tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post7625875774685406111..comments2024-03-25T17:38:55.490-07:00Comments on Dar Kush: SF and Immigration ThoughtsSteven Barneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630529492355131777noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-90429008216028520762010-04-27T14:29:51.167-07:002010-04-27T14:29:51.167-07:00"For those too naive or willfully ignorant to..."For those too naive or willfully ignorant to run the thought experiment to its inescapable conclusion, history beat them to it forty years ago. The Black Panther movement of the early 70's..."<br /><br />Yeah, the Black Panthers came up on another forum discussing the article too. Great minds sometimes think alike, right? ;)<br /><br />"There are some splendid African films, including the beautiful animated film, Kiriku and the Sorceress -- check it out here [ http://www.kirikou.net/ ]..."<br /><br />Thanks for the tip, I'm checking it out! :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-75500109975988219652010-04-27T14:00:26.122-07:002010-04-27T14:00:26.122-07:00"...Another large U.S. group of citizenry tha..."...Another large U.S. group of citizenry that is angry about this racial profiling law are the numbers of parents who have adopted children from Mexico and South America and other places as well. There are many documented cases already of these children seized in round-up by the INS in CA and other southwestern states and just dumped in Mexico -- without money, without Spanish, without a clue. Tragedies ensue..."<br /><br />From what I've heard, Mexico can get even nastier to people who crossed the border or were carried across it from Guatemala than the U.S. can be to people who crossed the border or were carried across it from Mexico. <br /><br />What happens to a Guatemalan-American child who was adopted by U.S. citizens, given U.S. citizenship at that point (now that the U.S. lets its citizens pass on their citizenship to their children both biological and adoptive), and then later is kidnapped by the authorities for "looking illegal" and dumped in Mexico either without Spanish (if adopted as an infant and not taught Spanish anyway) or with Spanish in a Guatemalan accent?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-27889455066782949642010-04-27T08:54:30.673-07:002010-04-27T08:54:30.673-07:00There are some splendid African films, including t...There are some splendid African films, including the beautiful animated film, <i>Kiriku and the Sorceress</i> -- <a href="http://www.kirikou.net/" rel="nofollow">check it out here</a>.<br /><br />Arizona's very likely unconstitutional law cannot escape racial profiling. Which is ethically wrong on even more levels than legally wrong: the first non-First Peoples to settle these lands, long before a/c allowed the whites to come along in any numbers were Spanish-speaking peoples. Another large U.S. group of citizenry that is angry about this racial profiling law are the numbers of parents who have adopted children from Mexico and South America and other places as well. There are many documented cases already of these children seized in round-up by the INS in CA and other southwestern states and just dumped in Mexico -- without money, without Spanish, without a clue. Tragedies ensue. YOU CANNOT TELL WHO IS AN UNDOCUMENTED RESIDENT BY LOOKING.<br /><br />Also much of AZ's economy is housing, i.e. construction, which long has been a financial gold mine for the Mafia -- yes, the state is at least as mobbed up as Florida and Louisiana. Who have they been hiring illegally for ages now?<br /><br />You might like to look at Alma Guillermoprieto's article in the latest <i>National Geographic</i>, "Troubled Spirits."<br /><br />There is no fair and balanced way to deal with festering problem that the feds have created and refuse to take on -- for many reasons, including that the corporations don't want this cheap source of labor cut off. It's not a coincidence that the immigration laws opened up enormously post the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts era.<br /><br />Love, C.Foxessahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06754083123669916994noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-18159166150742771162010-04-27T00:23:50.750-07:002010-04-27T00:23:50.750-07:00There are no easy answers.
