One of this writer's mentors is an African American dynamo named Cherry Steinwender; she is one of the Co-Executive Directors of a nonprofit in Houston called The Center for the Healing of Racism (www.centerhealingracism.org). When the writer first started to become of the racilized sleeping inside of him—Unaware Racism (this author is a European American male)--she was the guide that helped this writer to go through a transformation of change in thinking patterns, language, and behaviors. What became evident was the author's absorption of many socially conditioned customs and biases, and the need to replace these with accurate and factual information. What was clear was that if this writer had been conditioned to have biases, stereotypes, and Unaware Racism, there was also the hope that correct information could yield positive conditioning.
This blogger went on to be trained by the CFHR in order to become a co-facilitator of dialogues around Racism and other cultural isms. In her own impacting way, Cherry repeated a point over and over and over again: the people allowed to cross our borders have always been largely set up. Why?—TO DO THE WORK!
The reason for this is that their work and labor keeps the system of White Privilege and Institutional Racism in place and perpetuates European Americans' superior-power-balance. From the beginning of this nation, Racism's focal point for Americans with European descent, has always been about people who look like this writer being advantaged and enriched at the expense of those deemed inferior or having nothing to offer.
An article in the Austin American Statesman by John Latigua (The Palm Beach Post) on December 30, 2011 (p. A6) makes this point very clear. The headline reads, Illegal immigrants pay in Social Security, won't benefit. Now, most clear-thinking people realize that people emigrating from their home countries don't cross borders, deserts, and ride on top of trains to come to the U.S. for a "Club Med vacation." They come because they can find no work in their home countries; they come to survive and work, and send money back to their families so they can live.
The article cited above observes that many immigrants who have not been granted 'legal status' may give falsified Social Security numbers that don't match themselves ias ndividuals, and they pay into Social Security and Medicare; in other words, all of these deductions actually give them nada due to not being the person who actually may have that Social Security number, or a fake one. Furthermore, it's unlikely that they will ever receive any benefits themselves.
Meanwhile, "In 2009, the last year for which figures are available, employers reported wages of $72 billion for 7.7 million workers who couldn't be matched to legal Social Security numbers."
This anomoly becomes even stranger when one of the main statements used by anti-immigration folks and organizations is, 'they don't pay taxes and just drain the system of money.' Jennie Economos of the Farmworkers Association of Florida (http://www.floridafarmworkers.org) refutes this notion. She notes that many immigrants may get paid under the table (you mean to tell me that many European Americans don't do the same thing!?), but the majority are paid with checks, and they pay taxes from what they earn.
What is very clear is this: European Americans saying there needs to be tougher anti-immigration laws and strong pressure put on countries such as Mexico, to assist the U.S. with immigration issues, when out of the other side of their mouths they know that the white-structural-power-system is benefitting from the work of both legal and non-legal immigrants. This two-faced way of dealing with immigration issues is conflicted by its wrong-headed disconnect between what we say and what we do. Certainly, a conflicted system of immigration will only yield more of the same problems for white citizens to complain about. Why don't we just speak congruently and say that it's not so bad having immigrants come through our check points, because, after all, someone has TO DO THE WORK.
© Christopher Bear-Beam December 30 2011
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