As I noted before, many of the racist anti illegal folks resort to both behaviors when they have no factual point, and the history of the word and those behaviors with mucho precedence have left a large segment of intelligent people with issues about the word "illegal" being thrown around maliciously and the type of behaviro in general that was coming from the posts’ author and several others. If you had the analytic skills to be offended by white people being lumped into one ignorant stereotype (which was a totally reasonable response as the "white" comment was very ignorant and sole purpose was to show how offensive this kind of ignorant behavior is, whether it is white or brown people) then you have the insight to see how the term illegal being thrown around without a valid explanation or apology is also offenseive to many people, especially given the history and context of the term. Let’s be honest here, the term "illegal" was used by a person calling for extreme and overlysimplistic/oppressive actions of a demographic he knows little about and is not a part of (and is actually he is a part of an ethnicity that has a long history of malicious hostility towards "others’, even if Jason himself has no klan sheets he exists in the dichotomy created b this history and should act accordingly), and then wanted to gloat through an individual situation that he was right. Usually, the majority of folks with enough energy to pursue the whole "illegals are bad" mantra or stance are either ignorant or hiding some ethnocentrism (because most of the ills illegals bring can be explained or proven wrong) and it eventually comes out, my apologies for thinking Jason and Jason fall into that category that has a 95% precedence of being dead on.

Maybe I shouldve clarified myself, just like Jason shouldve off the bat once people got mad. But I thought it was appropriate to "fight fire with fire" in an attempt to get the author (and David Markland) to put their feet in someone else’s shoes, which seems impossible for many American folks (of every race, those enraptured by the americana narcissistic it- only-matters-if-it-affects-me cultural juggernaut). But just for note (and I do this alot since I debate these topics frequently as I am one of the few Latinos with a big vocabulary, see another sterotype!) I myself have some white somewhere in there (grandpa was 3/4 yaqui and 1/4 english), am married to a half white woman (meaning I have 2 children who are 1/4 white and much lighter than papa), elected several white people onto the board of my nonprofit, have several white best friends, work with some of the coolest white people in the world (or coolest people in general), have spent a lot of time researching white poverty as well as that of my own ethnicity/blacks/asians, and spend at least HALF the time I work with angry black and brown kids in the ghetto explaining to them that it is wrong to stereotype or be racist towards white people and that there is no "the man" as well as that not all or even most white people behave in the negative ways they may have seen or experienced white culture, and am planning a family vacation to Missourah so that my kids and I may see the white side of their family (as here in LA they usually only get the Asian and Latino stuff. So no, I honestly do not feel ALL or even most white folks behave in a certain way, my ignorant "white people" comment was more to prove a point.

When I was younger, I grew up in the projects and East LA where there was very little exposure to white people, and as a teen I embodied the ignorance of white folks that I had supposedly not enaged much with beyond negative situations (police, social workers, PO’s, hostile teachers, jail guards). As I got older and shed the whole "gangster" loser lifestyle I became enmeshed in as a reaction to my environment upbringing and lack of personal resilience,I also shed my partially self induced ignorant notions of "the man" and white people in general. Growing in up in post white flight ELA and the SGV I knew tons of cool white folks and began to focus on that to erase these negative stereotypes that began fermenting in my head. And you know what? It opened up a whole new world, tons of friendships, and killed a nasty rotten part of me that had to go. I wish a lot of folks (especially westsiders if you know what I mean) would try the same with my community, although there are a lot of stereotype monkeys, us Mexicans are not solely alcohlic gang members who throw baby daipers out of windows. Focusing on those jerkoffs (and every race has them, the more wealth an ethnicity collectively has, the less obvious it is) is like me focusing on the one cop who kicked my ass and called me brown trash when I was 14, rather than the dozens of LAPD officers that acted as Santa Claus at my mom’s Xmas parties or played football with me (my mom works at the piper tech city bldg. with a lot of LAPD) or were just genrally good people.

how about a hot dog wrapped in a tortilla ?

I appreciate that Browne thinks we should think twice about what we write because of our large audience (at least someone thinks so), but I think the last form of media that shouldn’t worry about being PC are blogs like this.

I also appreciate that Bustard thinks the problem with using the term "illegal" is because he believes its as offensive as "n*gger" and thus using the word spreads or integrates racism. I entirely disagree, of course, but if a lot of people feel the same way Bustard does, especially Hispanics, I’ll curb my language.

However, I don’t think anyone at Metblogs has tossed out the term "illegals" in any conversation that isn’t related to illegal immigration, and that hasn’t specified as such in an entry. Instead, its been used as shorthand in the context of larger conversation.

What I said is I have a problem with lumping along racial lines for ANYONE. I think you even agreed. A little common ground maybe?