There are possible goo...There are no easy answers.<br /><br />There are possible good ones.<br /><br />We won't do the possible good ones soon.<br /><br />We may do the good ones after our current craptastic political leadership is wiped out by a collapse (partial or total) of the U.S. federal government.<br /><br />Or not.<br /><br /><br />--Erich SchwarzAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-85130326293169884442010-04-26T19:07:03.969-07:002010-04-26T19:07:03.969-07:00As far as black characters in SF go, even though i...As far as black characters in SF go, even though it's 2010 it might as well be 1960. Syfy channel had it's latest version of "Riverworld" on last week, featuring of course, a white star, with a black sidekick to provide comedy (as little as there was in that movie), dying alot, and having no interest in a girl of his own. His mission is totally subordinated to getting his friend reunited with his long lost love. It really was kind of a sad, although I'm sure not intentioal, decades old trope.<br /><br />I wonder what the actor thought of playing that sort of character?<br /><br />On immigration, although I can totally understand and sympathize with the motives of the border crossers (who wouldn't? US v. living in poverty stricken Mexico), I have a hard time getting over the illegality of it all. It's not just the crime of crossing the border, it's all of the other crimes, like identify theft and fraud, that go with living here illegally. <br /><br />I can't see the longterm effects of a massive amnesty as beneficial. Imagine the long term contempt for the law this would breed in the decendents of people who are here soley because the scoffed at the law. Whats the lesson they've learned?<br /><br />Lawbreaking works.Mikeyhttp://muchedumbre.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-19251122608213819562010-04-26T14:11:29.808-07:002010-04-26T14:11:29.808-07:00"IMAGINE IF THE TEA PARTY WAS BLACK..."
..."IMAGINE IF THE TEA PARTY WAS BLACK..."<br /><br />For those too naive or willfully ignorant to run the thought experiment to its inescapable conclusion, history beat them to it forty years ago. The Black Panther movement of the early 70's featured Black militants who vociferously demanded Revolution! while brandishing assault weapons, sometimes in front of Federal buildings. The result: Richard Nixon and J. Edger Hoover panicked, unleashing the full arsenal of US law enforcement with tacit orders to eliminate the Panthers by any means necessary. Any and all means were indeed used, including recruiting agents provocateurs such as William O'Neal via blackmail to sow schism, evidence fabrication and outright assassination, as happened when Fed Hampton and co. were gunned down by the Chicago PD during a raid that met with zero resistance.Ethiopian_Infidelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03332794812978904247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-22372513852405297662010-04-26T13:38:11.874-07:002010-04-26T13:38:11.874-07:00One of my friends just sent me this link with anot...One of my friends just sent me this link with another thought experiment!<br /><br />http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=70545<br /><br />"IMAGINE IF THE TEA PARTY WAS BLACK..."<br />[and not as in Insh'Allah's setting either]Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-6934738970116985802010-04-26T13:34:02.833-07:002010-04-26T13:34:02.833-07:00"...Neil Gaiman wrote 'Anansi Boys' a..."...Neil Gaiman wrote 'Anansi Boys' about the children of an African god, and so far has declined to have the book made into a film as filmmakers wanted to make the lead characters white..."<br /><br />OK so I first read an Anansi story at age 5 and I'm well aware that Anansi stories aren't just for kids. :) Speaking of all-ages stuff and African stories, I saw How to Train Your Dragon the other day and liked it too. The problem isn't that everyone in the movie (they're all Vikings in a PG-rated revision of European history) is white. The problem's that I haven't heard of *any* black-majority equivalent movies so far (equivalent as in made for audiences of all ages, high animation production values, *human* characters instead of an African cast like The Lion King's, etc.). :/ Movies based on *Asian* stories (Mulan, Aladdin, etc.) have done well as American box office blockbusters, now how about giving a movie based on *African* folklore a chance? It could be great! :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-55818979078640263852010-04-26T12:36:39.161-07:002010-04-26T12:36:39.161-07:00Brandon Massey writes horror fiction with mostly B...Brandon Massey writes horror fiction with mostly Black characters.<br /><br />Anthony Durham writes historical fiction with a multitude of different characters.<br /><br />Walter Mosely usually has black lead characters in a wide variety of different types of fiction. <br /><br />John Ridley uses all sorts of different characters in his fiction.<br /><br />Neil Gaiman wrote "Anansi Boys" about the children of an African god, and so far has declined to have the book made into a film as filmmakers wanted to make the lead characters white.Shady_Gradyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00996625985002373392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-87167414303254144422010-04-26T05:18:46.155-07:002010-04-26T05:18:46.155-07:00"...that I slowly began to realize that there..."...that I slowly began to realize that there SF fans and editors and writers seriously needed to believe that Aliens somehow represented (blacks)..."