It starts like this

[sabotabby]

Remember when you first saw this picture?



Were you shocked and horrified? Did you wonder how it could ever come to that? Did you, half a century later, wonder if the child in the photograph survived? Did you question what it would take for a man to pick up his gun and point it children, or wonder what went through his head?

I wonder about the case of Suzi Hazahza and her family, marched out of their home in their bedclothes at gunpoint. Did the Dallas Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who aimed their guns at 17-year-old Ahmad and 11-year-old Mohammad ever see the famous photograph of the little boy in the Warsaw Ghetto? Did they think, for a moment: This is a line I shouldn't cross, pointing a gun at a child. My orders shouldn't matter, my politics shouldn't matter, the child's citizenship and skin colour shouldn't matter. This is wrong?

Or have we passed the point of thinking?

These fuckers certainly have.

(Hat tips: sadie_sabot, Feministe.)

Comments

[sabotabby]

The link is to NYU College Republicans' "Find the Illegal Immigrant" event. On the Feministe link, they copy-and-pasted from earlier today. Apparently the information there keeps changing, probably because they're trying to cover up their racism.

It currently says:

Name:
Find the Illegal Immigrant
Host:
NYU College Republicans
Type:
Causes - Rally
Time and Place
Date:
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Time:
11:00am - 2:00pm
Location:
South side of Silver

Description
There will be one individual with a nametag that reads 'illegal immigrant'. This person has volunteered to do so and is not actually an illegal immigrant. On Thursday people will be signing up to be 'INS' and the first person that signed up and finds the "illegal" will get a prize. At the table there will be information and handouts on the subject matter to inform others on the problems that ILLEGAL immigration causes.

There's also a really racist cartoon of Mexicans in sombreros getting free healthcare (?!) and lemonade as they cross into the U.S. through a hole in a fence.

[elgordochico.livejournal.com]

Ridiculous. They can't even get a drink of water during the crossing, let alone free healthcare. Scapegoating these people won't solve our healthcare problems. But this looks to me like just an act of desperation. Republicans know they lost the day. There is going to be a broad amnesty later this year, and they are powerless to stop it. They are feeling like they have nothing to lose by making racist demonstrations. They try to be as provocative as they can, but it's too late to turn back the clock. So... nyeh-nyeh. Sour grapes.

[sabotabby]

Of course it's ridiculous. But it works very well for building up fear in the populace, and for making sure that non-status immigrants don't make minimum wage and that the lower classes have someone to bully instead of demanding healthcare, etc. Whether this strategy will work is another story.

[ironed_orchid]

I just saw that. The US has free healthcare? This is news.

[sabotabby]

And free education.

And lemonade, apparently.

The mind boggles.