoric is leading to Civil Rights-era-style violence in our least-evolved suburban backwaters. Late Saturday night, two white teenage boys in Spring, TX severely beat, burned, and sodomized a 16-year-old Hispanic boy who they believed had tried to kiss a 12-year-old white girl at a party.
If you're not yet on the side of amnesty for undocumented residents or for creating a path to citizenship for our Latino neighbors and your fellow laborers, these are your cohorts. It's gut-check time again in America, and I believe that su hermosura estrellada yet waves over the home of the brave.
posted by CM @ 6:29 PM
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