<br /><br />I wonder if another part of this is "if I write a character from another culture that exists then I might fuck up and real readers from that culture might complain, but if I make up the culture then I can't fuck it up and there are no real readers in it to complain!!!"? <br /><br />The way to get over *that* is to *listen more*. If you don't have any friends or loved ones from the culture you're writing to listen to, go read a whole bunch of stuff by a range of other people from that culture.<br /><br />Once I even saw an amateur writing exchange in which some of the writers set up an incredibly generous support group for that (basically "We've seen a whole bunch of writers get a whole bunch of stuff inaccurate and unlikely, either too stereotyped or too Americanized, about South Asian and Japanese cultures and characters. Feel free to ask us for help doing better than they did!" and they covered pretty much any non-mainstream-white-American culture past or present). The support-in-general IRC channel for writers in that exchange also welcomed those questions (even if some answers were like "sorry, I know even less than you do about being Algerienne-French, come back at [other time] when more of the Europeans log on here"). I say incredibly generous because it's totally not their responsibility to make sure writers from other cultures don't mess up stuff from their cultures, yet they still volunteered to help anyway.<br /><br />"...Or at the very least won't fall back on the exact same arguments I used to hear white males use: women aren't interested in SF (or math, or politics) not because they have been excluded, but because, well, there's something different about women..."<br /><br />Those arguments suck. I'm female and I *want* to read stuff from a wide variety of authors and written for a wide variety of audiences.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-31214783320326704572010-04-26T05:17:54.452-07:002010-04-26T05:17:54.452-07:00"...I tend to lean more toward the conservati..."...I tend to lean more toward the conservative side than the liberal on this one. Would I if Mexicans were blacks? I sure hope so, but can't be sure..."<br /><br />Thought experiment: suppose Florida instead of Arizona enacted the policy, suppose the target was people who "for the profile of illegal immigrants from Haiti" instead of people who "fit the profile of illegal immigrants from Mexico," and to make this a more controlled experiment also suppose the Port-au-Prince earthquake hadn't happened. After all, you look like an illegal immigrant from Haiti yourself...<br /><br />"... the problem of immigration along our southern borders really does deal almost exclusively with people who look a particular way, and speak a specific language..."<br /><br />...and who look an awful lot like some other people. Me, I'm not Latina at all and some people still think I look Latina because of my Middle Eastern ancestry. Now not only Mexican-American U.S. citizens will need to carry their passports or birth certificates whenever they go out in public in Arizona. Arab-Americans, Italian-Americans, Pakistani-Americans, etc. will have to as well.<br /><br />"...some are white, some black, some Asian, and most some mixture of the three..."<br /><br />...which makes them look Latino and Latina. In one case the mix happened from Africa and Asia and Europe connecting in the Middle East. In the other case the mix happened from Asians crossing the Bering land bridge and/or sailing over the Pacific and thousands of years later Europeans colonizing while capturing slaves in Africa and bringing them too.<br /><br />"...5) Are illegals, per capita, more likely to engage in criminal behavior? Well...I'd say yes. After all, they are ALREADY engaged in a law-breaking behavior, just by violating our laws..."<br /><br />Just curious, what about babies who arrived here illegally by being carried by their parents, or older children who arrived here illegally by obeying their parents instead of staying home when the grownups who bring groceries left, and then illegally stayed here instead of running away from their parents?<br /><br />"...Beatings and murder would do it. Of course, then Americans would be far less safe traveling south of the border, and we don't like that much, do we?..."<br /><br />I was born in the U.S.A. and I would be far less safe traveling *north* of the border in that scenario.<br /><br />"...How do you guys see this? I think the solution would be a combination of fences, deportations, and a path to citizenship for those who can play by the rules. Pain on one hand, and pleasure on the other. Reform drug and economic policies to reduce the amount of our negative contributions to life in South and Central America. I see no techniques that are effective that aren't also dangerous to our civil liberties--so police actions will have to be carefully monitored..."<br /><br />Good points.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-452951185280554702010-04-26T05:08:24.402-07:002010-04-26T05:08:24.402-07:00It wasn't Tiger Woods who increased black peop...It wasn't Tiger Woods who increased black people's interest in tennis. It was a man whose name I cannot recall just now. Arthur Ashe, maybe?