Via WorldNetDaily we have Ann Coulter in all her glory: Bush’s America: Roach motel in which she rants about immigration.
The grandest irony in the piece is that in the second paragraph she ponders:
I don’t know why conservatives like Linda Chavez have to argue like liberals by smearing their opponents as racists.
She then launches into an incoherent argument that Ted Kennedy personally decided to change American immigration policies so as to increase the number of Third World natives in the US to affect “a dramatic chance in the nation’s demographics.” And his goal was to
radically transform the racial composition of the country. Instead of taking 15 immigrants from England and three from China, America would henceforth take three from England and 15 from China. Payback’s a bitch, Daughters of the American Revolution!
Coulter’s entire argument is wholly predicated on calling up bogeymen. First is the notion that this is all about Ted Kennedy, perhaps the member of Congress least liked by hardcore conservatives; and second the idea that there is some grand conspiracy to change American demographics (i.e., race). The almost nonsensical reference to the Daughter of the American Revolution is clearly an attempt to label this change as somehow a reversal of American ideals.
What this is based on, however, is rather unclear. I may not be a fan of Ted Kennedy’s, but the notion that he has been on some kind of subversive anti-American crusade since 1965 is beyond ludicrous.
However, the really amazing thing about Coulter’s piece is that despite the protestations about how awful it is that she feels like she is being called a racist is that fact she engages in blatantly racist argumentation in the column. To wit:
In 1960, whites were 90 percent of the country. The Census Bureau recently estimated that whites already account for less than two-thirds of the population and will be a minority by 2050. Other estimates put that day much sooner.
One may assume the new majority will not be such compassionate overlords as the white majority has been [because there has never been a time in our history when a majority of whites ever abused the minority-Ed.]. If this sort of drastic change were legally imposed on any group other than white Americans, it would be called genocide. Yet whites are called racists merely for mentioning the fact current immigration law is intentionally designed to reduce their percentage in the population.[Because it is–to claim this is to be claiming a falsehood for the express purpose of stoking fear–it is simple race-baiting-Ed.]
If one frames the “problem” as a decrease in the number of white people, then it would seem that one is saying that the “problem” is the increase in the number of not white people. It would seem, therefore, that one is arguing about race.
I do not lightly use the term “racist” but she is blatantly making her fundamental argument on the issue of the amount of melanin one has in one’s skin. If one is primarily concerned with skin color as a defining feature of the nature of a person then that is, by definition, racism. This is especially true if one ascribes to a given color of skin superior abilities or if one believes that certain cultural traits are created by/carried by specific races.
Coulter, like Pat Buchanan, is making a clearly racist argument: that we have to stop immigration because darker skinned people can’t be as American as white people. What else can this be called than racist?
And what about the title of the piece–likening immigration reform to turning the US into a “roach motel”–that’s nice. There’s certainly nothing offensive about likening Latin America immigrants to roaches. Very classy.
I found this piece because of an unsolicited e-mail I received from the Conservative Heritage Times blog which lauds the Coulter piece–as do a number of commenters which include Michael Hill of the League of the South (a neo-Confederate movement) who sees stopping immigration as “a matter of survival for our people” by which it is pretty clear he means white people.
So while I think it is true that there are those who oppose immigration reform for various good reasons, it is also clear that a goodly number of those folks are nativists and racists. I don’t like saying it, but it as plain as day when you read their own words.
Further, Coulter and her ilk, which allegedly in the past haven’t like racial categories (e.g., in affirmative action or in the census or the like) are now wholly buying into the notion of racial categories. Yet the truth of the matter is, these categories are largely constructs.
Latin Americans easily underscore this fact: it is possible to meet someone from Mexico or elsewhere in the region who may have very light skin. Indeed, they might even *gasp* appear white! Image that! So, are those European-descended Mexicans able to come here and be “American” in Ann Coulter’s world? Is there a sliding scale where the darker you are, the less “American” you can be? Middle Son and my Youngest Sister both tan better than the rest of my family, are they less “American” than the rest of us pale folk?
And what are we going to do with Condaleeza Rice, Colin Powell, Elaine Chao, Linda Chavez, Alberto Gonzales, Clarence Thomas, Mel Martinez, Michael Steele, Carlos Guiterrez, Alphonso Jackson, and any number of other Not White People? By Coulter’s own logic, it would seem that they can’t be real Americans, now can they?
What about all those hard working American who are of African, Asian or Latin descent?
This whole situation is, quite frankly, sickening.
It is one thing to think that we need border controls, it is yet another to spout off about how America’s whiteness is being threatened. The ideals that founded and sustain this country are not color-specific, despite whatever abuses have been perpetrated in their name. And for people like Buchanan and Coulter to assert that America will die if whites become a plurality is to say that those ideals have no power unless they are wielded by the white man, which is to then be saying that whites are morally and intellectually superior to other people groups. And that, as I have already said, is racism–pure and simple.
Update: To simplify my entire post: if one doesn’t want to be accused of being racist, don’t make arguments based on race. More to the point, don’t make arguments predicated on the idea that one race is inherently superior to another.
