[ilbegone]

Greg,

This is going to ramble a bit, but it has a point.

I understand what you're saying - I've brought it up myself in the fact that illegal immigration has it's origins in white employers and white politicians, that the problem with illegal immigration was made in America, not by trespassing brown Mexican nationals nor average brown Americans some confuse with Mexican nationals - and the Mexican government merely takes advantage of the situation to deport Mexican social problems with emigration rather than reform government.

The problem lies in how the discussion is viewed by others, although everyone has their various perceptions.

Consider a brother and sister I know. She says she's never been stopped by the Border Patrol, he claims that he gets racially profiled by the Border Patrol (he said it as though it's a regular thing). He and another sister have said that they're staying out of Arizona because of things like Arpaio and SB 1070. They were all born here.

Once when the man was in the hospital I made a comment to him that he would soon be out playing soccer. He replied that he played baseball and basketball in high school, that soccer was something the Mexicans brought with them when "they" came. The man's parents were born in Mexico.

This is what I know for sure about them and the Border Patrol: A car they were riding in to see some relatives was stopped by the Border Patrol in Texas and those agents tore their car apart. This was in 1960.

Maybe the man has been stopped once or twice at the Temecula checkpoint on the 15 freeway and it pissed him off. I know an Indian who was born on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming who was stopped there, and there's no doubt he was pissed about it - hoppin' friggin mad about it for a month or so (might about having been seen as a potential "Mexican", I've personally seen Mexican nationals approach him asking about work in Spanish and when it was clear he didn't understand they cussed him in Spanish and flipped him the Mexican bird while walking away).

I spoke yesterday with a Mexican from Guerrero I've known for years who's been here since about 1975, much of it illegally, still barely speaks English. I related to him about being stopped by the Border Patrol last week and being asked if I were a citizen. He was incredulous in a very amused manner, said that I didn't look like a Mexican, why did they stop me. He said that he himself, with over three decades here, was confronted by the Border Patrol only once. They came into his workplace and asked him if he were a citizen, he showed them a driver's license, and they lost interest in him. He asked me if I was stopped by a "Mexican" agent, and I replied in the affirmative. He said "that's why".

The Mexican knows why he was approached by the agents and accepts it. Many American citizens, even with the low chance they have of being confronted by the Border Patrol, resent it.

Perception is reality. Of the brown American man and his two sisters, one sister doesn't see a racial profiling problem, the other two do, the Indian was livid. The Mexican doesn't care, he's got his - let's have some more fun, pinche migra.

Lots of people have sensitivities or even chips on their shoulder about conceptualized white racism. Those who are old enough to remember the 50's have varying feelings based on their diverse experiences and personalities about real and perceived white racism, and so do their grandchildren - some who are so wrongly convinced that the old people's negative experiences which have been related to them (individually accurate or not) are their very own.

So, when you talk about whites in the manner you did, regardless if it was with much more innocent intent than many of "them" might talk if the roles were reversed, you are going to be regarded as a close associate of long dead Nazi thug Heinrich Himmler.

Perception is reality, and brown racists have worked overtime to build up and perpetuate the perception of white racism because allegation of white racism works to a desired end - racial polarization. If people who might otherwise agree with you about illegal immigration perceive that you are out to do them personal harm based on race rather than legality of residency, they're going to hate you and the racist brown supremacist has done his work.

Why help them?