I don’t just pipe up when someone says something about what I am exactly.

Number one, I’m everybody and nobody.

But in regards of me defending people and being anti people generalizing, white, black, Latino, Asian, mixed raced, whatever, I don’t care.

If I read your posts and you seem to only get offended when people talk about what you are specifically, well how is anyone going to take your words on racism and prejudice with anything more than, "you’re just saying it, because it’s you."

So yeah I’m going to say Frazgo and Yourfriend it is very wrong and no one should stereotype anyone, even white men. Because the vast majority of white people aren’t doing jerk things, like the vast majority of everyone else aren’t jerks. I wish there was a race of nice people ,a race of mean people, a race of party people, a race of good cooks, a race of smart people, if there were…think how simple (but boring life) life would be. During my time on this planet, I’ve learned you can’t judge a book by it’s cover.

The vast majority of white people in the US didn’t own slaves, it was only very, very rich white men, but the key there is rich, not white, not man. The vast majority of white people in the US don’t have hire people who don’t have "the proper paper” work to pay them nothing, but lots of rich people do, black, Latino, white, and Asian….

It’s wrong and the not right to generalize anyone and I’ve said things in person (not on the chicken sh*t internet) when people have generalized anyone. I got threatened with death owing to the fact that I wouldn’t agree with them that the white man was the devil (or some kind of variation of that…fun times,) I got an actual gun pulled on me…so I’m not trying to just pull crap out my butt, because we’re online here.

I’ve explained a lot of things to a lot of people and helped them see the world in a better light, that can actually help them succeed in this world.

I will stand up for anyone at any time if something unfair is happening to them, that’s what I like doing.

Ok, so I give you that, no one should have made a wide sweeping generalization that all white people are mean or imply it.

So do you think it’s wrong to call people illegal?

Because it does mean Mexican and Latino and just a nasty mean comment to anyone south of the US border.

You’ve got to know deep down inside that’s what it means to certain people out here, do you want to be in the same category as people who used the term n*gger in the 30s, do you? They weren’t bad people they didn’t mean anything by it, but do you really want to be that guy if you have the opportunity to not be that guy? That guy didn’t have the benefit of black people explaining to him, "Hey we don’t like that." He didn’t have the internet, you do.

Because really no one who throws that term out and discriminates and does whatever that term brings about bothers to ask, "Where you born here or not?" They just apply their hate to whatever brownish person they see.

Does it hurt so much for you to not have the right to demean someone? Does that matter more over everything else?

You just said you don’t like being stereotyped, great that’s fine I won’t and I don’t think I have in any of my posts, but I put the same challenge to you. Please don’t use that term.

Saying illegal brings about stereotypes in regards to Latino people, it brings about hate crimes, it brings about laws, it brings about attitudes. Do you think that slavery had no impact on how free black in the US lived? The term illegal makes it hard for Latinos who were born here. Do you get that? Do you understand that? Do you get how a person who may not be as sophisticated as you might not see the difference? Do you want to be responsible for someone getting their head beat in for being the “wrong thing.”

People of color don’t like it and that should be enough of a reason for you not to use it, at least not in this public and very powerful forum.

If this was a blog that no one read or your personal blog then hey do what you want, but this is a big blog. This is media, this is powerful, please don’t use your power as a poster on this big huge blog that goes all over the world to denigrate another human being who is just trying to make a living.

Browne

I’m a mutt like many others in the city. I’m also one with quite a few who entered the country illegally in the family tree. Just because I’m pretty pale & white 6 months of the year means you can blame me for everything and call me a hater? That is just wrong.

I’d hate to think ‘yourfriend’ was right when he wrote "…and the disaster is almost impossible to fix at this point."

I know many races that equally hate Mexicans. White people are just the classic group to make out as the "man!".

I dont want to leave it at that. Every race (the haters groups in each race) hates every race. Can you not think of any race that doesnt have jokes attached to it? If you can you probably havent lived there or dont know anyone there.

As I tell my kids about race, "No one has a choice how theyre born. Judge people on whether they are nice or mean."

To that point, the people who are defending illegals should understand its not a mexican thing. No one straight out just hates mexicans. It is the illegal activity of jumping the borders that some people hate. That would be just the people doing the illegal activity. Its not the mexican race.

My parents brought me to LA as a young child, we were escaping the war in El Salvador that was funded by the US Govt, and quite a few of the people who have entered the US w/o legal documentation were escaping wars that were also funded by the US Govt. In that sense a lot of the people entering w/o legal documentation were war refugees displaced by a war that was funded by the US Govt. The hypocrisy of the US Govt is absurd, go into another country ruin the country’s infrastructure, society and then complain that people in that country seek a new and better life in the US. The US Govt just keeps doing the same thing over and over, this time it’s Iraq.