<br />Also probably Althea Gibson, unless I am mixing her up with someone else.<br /><br />If I were more of a sports fan, I might remember better.Pagan Topologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01611788563582362688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-62472675735940945392010-04-25T20:18:52.263-07:002010-04-25T20:18:52.263-07:00On the use of the word "undocumented", I...On the use of the word "undocumented", I've been surprised to learn how often it's quite accurate. Advocacy groups use this term to highlight how very many immigrants fall into a gray area between legal and illegal. Consider a relative listed on one form and not on another, a wife who learns on her husband's death that he didn't file her forms correctly, a student who was supposed to hear back about the visa extension three weeks ago, the American and non-American married couple whose file was lost, a worker working while waiting for the promised renewal to come through-- there are *thousands* caught in the quagmire of our slow, complicated, unspeakably untrustworthy "legitimate" immigration process. <br /><br />One study in California suggests that 40% of those who are now legal were technically illegal due to errors in documentation at some point of their process.<br /><br />A few years ago there was a young man from Nigeria married to a young American woman in my apartment building, with three small children to their credit. Their baby died, the mother plunged into a months-long depression treated with heavy medication that took her entirely out of her head. One of their many runs to the emergency room took place when he was supposed to be going in to a mandatory meeting to review his status. He was juggling care of the children, of his wife, and bringing home the sole steady paycheck when they caught and deported him-- 100% legal and in the fullest possible compliance.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-5143010631212828692010-04-25T19:48:50.180-07:002010-04-25T19:48:50.180-07:00"Of course, I never heard a woman suggest tha..."Of course, I never heard a woman suggest that Aliens represented strong, capable women"<br /><br />You've reminded me of Dorothy Allison's incredible essay, "Puritans, Perverts, and Feminists", in which she points out that science fiction provided her only role models of strong, sexually confident women.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-89835901729455989972010-04-25T18:12:20.864-07:002010-04-25T18:12:20.864-07:00A thought about the immigration topic. Many of my...A thought about the immigration topic. Many of my conservative friends, and I admit myself also, would be less concerned about immigration if there was more talk of "melting pot" and less of Balkanization, culturally speaking.<br /><br />A cultural push for English usage at major facilities like hospitals, required on road signs, for work, etc... would go a long way to ease a general xenophobia and make a path to citizenship more tolerable. That's a start but in short it's easier to stomach if we really felt like everyone wanted to be American, not just use our system. I'm not exactly sure how that could be made to happen, but I've heard that expressed more than once.<br /><br />As far as paying for illegals goes, the Fair Tax (a basic consumption tax) does some major leveling of the playing field as far as businesses and taxation go. Essentially illegal workers would have to demand more pay because they would become taxpayers. Granted it's not a perfect answer but I haven't heard better yet.<br /><br />For specifics on the Fair Tax.<br />http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServercoxcrowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03079185896147777022noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-38729712523835756532010-04-25T17:27:55.197-07:002010-04-25T17:27:55.197-07:00Shady Grady, you'd think it would be like that...Shady Grady, you'd think it would be like that, but all the poor people don't move toward better opportunities, even inside the US.Nancy Lebovitzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07068537632391466902noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-27244829812740854152010-04-25T16:58:45.790-07:002010-04-25T16:58:45.790-07:00Shady makes a good point about the relationship be...Shady makes a good point about the relationship between pay and illegals. My wife gas a friend who came here on from India with her husband and son. Her husband is an engineer with a masters degree. He got a job here before coming. The company was supposed to get him a green card. It has been six years and he still doesn't have one. The company started the process, but supposedly there was a screw up and they had to start over again. The woman doesn't believe this. They are paying him half of what an American citizen would get with his credentials. If he got the green card they would have to pay him what he's worth or lose him to another company. So she thinks they are deliberately stalling on the green card.Marty Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06465745755940914756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-65092928931823732652010-04-25T16:12:46.101-07:002010-04-25T16:12:46.101-07:00I am really busy with work and will have to read t...I am really busy with work and will have to read this post again to fully get it and write a full response. A lot of interesting things are contained within.