Poor AZ Representative Russell Pearce fell victim to an oversight regarding an article that he pasted to the bottom of an email he sent to a few supporters. This booboo involved an article from National Alliance's website that talks about how the media is controlled by the Jews.
The media presents a "single view of the world - a world in which every voice proclaims the equality of the races, the inerrant nature of the Jewish 'Holocaust' tale, the wickedness of attempting to halt the flood of non-White aliens pouring across our borders, the danger of permitting citizens to keep and bear arms, the moral equivalence of all sexual orientations, and the desirability of a 'pluralistic,' cosmopolitan society rather than a homogeneous, White one," the article says...
He insists that he does not agree with the sentiments in the article, but that the title and the first paragraphs about media bias appealed to him. He said the article had been forwarded to him by someone else and he would not have sent it if he had read it in its entirety.
Source: Arizona Republic
Yeah, I think he really wouldn't have sent out that article if he had read through it. Hatred of Jews is so not PC, and he may even have nothing against Jewish people. (I'm also open to the idea that he did agree with it and that he sent it out thinking it would not get out to the media.)
But it's no coincidence that the movement against illegal immigration is associated with blatant racism and hate. It gets me when these people are surprised (or act surprised) that white supremacists and nazis attend their events. It gets me even more when they vehemently deny any association with racists or racism when i constantly find racist remarks on their messageboards and have seen at least one nazi at their Phoenix events. I constantly hear hateful remarks at rallies such as those insinuating that the immigrants are coming here to rape our women and molest our children (!). The sentiments are very similar between "non-racist" anti-immigrant folks (politicians, minutemen, etc.) and open racists, that's why this booboo occurred.
Pearce even pasted in the link to National Alliance's website. National Alliance is a known hate group, although i'm sure if i wasn't concerned with racism i would have never heard of it.
This kind of situation, as well as the types of remarks i mentioned is why i don't give these so-called non-racist anti-immigrant folks who claim they're only concerned about the law (oh, and the preservation of "our culture") the benefit of the doubt anymore. They can attend the rallies and read messageboards where there exist many hateful remarks but yet still associate with the groups and individuals from whom they come. Maybe they're even the ones saying the hateful things and yet they can somehow still convince themselves they're not racist (do they actually believe it?).
And I will say that it is more complicated than racism, but that is a definitely a factor (i'll probably say more about that later). I'm hesitant to shout "racist" when it's much more complicated than that, but I will use the word singularly and simply nonetheless because of the power of the word. I just think we should examine it further and make it more clear to them and to others who aren't as involved in this issue why this is racism and explain how it's interlocking with class and xenophobia and all these other things. This is not only so that our message is more clear to others, but so that we cannot be written off as "playing the race card".
Interestingly, Russell Pearce sent out his email in response to the support he got because of the backlash he got for a comment he made about bringing back "Operation Wetback". People shouted "racist" because he used the word "wetback" even though, as he claims, he only used it to name the program that was in effect in the 1950's. I think it's certainly worth calling him racist for promoting that program, but not for simply using it in reference to piece of history. It's positive that because of this issue, the media has discussed to some extent the problem of racial profiling and the fact that many people deported in Operation Wetback were not illegal immigrants at all.
