By Douglas V. Gibbs
Carlos Santana is a great guitarist. I grew up listening to his music, and now find myself disappointed about his slur against Americans over E-Verify on the baseball field in Atlanta, Georgia. With microphone in hand, fresh off of being given a civil rights award, Santana said that unemployed Black, Hispanic and White Americans who want jobs held by illegal aliens are as racist as those who turned the hoses and dogs on Martin Luther King and civil rights protesters in the 1960s.
Mexican-born Santana continued, telling the Atlanta crowd that they should be ashamed of themselves for allowing their state officials to enact a law that requires businesses to use E-Verify to ensure that jobs go to legal workers.
"I represent the human race. The people of Arizona, the people of Atlanta, Georgia, you should be ashamed of yourselves," said the famed guitarist.
Santana later, after the game, told the media that Georgia's new E-Verify law is based on racism and economic anxiety.
"This is about fear," said Santana, "that people are going to steal my job. No we ain't. You don't clean toilets and clean sheets, stop shucking and jiving."
We? You?
I remember when I was in construction, many considered my ditch digging duties to be a job that people like me (American) aren't willing to do.
My son, a few years back, applied to pick strawberries. He wasn't hired because he doesn't speak Spanish. I guess being half-Mexican wasn't Mexican enough for the growers.
Now, who's the racists?
And what is with this "we" stuff with Santana? Does he identify himself with the illegal aliens? And calling the unemployed "you"? Is he lumping them all together in a general manner like most racists do?
Fact is, this isn't about racism, this is about the law.
The response to that statement I usually get is, "But Doug, those poor people are coming here seeking a better life."
Then they should come here legally, or fix Mexico. Coming across the border as a criminal is not the way to do it.
The reality is that Americans are out of work. Thanks to the Democrats the unemployment rate remains sky-high (and it is higher than they are telling you), and illegal aliens are taking jobs Americans ARE willing to do. The majority of hotel housekeeping employees are Americans. The majority of custodial workers are Americans.
Racists like Santana don't care about the facts. All he is interested in is looking out for what he considers to be "his people." It's like when we had that "day without a Mexican," and my sisters in law asked my wife if she was going to go with them out to Los Angeles to join the protests. My wife said, "No." Her sisters said, "Aren't you going to stand with your people?"
My wife responded, "They aren't my people. My people don't break laws, my people don't only TAKE, and my people are Americans."
My wife, by the way, was born in Mexico. She naturalized in 2007.
Santana believes that unemployed Americans don't deserve any sympathy when they complain that they should have jobs instead of the illegal foreign workers.
"It's an anti-American law. it's a cruel law, actually. If you all remember what it was like here with Martin Luther King and the dogs and the hoses. It's the same thing, only its high tech. So Let's change it."
The dogs and hoses in the 1960s were about enabling non-white "Americans" to be able to enjoy the full rights, including full economic participation, of being an American.
Arizona's laws, and Georgia's new law, is about protecting "American Citizens," who, by the way, are disproportionately black, from being barred from economic participation by employers who prefer illegal foreign workers.
Santana said he was there to give a voice to the invisible. But they aren't invisible. Illegal aliens have invaded this nation in the millions, and are working jobs that unemployed Americans would love to have, so that they can survive in the country of their allegiance. Carlos Santana shamed himself, and Americans have every right to be angry at his bigoted comments.
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Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
Carlos Santana slams immigration laws at Civil Rights Game - USA Today
