I get spam e-mail occasionally from colleagues or family members on the topic of immigration and other social issues. Poverty, religion, race – liberal politics, you know the ones. Fifty percent of the time I’d say, it’s all packaged up in something (seemingly) benign – like a joke or a cartoon. The other fifty percent of the time it’s a huge lie followed by an Ode to Xenophobia. We do after all live in a world where other-bashing is not only a sport (think: People of Walmart) but a viable profession (think: Glen Beck). I’ve confronted these individuals and their respective recipient lists a number of times now, even using the “B” word whereupon they either apologize or return fire – the interesting thing being that whichever avenue they choose, the words are always the same:
It was meant to be a joke. It doesn’t hurt anybody.
Well. Maybe not anybody you can see. As evidenced by this news from East Haven, Connecticut (link below) and news sources all across the country (I could link for days) – yes it does hurt people. Just not right away. It has to work its magic first.
Police Gang Tyrannized Latinos, Indictment Says
The police officers in this article, they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong. How do you fix that? Particularly when it’s embraced by a whole bunch of dysfunctional support and ill-structured belief systems? Somebody call Tim Wise. We need to know.
