So I was at the
public hearing on Immigration yesterday at Penn Valley held by Missouri House of Representatives' Special Committee on Immigration Reform.
I can't write too much about the event because I'm supposed to do a story for
Dos Mundos about it which will be published two weeks from now . . . That's print media for you.
What I will note is this: With
maybe one exception nearly all of the members of the panel uniformly hate Mexicans and can be trusted to do nothing but make life harder for the every Latino that lives in the state of Missouri.
I now have a lot more respect for Chief Corwin and his efforts after he explained in great detail the work of the
Westside CAN center and its benefit in reducing crime in the area. He noted that since the establishment of the place, violent crime has dropped in my neighborhood by more than 50%.
It all fell on deaf ears.
"Aren't we really just talking about sacrificing law for order?" One of the dumbass politicians questioned.
I don't really care because in the end I have to live with whatever decision these people make but it was revealing to hear Corwin tell stories of his early days on the force and how strong arm tactics just didn't work in curbing the so-called immigrant problem.
"Arresting people is the easiest solution. It's a no brainer." Corwin said "And it works, it cleans up the problem . . . For about 7 days."
The panel members were obviously unmoved and the only glimpse of kindness they would show throughout the day was their adoration of Kris Kobach as they lovingly hung on every syllable that came out of his mouth and scribbled down nearly everything he said.
Now I'm not gonna lie. I was seriously impressed with Kobach. The guy has a rapid fire public speaking style that not many people can contend with . . . He expertly cited numerous cases and statutes which might be applicable in the efforts of many Missouri politicos to beat the shit out of Mexican babies. I asked him a few questions later. I didn't mention this blog, only that I was writing a story for Dos Mundos. He's pretty tall but not as tall as I expected and it's kinda scary to think that somebody that smart is working diligently to get people who look like me kicked out of the country. They say that you should know your enemy and I looked into the eyes of somebody without the best interests of my community at heart and dreadfully understood that he's not only determined, eloquent and strikingly intelligent but also completely capable of achieving every anti-immigrant measure which he espouses. Whereas I consider myself somewhat of an advocate for Latinos in KC and I'm kind of a chump.
Thing is . . . Kobach isn't right about everything. He used his credentials as a prof for UMKC to get into the meeting but at every turn a great many of the UMKC officials have assured Latino community leaders that he doesn't speak for the University. He also spoke of a website in which employers could verify that status of "illegals" for employment purposes. Turns out that website specifically says that YOU CANNOT USE THE SERVICE TO SCREEN EMPLOYEES it's merely a way to validate Social Security numbers for tax purposes. If employers did use this service it would not only be a violation of the prospective employees rights but also create a situation where a nickname or misplaced letter would mean that a person (most likely a Latino) didn't get a job because of a simple clerical error which was inappropriately identified as Social Security fraud (a felony). Later on (after pretty much everyone left) Judy Ancel of the UMKC Institute for Labor Studies would remind the panel that labor laws were actually a lot more forgiving than the anti-Mexican rhetoric on every talk show nowadays.
On a final note of things that occurred to me as an alumni - UMKC official Burton Taylor showed up simply to assure the panel that no illegals were getting into this city's college on his watch. When I went to the University, I always wondered why all of my buddies wouldn't even consider going to the place . . . Now I know why. The d-bag actually had the nerve to sit there and talk about what a diverse student body UMKC hosted. He cited the fact that UMKC has 33% minority enrollment without noting that most of those people are very rich Indian, Arab or South American students who don't represent Kansas City at all. The Blacks in town mostly go to CMSU if they are smart enough to get out of our shitty KC high schools and are good at dodging bullets. Whereas most Latinos in this city don't graduate from high school, the ones that do will steal from their Grandma in order to go to Rockhurst because UMKC does nothing to entice, recruit, engage or represent them. Laughably, Taylor touted a 5% enrollment figure for Latinos in this year's Freshman class. That's not only lower than KC's current Latino population and well below national numbers but it's also hilarious because we all know that - in general - half the people who start college don't finish . . . The guy was digging deep but the fact remains that
UMKC is an institution that does absolutely nothing for the local Latino community and I can say this from first hand experience as a graduate of the place and having witnessed one hollow PR gesture after the next.
Finally, my last thought is simple:
The people of rural Missouri can go fuck themselves. Kansas City has nothing in common with these hillbillies.
I know these dumbass politicians with their simple and cruel solutions (put everybody on trains headed south) were elected by people even dumber than them.
What Corwin eluded to isn't understood by white people from inside the state, many of which are merely one or two generations removed from people who went barefoot and screwed their sister.
How do you tell who is illegal?These people were advocating was stopping every Mexican looking person the police come in contact with and asking them for their papers. This means that if what they're talking about goes through - at first contact it's presumed that simply because I have dark hair and a goatee that I'm a suspect of a crime and should be booted out of the country.
Having the local cops act as immigration agents would sanction racial profiling against every Latino person in the state and there are quite a few of us who are, in fact, citizens.Frankly, I'm starting to be a lot less concerned with the plight of immigrants and more with saving my own skin. The anti-immigration movement is getting so harsh in this state that efforts are underway to ensure that
simply because I'm Latino I have to prove my citizenship at every turn. These kind of laws won't be applied to everyone, in the same way that white people can't stop complaining about being treated like Arabs when they have to take their shoes off at airports. Slowly but surely this podunk state is sending the signal that no brown folks are welcomed within its borders and that we're all to be treated as criminals first until we prove otherwise.
Now, I know that a lot of the things that I've written in this post are offensive, misguided and hurtful . . . I won't apologize, all I'm doing is returning the favor to the majority of you who have
shown absolutely no concern for the many legal Latino citizens in this country in your vigor to seek reprisals against the so-called illegals who have done nothing but taken the low-wage employment that employers in this country have so readily offered them. How does it feel?
