America is changing, and that makes white people like Joe Wilson (right) — and Michele Bachmann — very nervous. (How dare they be nervous. — Ed)
By Richard Benjamin [Email him: rich@richbenjamin.com]
Searching For Whitopia: An Improbable Journey Into White America
When he called the president a liar, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., apparently “forgot” he wasn’t at one of those rowdy town halls.
Besides the show of disrespect, and the fact that he was wrong,[1] the legislator’s comments expose a virulent racism and paranoia against undocumented workers. As we enter Hispanic Heritage Month,America would do well to examine the legislator’s political paranoiainstead of rehashing his churlish, attention-seeking outburst. Thelegislator’s behavior is uncommon, but his attitude is not.
Asmembers of Congress discussed healthcare reform with their constituentsover the recent recess, many faced repeated, heated charges that thereform would stick “American taxpayers” — as if undocumented workersdon’t pay consumption taxes! — with the healthcare bills of illegalimmigrants. If the swine flu weren’t enough to stigmatize Latinoimmigrants, now there’s the healthcare debate.
How did racism and xenophobia become so deeply enmeshed in this debate?Decades in the running, a right-wing drumbeat continues tellingAmericans that “government is on your back,” that “you should keep yourown money,” and “let the market take care of it.” This politicaloutlook feeds resentments over race, including anger about “high taxes”for public services that are allegedly wasted on urban blacks andillegal aliens. This stubborn, pervasive mind-set fuels the myths thatmany Republicans and business interests bandy to explain America’seconomic woes: “too much government,” “overregulation,” “wastefulspending” and “welfare abuse.”<ahref=”http://judo.salon.com/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.cgi/www.salonmagazine.com/opinion/content/large.html@Right”><imgsrc=”http://judo.salon.com/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.cgi/www.salonmagazine.com/opinion/content/large.html@Right”width=”300″ height=”250″ border=”0″ alt=”” /></a>
Race — that is, 30 years ofgovernment-supported desegregation and the sharp increase of brownimmigration — is not incidental to the public’s cynicism,disconnection and unwillingness to support the public sector, meaningthe goods, services and places that belong to “we the people.” That’sespecially true when we talk about healthcare.
Eduardo Porter, a financial journalist and editorial board member of the New York Times, has documented how “racial and ethnic diversity undermine support for public investment in social welfare.For all the appeal of America’s melting pot, the country’s diverseethnic mix is one main reason for entrenched opposition to publicspending on the public good.”
Moreover, two Harvard economists have correlated diversity with public spending in Western Europe and the United States.The economists demonstrated that half the social-spending gap betweenthe two areas was due to the United States’ more varied racial andethnic mix. (The other half was due largely to the stronger left-wingparties in Western Europe.)
Once upon a time in Wilson’s nativeSouth Carolina, the 1950s through the 1970s, whites fled public spacesen masse — pools, parks, schools, cafeterias — rather than sharethose public resources with blacks. This is déjà vu all over again:Latino immigrants are the new blacks. A truculent white minority wantsto re-segregate their communities; more, it bashes the publish sphereand aims to sabotage public spending on the common good, including thepresident’s healthcare plans.
Put bluntly, it is not acoincidence that America’s love affair with all-things private — gatedcommunities, private roads, private parks, private schools, privateplaygrounds, private hospitals — heated up during the 1950s as thefederal government sought to integrate the nation.
As the U.S. government began helping everyday Americans atunprecedented levels from FDR’s New Deal on, immigration has become allthe more contentious. Immigration broils as an issue precisely as thisnation faces budget deficits and potential cuts in Medicare, Medicaid,food stamps, the state university systems and so on. Those institutionsand services were in their infancy — or did not even exist — duringthe first great wave of immigration, from the 1880s to the 1910s, whichbrought the Irish and eastern and southern Europeans to our shores.
“Betweenthe start of the Great Depression and the end of the civil rights era,government at all levels assumed new responsibilities to limit themisery suffered by the poor and the sick,” observes Roberto Suro in his brilliant work, “Strangers Among Us: Latino Lives in a Changing America.””Immigration was so low during that entire period that there was noneed to discuss the role of the newly arrived. Then Latino immigrationbegan to produce a large number of new claimants on the public sector.”As the president and America debate a large, necessary overhaul of thepublic sector, expect more xenophobic outbursts like Wilson’s.
Teabaggers rail against social programs that are allegedly squandered on”illegal aliens.” The Birther movement rails against a supposedlyMuslim president. Healthcare reform town halls combust over “governmentdependence.” Republicans like Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., push a boycott of the 2010 Census, fretting that immigrants and minorities will be overcounted.
A Census Bureau predictionthat makes headlines across the nation is fast becoming a reality: By2042, whites will no longer be the American majority. This demographicprojection sounds a frightening alarm to the likes of Bachmann and JoeWilson. It heralds significant change to our nation’s culture,electoral politics and distribution of resources.
We must understand Wilson’s outburst by exposing its past and future context — including what I call “The White People Deadline,” 2042. And then we must move the healthcare debate forward.
[1] The fact is, while Obama is technically correct that illegal immigrants (Mexicans) won’t get health benefits if the bill passes, he does have every intention of legitimizing all those illegals later on so they CAN receive benefits — which will empower the Democrats even further. Keep this in mind.