The Mahatma X Files: Nativist Hatred in Goodwell
This reminds me a lot of the ignorant “Minuteman Watch” signs posted in my neighborhood a few months back. To me these kinds of signs are an attempt to terrify undocumented migrants and make them even more paranoid than they understandably already are.
If Oklahoma supposedly is such a “Christian” state (yeah right) and is part of the Bible belt and all, then why is it we are so quickly forgetting the scriptures of our own tradition…
Here are two of my favorite scriptures on the subject of so-called “illegal” immigrants…
From Bible.Oremus.org: (emphasis added is my own)
Deuteronomy 10:17-19 (NRSV)
17For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, 18who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing. 19You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
From Bible.Oremus.org: (emphasis added is my own)
Psalm 146:9 (NRSV)
The Lord watches over the strangers;
he upholds the orphan and the widow,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
Despite what the hate literature taped to dumpsters in Goodwell says, God cares about the plight of “stranger in our land.”
God is on their side and not on the side of the haters.
Right on!
Man alive, these folks are hitting Guymon now…
http://ajbenjaminjrbeta.blogspot.com/2007/12/guymon-daily-herald-reports-newspaper.html#links
Aaron and I were driving up I-35 from Norman a few summers back and it was REALLY hot that day. We saw someone walking that lonely stretch of road between Moore and Norman, and although I don’t usually pick up hitchhikers, I really felt that in that heat it was really something we should do.
We picked the guy up and instantly discovered he really couldn’t speak English at all, and both of us weren’t any good at Spanish… he said he was heading to Canada, but I didn’t really care, we were just trying to help. We ended up taking him up to downtown OKC and letting him off at the Amtrak station.
As I understand it, we now have a law in Oklahoma that would have made our act of compassion illegal, for us. I think its a bad law. If you want to restrict immigration you do it with laws that affect the incentives and monitor the border, you don’t train society to suspect anyone who seems a little different.
I don’t think sensible immigration policy is racist at all… I think we need to be aware of the consequences of unfettered immigration and make laws that take that into account. But to scapegoat a person who entered the country illegally to provide for their family is like scapegoating Jesus for picking wheat on the Sabbath. Some things are more important, and we need less silly talk from our leaders and more responsile action. And these leaders need to make it clear that racism isn’t part of the plan.
I agree with you. I think it is possible to support immigration controls of some kind and still oppose policies like these that make it a criminal act to help someone in a basic kind of way.
And the comparison with Jesus breaking the nitpicking details of the Sabbath rules is a great comparison. So often we lose the point of the law when we enforce the letter of the law to the point of absurdity.