The Birmingham News (Opinion by Joey Kennedy): There's that movie, A Few Good Men, with Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise, where Nicholson's character while on the witness stand in a military court shouts at Cruise's character, who has just asked Nicholson to tell him the truth: "You can't handle the truth."
I thought about that little bit of classic cinema this week after the Southern Poverty Law Center released its report "Alabama's Shame: HB 56 and the War on Immigrants." In typical "can't handle the truth" style, commenters attack the SPLC.
A nedbutler2001 offers this: "This useless organization discriminates more than anyone else in the state of Alabama or the US. These people are a bunch of racial pigs, time to shut them down."
Some commenters whine about how much they think they're having to pay for undocumented residents to stay in the U.S. and Alabama.
This post by malefic is fairly typical of those who don't want to know the truth: "U. S. Citizens shouldn't have to pay taxes to pay for food and medical care for illegal aliens. Illegal aliens need to be deported and quit being a financial drag on the economy."
Then they claim because the immigration law prohibits racial profiling, there can be no racial profiling, forgetting that it's not what a law says, but what it does.
Writes torimom: "What an absolute BS story. You cannot be pulled over, period, unless you have committed a traffic violation (speeding, tail light out, running a stop sign, etc.)."
Yet, the SPLC report is what it is: Actual documentation of wrongs committed in the name of this terrible law. The SPLC, which has a long, well-respected history of fighting racism, terrorism and wrongs, said the law "virtually guarantees racial profiling, discrimination and harassment against all Latinos in Alabama. HB 56 attacks not only 'every aspect' of an immigrant's life in Alabama -- but also basic human dignity and our most fundamental ideals as a nation."
That it does. Because of the law, Carmen Gonzalez, a U.S. citizen who was born in Texas and lives in Foley, was told to "Go back to Mexico." But wait: Supporters of HB 56 say Carmen and her family have nothing to worry about. Another family had to wait 40 days without running water because their "papers" weren't in order.
The SPLC report has story after story after story, and then closes with this: "HB 56 has created a humanitarian crisis in Alabama." That is Alabama's shame.
Read the report, if you can handle the truth.
I thought about that little bit of classic cinema this week after the Southern Poverty Law Center released its report "Alabama's Shame: HB 56 and the War on Immigrants." In typical "can't handle the truth" style, commenters attack the SPLC.
A nedbutler2001 offers this: "This useless organization discriminates more than anyone else in the state of Alabama or the US. These people are a bunch of racial pigs, time to shut them down."
Some commenters whine about how much they think they're having to pay for undocumented residents to stay in the U.S. and Alabama.
This post by malefic is fairly typical of those who don't want to know the truth: "U. S. Citizens shouldn't have to pay taxes to pay for food and medical care for illegal aliens. Illegal aliens need to be deported and quit being a financial drag on the economy."
Then they claim because the immigration law prohibits racial profiling, there can be no racial profiling, forgetting that it's not what a law says, but what it does.
Writes torimom: "What an absolute BS story. You cannot be pulled over, period, unless you have committed a traffic violation (speeding, tail light out, running a stop sign, etc.)."
Yet, the SPLC report is what it is: Actual documentation of wrongs committed in the name of this terrible law. The SPLC, which has a long, well-respected history of fighting racism, terrorism and wrongs, said the law "virtually guarantees racial profiling, discrimination and harassment against all Latinos in Alabama. HB 56 attacks not only 'every aspect' of an immigrant's life in Alabama -- but also basic human dignity and our most fundamental ideals as a nation."
That it does. Because of the law, Carmen Gonzalez, a U.S. citizen who was born in Texas and lives in Foley, was told to "Go back to Mexico." But wait: Supporters of HB 56 say Carmen and her family have nothing to worry about. Another family had to wait 40 days without running water because their "papers" weren't in order.
The SPLC report has story after story after story, and then closes with this: "HB 56 has created a humanitarian crisis in Alabama." That is Alabama's shame.
Read the report, if you can handle the truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment