(11AM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)
Cross-posted from Sum of Change
So folks in Las Vegas for the 2010 Netroots Nation conference got a surprise when they showed up for the session on Civil Rights in the Modern Era to find a checkpoint of “ICE agents” looking for illegal European immigrants:
“Illegal European immigrants are coming here, leaving anchor babies, and just running rampant over our national system.”
“We’ve had a lot of illegal Europeans trying to come into the country, they bring all kinds of diseases.”
The agents asked people suspected of possibly being from Europe if they had proper papers to be in the Americas. Those people who could not produce identification had to take a retinal scan in order to enter the panel on civil rights.
“It was degrading, it was incredibly degrading.”
“I felt a little bit threatened at first.”
“They’ve massacred millions of people, they’ve destroyed the national environment, and it’s just crazy, it’s got to stop, so we really need heavier border enforcement here.”
“I can kind of understand why the Native Americans would want to profile me coming through, but I don’t think it’s right.”
“I was outraged, I mean, nobody has a right to do that.”
“Even though it was a total satire, it was right on. And you can begin to get a sense of what that would be like to constantly have the fear that you will be asked to produce papers.”
“We’re all human beings, we really are all equal. We live in a global economy, a global social world, we are all one people.”
2 comments
…. this is training them and getting them used to the concept, not motivating them to change anything.
just to enter a panel at a convention.
Let’s get one thing straight, now.
The viewpoints of the so called NA’s as being expressed on the DNC/OFA re election blog with the most traffic are not the views of the average Native American, but the viewpoint of the right wing of the Democratic Party. And they’ve been co opted and corrupted enough at this point, by letting the right wing run rampant thru the comments and diaries on said blog, because this gets them in the good graces of the Beltway (they think), that people might think that the average NA would agree with reverse discrimination or indigenous profiling.
They already went thru massive identity profiling just to be able to get on a plane and fly anywhere. They’re already IN that police state, and are now being told to write about how wunnnerful it will be, to have the money sucking $$$ loons at Homeland Security issue everybody a national identity and have their fingerprints and retinal scans on file. Because this administration sees this as a goal because they’ve gotten into bed with the wing nuts.
Yeah, you got that right.
Bleah.
and you have to drop trow to pass the checkpoints.
Uhmericans will fall for that one, too.