Dardenne or Nungesser?

Last week I went to EngageNOLA's Meet the Candidate event featuring Billy Nungesser, candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana. Mr. Nungesser's anti-immigration campaign ad "Sleepless in Louisiana" which criticizes his opponent for not protecting Louisianians from having their jobs stolen by illegal immigrants was brought up. A Latina woman born and raised right here in Louisiana explained to Mr. Nungesser that his ad features faces of men who look like her American father and other American relatives. The woman asked Nungesser if he approved that ad. After mentioning the irrelevant fact that a media company hired by his campaign produced the ad, Nungesser responded that, yes, he approved the ad. Nungesser added that running the ad is "just politics."

Mr. Nungesser sees nothing wrong with running an ad filled with ominous images of brown skinned people to convince people to vote for him. He sees nothing wrong with using optics and rhetoric that a hateful person can easily use to support their harassment, or God forbid, violent acts against Americans who look like the stereotypical brown skinned immigrants used in his ad. In fact, commercials and images like these are what make it difficult for us to accept people who look a certain way as "real" Americans.

That is a damn heavy price to pay to just play politics, not to mention very poor judgment on the part of someone who claims he will fight for all Louisianians. Really? Does that include brown Louisianians, Mr. Nungesser?

I truly was undecided going into the event. I left determined to cast my vote for Nungesser's opponent, Jay Dardenne.

Tim Wise: On White Privilege in Chalmette

The whole thing is good, but starting at about minute 6...WOW!!

America -- Nobody Shucks and Jives Around the Race Thing Better Than Us!

When are people going to get real about the immigration "debate" and admit it mostly boils down to race? If it doesn't, then why aren't Montana folks following the lead of those living on the border in New Mexico and trying to catch Canadians sneaking over? Because Canadians don't sneak over? Why not? Ohh, cuz we let them right in. And I mean, come on, alot of them stay. Truth be told, I think I've met more Canadians than Mexicans. Not only do they stay, they're more likely than Mexicans to work in coveted middle-class/professional jobs, jobs Americans want far more than say... picking grapes in California.

MONEY. OK, other than race, it boils down to money. U.S. openness to immigrants has always been directly tied to the need for labor. When did a lot of Asians get let in? When they needed 'em out West to build railroads. When did Europeans pour in? Could be wrong, but wasn't it during a period of rapid industrialization when factories needed workers and New Orleans needed poor Irish folks to dig canals? The whole premise of the slave trade was for cheap labor, and labor don't get no cheaper than free.

Mexicans wouldn't come if no one hired them. I think word would get back pretty quickly if most returned home in a few weeks because they couldn't find work. It's really a sick, hateful game we're playing with them. Demonizing them while we use them for profit.

I don't recall this being such a huge deal back during the booming mid-late 1990s. Weren't our borders more porous then, before 9/11, when it was even easier for Mexicans to sneak in? Why is the immigration thing getting so hot now? Because now that we're in an economic downturn and even White people are feeling the crunch, jobs have become more sacred; and people have become more anxious about losing their jobs.

In fact, they ARE losing their jobs -- to outsourcing and shrinking profits; and let me tell you, nothing gets a politician's attention like White folks gettin' laid off; and the politicians have to blame somebody for White folks having to suffer the indignity of collecting unemployment since they sure as hell won't blame the big corporations who fund their campaigns.

And it's not like Mexicans popped up out of nowhere. We did take/win/whatever their land, and we've been trying to nudge them out ever since. If we were 2nd graders this would have been solved already. The Mexicans would have said: "we were here first." And we would've taken our shit and gone to play in someone else's yard.

But seriously, why can't -- why WON'T -- Americans honestly talk about these things?