LEGALIZED HATE

by Ruth Sheets

I am  currently listening to an edition of This American Life on NPR.  It describes the results of the recent Alabama immigration law.  The law essentially legalizes the worst aspects of human behavior.  It encourages law enforcement, employers, and non-Hispanic Alabamans to treat their neighbors so badly that they will want to “return” to wherever they came from. 

One woman reported that clerks in a store wouldn’t serve her and another described her experience in church of neighbors not wanting to share the “Peace of Christ” with her.  How Christian of them!  Students, born in Alabama reported harassment by classmates including making them sit in the back of the class.  (Sound familiar?)

I can’t help but think that this now legalizes the hatred that has been so much a part of Alabama life for a couple hundred years.  Before, it was White against Black.  Now, it is about White and other Alabamans against anyone who looks foreign.   

A white state representative, a strong supporter of the bill, told a story about a woman who came to him claiming she couldn’t get a job because illegal immigrants took those jobs.  He said that the drop in unemployment in Alabama was because “illegals” had left the state and employers were now hiring “citizens.”  There is no evidence that his story is true or that the unemployment rate was in any way affected by immigrants leaving the state, but he clearly believes it.

There was no problem regarding immigrants in Alabama before 2010 according to another representative, but Republicans needed an issue that would get them more power.  He claims that the National Republican party chose to “try out some new legislation” in Alabama.  If it worked there, it could work elsewhere. 

It seems that a Republican strategist, Kobach, from Kansas is busy writing laws for states regarding immigration.  He is smart and physically looks like some kind of “superhero,” and he is a manipulator and really proud.  He plays on people’s fears and uses his intelligence to stir up hatred that is already present.

His hatred movement is now spreading to other states, especially those where Republicans currently have power.  His plans are grandiose.   He wants to enlist the aid of state law enforcement on his behalf to drive out “illegals” all over the country if we let him. It’s too bad he didn’t find something  more humane to do with his intelligence.     

The Alabama majority Whip wants to “tweak the bill,” but when asked if he thought Jesus would vote for the new provisions, he admitted “probably not.”

Self-deportation, that’s the way to drive people from America who “don’t belong here.”  So, we can hate people out of this country and be commended for it.  How good of us! 

I suspect that many people from Alabama and other states would like to have done that to their former slaves.  They did drive many of them north.  Passing such restrictive hateful immigration laws lets these “Americans” have an outlet for their frustration.  This frustration may have nothing to do with their immigrant neighbors, but that’s OK, “I am angry and afraid.  And, they’re here.”