<br /><br />For now, though let's assume that the politics ultimately are with those who do want a "path to citizenship" or "immigration reform" or "amnesty" however it may be characterized.<br /><br />So 12 or 30 or 30 million "illegals" become citizens in a year or 2 years or 4 years..<br /><br />The basic question remains-what happens when the employers who were using illegal labor because of the ability to pay lower wages decide that rather than pay the new citizens presumably higher wages, they'd rather continue to use illegals? How would that be stopped? And if there is an answer to that question that anyone can provide, why not just do it now? =)<br /><br />Or from the supply side what happens when another 20-40 million people from countries around the world see what just happened in the US and decide that they too need to go to the US, tough it out for a few years until they can get another one time "path to citizenship?<br /><br />At some point the US has to have border security. The US already had an amnesty in 1986. All that did was place us in the situation we have now.<br /><br />Incidentally although the southern border gets most of the attention I think actually upwards of 40% of illegals actually overstayed a visa. I can't find it now but I think the evidence actually shows that illegals commit serious crimes at or close to the same rate as citizens. I am sure many of them are good, decent people. But this isn't their country.Shady_Gradyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00996625985002373392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-12159388439662582202010-04-25T12:15:55.072-07:002010-04-25T12:15:55.072-07:00What would you say to a fee for citizenship compar...What would you say to a fee for citizenship comparable to what people pay to get smuggled in?<br /><br />There seems to be a lively market for romances and women-centered fiction by and about black people. Is sf such a marginal taste that nothing of the sort has developed for that genre? This wouldn't surprise me-- romance in general is a much bigger market than sf.<br /><br />Or, following your theory that black men are especially seen as a threat by the white men in charge, there might be less slack for genres that appeal to men.Nancy Lebovitzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07068537632391466902noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-60019704723396653412010-04-25T11:34:32.279-07:002010-04-25T11:34:32.279-07:00Wow quite a post. First on the characters in scien...Wow quite a post. First on the characters in science fiction. There is no doubt that people are better able to identify with characters who are more like themselves, so if most of your market is white people there is going to be a big tendency toward white characters. It doesn't mean the writer or editor is bigoted, it just means they know which side their bread is buttered on. Humans also tend to like their group to be the "good guys" Hence the tendency to make white characters the "good guys". I remember one particular example of making us the good guys that really annoyed me. It was a television production of Zender Henderson's "The People No Different Flesh". It reversed the roles of the aliens and earth people from the book and destroyed the whole thing.<br />On the immigration subject, I'm not sure how much the Arizona law is a left/right thing. Neither my wife or I care for it. We feel it gives to much discretion to the police.We are both right/Republican leaning. My views on the immigration subject are close to yours. I believe we should make it possible for people to immigrate legally, but we have the right to control the immigration. I don't believe in blanket amnesty, but think we should set up a path to citizenship both for those who are here illegally and those who want to come. If a person passes the requirements to immigrate let them stay and make them legal. If they don't pass what ever requirements we have for legal immigration, then deport them.<br />The existence of racial profiling in identifying those who are here illegally is concerning, but I don't think should be a show stopper here. My overall view on racial profiling is that it always helps find the bad individuals you are looking for, but the country pays in its social dynamics. In each case a decision as to whether it justified should be based upon a careful cost/benefit analysis.Marty Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06465745755940914756noreply@blogger.com