Weekly Briefing

Civil rights groups call for an end to toxic anti-immigrant speech

Here's a sobering story about modern-day America that all of us ought to ponder: This week in a federal courtroom in Raleigh, a man by the name of Michael Szaz pleaded guilty to communicating threats of violence to two national nonprofit organizations that advocate on behalf of immigrant communities - the National Council of La Raza (a voice for the Hispanic community) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. According to Janet Muguia of La Raza, Szaz sent an email to the group in which he threatened to kill staff members of the organization and used a racial epithet to describe Hispanics.

What makes this case particularly disturbing is the fact that it is not an isolated incident. Szaz's hateful act is just one small ripple in a rising tide of racist and anti-immigrant vitriol. At a press conference prior to the court proceeding, Murguia stated that the Szaz threat was just "one of thousands" and the "tip of the iceberg."

According to an article by Kristin Collins of Raleigh's News & Observer:

"Hate crimes against Hispanics have risen steadily in the past few years, according to the FBI. The agency reports that 820 Hispanics were victimized because of their ethnicity in 2006, up from about 600 in 2004."

Tony Asion, Executive Director of the Raleigh-based Hispanic advocacy organization El Pueblo and a former law enforcement officer, reported at the same event that threats of this kind are a constant problem for him, his staff and other immigrant advocates. Asion's predecessor, Andrea Bazan, said that she has even resorted to using guards to protect herself and her family.

Why now? Why here?

In some ways, the rise in anti-immigrant threats and violence is not surprising. Speakers at Tuesday's press event acknowledged the fact that America's immigrant population has risen rapidly in recent years. When combined with economic hard times for some and the natural human tendency to fear change and those who are different, the rise in ugly nativism does not come as a complete shock. This is particularly true in a state like North Carolina that has little recent history of large influxes of foreign born immigrants. According to Bazan, anti-immigrant acts and attitudes in North Carolina have become significantly more noticeable the last three years.

On the other hand, there are other explanations for the current spike in hate speech and hate crime that are not so charitable. As El Pueblo's Asion noted, it's clear that at least some of the problem today is the direct result of "politicians inflaming things to a level that's creating hatred."

In other words, when supposedly responsible public officials are uttering insensitive and/or downright racist remarks and subjecting good, hardworking families to midnight raids, constant demands for their "papers" and violent arrests of the kind that one would normally associate with totalitarian regimes, it's predictable that freelance haters and vigilantes would feel they have license to take matters a step further.

On this count, it was the always-eloquent president of the North Carolina NAACP, Dr. William Barber, who spoke especially forcefully at the press event. According to Barber, much of the recent anti-immigrant hate speech and hate crime is of the exact same ilk that African-Americans have been forced to endure for centuries. "We know this history," said Barber. "It's out of the same playbook," he noted.

Barber then went on to remind the audience of the similarities that exist between the hate crimes of today and those that were perpetrated in the Deep South during the early 1960's. Both kinds were and are perpetrated by ignorant and disaffected people given impetus by opportunistic elected officials who used "hateful and toxic rhetoric." Barber noted the connection between the hateful atmosphere promoted by politicians like George Wallace and "Bull" Connor and the Birmingham church bombing in which four innocent children were murdered. 

He drew a similar parallel to the events that led up to the racist coup d'etat perpetrated in Wilmington in 1898 - noting that it was started with hateful political rhetoric.    

In the same way today, he noted, modern politicians are "scapegoating" immigrants and helping to create the kind of atmosphere that gives rise to a Michael Szaz. On this count Barber directed especially harsh criticism at the hateful words uttered recently by Johnston County sheriff Steve Bizzell and what he called the "deafening silence" of other elected officials that has taken place in response. (Bizzell, you'll remember, made a small boatload of absurd and offensive comments a couple of weeks ago to the same News & Observer reporter mentioned above.)  

Barber also decried the common practice of referring to immigrants as "aliens." Though the term has its origins in dated federal immigration laws, Barber argued persuasively that in modern times the term has come to connote a kind a subhuman creature. He called upon all participants in the debate to stop using the word.

"We are not the cause of your problems"   

One of the great ironies of the Michael Szaz case is the fact that man is himself, apparently, the son of an immigrant - a Hungarian man who actually became an immigrant advocate. Could it be that Szaz' behavior was, in some ways, an act of self-hatred? The act of a pathetic character who felt despair at his own shortcomings and a need to place the blame on others whose presence and apparent success served to emphasize his own failures? If so, it would make sense and coincide neatly with the pattern of many other current and past haters.

For the sad reality of so much of the anti-immigrant hysteria currently gripping North Carolina and the rest of the United States these days is that it is the result of precisely this kind of misdirected hatred and anger. Rather than targeting their frustration and disaffection over the nation's current widening economic divide and culture of economic insecurity at the real causes - our rapidly globalizing economy and the purveyors of market fundamentalist, trickledown public policy - would-be haters turn to simpler, more visible targets.

But of course, any rational and thoughtful examination of the immigrant issue quickly reveals that these xenophobic attitudes have no basis in reality. As study after study demonstrates, immigrants are good for the domestic economy and good for the long-term health of public budgets (like the demographically challenged Social Security system).  America needs lots of immigrants. As Tony Asion put it this succinctly week, "We are not the cause of your problems."

Unfortunately, this is a message that's hard for a lot of people to hear - especially when opportunistic public officials, professional dividers and supposedly "libertarian," "free market" think tanks are constantly banging the anti-immigrant drumbeat and promoting dark and menacing images of ‘the other."

Going forward

In the weeks and months ahead, the immigration debate will continue in America and in North Carolina. At the federal level there seems to be some cause for hope in that both major presidential candidates have generally embraced a humane and forward-looking approach toward the issue (though Senator McCain seems to have backtracked a good bit in recent months).  

Here in North Carolina, however, it seems we have a long way to go. Let's hope that the conviction and sentencing of Michael Szaz and the strong and forceful statements of local civil rights advocates like Tony Asion, William Barber and Andrea Bazan are quickly echoed by a loud chorus of elected officials and community leaders on all sides of the political spectrum. As each of the speakers noted at Tuesday's event, it's one thing to differ over important policy issues, it's quite another to poison that debate with toxic language that gives license to hate and violence. North Carolina can and should do better.      

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 8:18 am and is filed under Weekly Briefing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.