The Racist State

The Racist State
By David Glenn Cox

Let’s all boycott Arizona; let’s all get our panties in a bunch. Most Americans never cross an international border and know of it only from what they see on TV. I once was sitting on the Peace Bridge trying to cross back into the United States. After about an hour or so of sitting in a mile-long line of cars at what looked like a toll plaza I saw a light change from red to green on a new lane. I broke for it, I was fifteenth or sixteenth in line when I saw it was a line for people who had travel passes and crossed the border every day. Well, I couldn’t go get back in line.

I pled ignorance to the immigration officer who answered, “You’re going to have to be interviewed. Pull over there and park and take this into the office.” We did as instructed and went into the office, but it wasn’t an office, it was a police station. I’ve been in police stations before and this was one of them. I was given a sticky note with a number on it and in protest I placed it on the middle of my chest because I was a prisoner here. I could not go home until I proved my innocence.

So we sat staring at that smiling picture of George W. Bush, you know the one, the one where he smiles just like Alfred E. Newman. We were far from alone; there was a bumper harvest of people of all colors trying to enter the United States. My number was called and I was motioned into an office by a man who looked amazingly like Gene Hackman. Serious and no nonsense he closed the door after I entered and told me to sit down. Behind him on the wall was that damn picture again. He sat down at his desk and said with a great deal of formality, “What’s going on here tonight?”

“I got in the wrong line,” I answered. “You see, it was daylight when I first got in the line and it got dark before we could even see the border. I saw a light change from red to green and thought they were opening a new line. When I got close enough to see that it was travel pass only it was too late to get back into the other line.”

“That woman out there, is that your wife?”

“You mean Osama? No, no, I mustn’t say that. Yes, sir, she is.”

“Let me see your drivers license. Georgia?"

“Yes, sir, we don’t have a lot of border experience in Georgia.”

“No, I imagine not. Step outside and go get me your wife’s license.”

All in all I was in the “office” about an hour and even though it was intimidating I doubt we spent more time in the office than if we’d stayed in line. I also caught a lecture from my wife which made me think back to my thoughts of denouncing her as Osama to an immigration agent. Just think, I wouldn’t have had to listen to her vent her anger.

Remember when you got caught shoplifting that Metallica CD in high school or cosmetics from K-mart when you were fourteen? That is grounds enough to bar you from entering Canada, and so is having a DUI on your driving record. While in Canada you are required to carry proof of ID and citizenship at all times. When traveling to Mexico if you plan to stay more than three days you must have a travel visa or it is a crime. If you are asked for identification you must provide it or it is a crime. You will be arrested and deported because it is a crime to enter a country without permission.

If you are caught living in France illegally you will be given thirty days to get your affairs in order and get out of the country. If you are caught again you go to prison and when your prison sentence is up you are deported. In Malta police round up illegals from Africa and put them on a boat and drop them off in Africa. In the past ten years France has given refugee status to over nine thousand Africans and put them on the road to citizenship.

In Egypt border guards shoot at those trying to cross the border. Many refugees are beaten and robbed and in some cases raped then murdered or at best shipped back in the same direction from which they came. If they make it across the desert into Israel they can be deported on a moment’s notice by any soldier or policeman they come into contact with. The policy is called “hot return” because they don’t want Africans in Israel. The government does everything in its power including building a fence across the desert to keep Africans out.

While in Israel the African immigrants have no right to work or to medical care. They are exempted from all Israeli social programs and must find menial work under the table. Sometimes these employers don’t pay as promised or don’t pay them at all and their recourse is to just take it because the police could deport them on a moment's notice. Africans from countries with sizable Muslim populations, if discovered, are taken to detention centers and held without legal counsel. They are treated with the same legal rights as cattle in Texas, men, women and children held in fetid detention camps without charges until they are deported.

The Israelis are unapologetic and frank. We don’t want them here; this is the Jewish homeland and a Jewish state. The laws are designed and framed around not fairness and equality but by race. Jews in America can fly into Israel, flash their American passport and are directed to the citizenship office.

A recent order issued by the Israeli Defense Force requires Palestinians to have a pass, issued by the IDF commander, to be in the West Bank. Without the pass Palestinians are subject to seven years in jail. These people are called infiltrators even if they’ve been there all their lives because their status is decided by a military authority occupying their lands and that person’s status is based solely upon their race.

"A person is presumed to be an infiltrator if he is present in the area without a document or permit which attest to his lawful presence in the area without reasonable justification." Such documentation, it says, must be "issued by the commander of IDF forces in the Judea and Samaria area or someone acting on his behalf."

Individuals able to prove that they entered the West Bank legally but without IDF permission to remain there will also be tried, on charges carrying a maximum sentence of three years. This is an increase to current Israeli law where illegal residents typically receive one-year sentences. Palestinians need special permits to enter areas near the separation fence, even if their homes are there, and Palestinians have long been barred from the Jordan Valley without special authorization.

These laws are racist and this is a racist state where the law decides your status on the basis of your race. They are not laws which require you to show ID to prove your status. The Arizona law might very well be racist inspired but is not racist on its face. There is not a country on planet Earth that doesn’t require you to prove your status to be in a given country.

The administration is pumping their own version of immigration reform so the Arizona law makes for good fodder for the tent evangelists preaching against sin. The Obama proposal will make it easier for students studying for advanced degrees in the United States to work for American companies. Damn fine idea! Americans don’t want those jobs at those wages. Besides, when the corporations outsource the IT department or engineering department overseas, it will help to have someone trained in this country running things.

The cry of racism is the neutron bomb of American politics. A law asking for an ID isn’t racism and this isn’t about race. This is about money, what’s good for corporate America is good for … well, not you but it’s good for corporate America.

“Globalization is not something we can hold off or turn off . . . it is the economic equivalent of a force of nature -- like wind or water.”

“The road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the truth.”
William Jefferson Clinton

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