Eliminating Bigotry for a More Perfect Union, Part 3

(Parts 1 & 2 below.)

Anyone who aspires to love his neighbor or love his country should fling bigotry away like a scorpion on the back of his hand.

1. Bigotry’s destructiveness.

Bigotry is wildly destructive. It harms individuals, and it harms the nation.

                    a. Individual harm.

Bigotry harms people socially and in their livelihoods. The law provides few if any remedies for social discrimination. The law provides imperfect remedies for occupational discrimination.

These remedies are costly. And defendants often invent pretexts to justify discrimination. Only the rare employer will admit that he failed to promote a Muslim, or fired her, because she was Muslim. With any foresight and a modicum of cunning, the employer will justify his action based on some employee failing or fault; few employees have none. These obstacles to justice can be overcome, but they make justice more difficult to attain, and sometimes impossible.

Also, bigotry can lead to wrongful conviction. This is true because bigotry toward a person’s race, religion, or sexual orientation can make jurors eager to believe the worst about him. As a longtime lawyer, I know that a even a defendant’s looks can influence jurors, or whether he is substantially overweight. Clearly racial, religious, and like factors can, too.

Some say that the most important right is freedom of speech. Some say that it’s the right of the ballot box. But maybe the most important right is the right to sit on a jury. I’ll be blunt: sometimes a person gets more justice from people of his own race or religion than from people of other races or religions. That’s just reality.

These social, occupational, and penal harms defy the golden rule – a rule anchored in the earliest parts of the Bible. Deuteronomy 10:19 says: "Love ye therefore the stranger, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."

But instead of the golden rule, nowadays people want to apply a reverse golden rule. People remind us that Baptist churches aren’t welcome in Riyadh. That supposedly justifies opposition to the proposed mosque near the former World Trade Center Twin Towers.

I am less concerned about bigotry’s consequences for those who incite bigotry than about the consequences for their victims. But there are consequences to them, too. Now they may have their day. I do not believe that their day will last forever.

Eric Sevareid, in his final CBS broadcast, said, "There is in the American people a tough, undiminished instinct for what is fair." I think he’s right, but that instinct waxes and wanes. Controversies over mosques on both coasts and in between reflect its waning at this moment in time.

I have faith that this instinct for what is fair will re-surge. And when it does, those who inflamed bigotry will pay a price.

                   b. National consequences.

In a sense, bigotry’s consequence to individuals is a consequence to America, because the individuals are a part of America.

And as a nation, we believe in justice; so, as a nation, we must be appalled at injustice to any part of us.

Also, as injustice broadens, the gap narrows between What Is and some evil What Might Be. Lynching became rare only in the 1930s and 1940s; it declined to about ten a year in the 1930s and three a year in the 1940s. As such, only four generations separate us from the time when lynches became relatively rare. Four generations do not make a practice culturally irretrievable. (I do not imply in any was that there is such thing as a "tolerable" number of lynches.)

About the same number of generations separate us from the World War II internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry.

I do not take for granted justice, democracy, or the rule of law. History is unpredictable. Hard as it is to remember those times, on September 10, 2001, no one expected that we would spend nine-years-and-counting at war in Afghanistan, and seven-years-plus in Iraq. Because history is unpredictable, we cannot know what circumstances might come that make widespread iniquity arise within our shores.

I can’t predict what apocalyptic circumstances might arise. But nobody can promise that they won’t arise. Therefore, I would like our national morality to be strong and taut to empower us to resist national iniquity, whatever circumstances might arise. But mainstream bigotry implies a lax morality, which would not protect us in truly terrible times.

Between justice as practiced and injustice as feared, I prefer a wide moat. Bigotry narrows the moat.

More immediately, as we become known as an intolerant nation, we risk diminishing the flow of educated, intelligent foreigners to fill positions for which there are insufficient numbers of qualified American candidates. In truth, American depends upon attracting talented scientists and engineers from overseas. We cannot even fill our schools only with qualified American-born candidates. Anything that threatens to diminish the flow of talented foreigners to our schools and companies directly threatens our national well-being.

                    c. International consequences.

I yearn for America to be a beacon to all nations, admired and respected. We cannot be admired or respected if we embrace bigotry. National bigotry dims our prestige in the eyes of any nation worth being respected by.

America hasn't always stood for democracy and justice in her foreign policy. But she has in those times for which I am most proud of her. I yearn to be proud of America. But if we stand for democracy and justice in our foreign policy, we are hypocrites if we embrace bigotry in ourselves. I want America to stand for democracy and justice, and I don’t want America to be a hypocrite among nations.

We need to be powerful in the world. The world is dangerous, and there is safety in power. We can be grateful that our military is more powerful than any the world has ever known. But it makes no sense to rely solely on military might. If we can persuade our international adversaries, we don’t have to engage them in warfare that is costly in blood and treasure. Like military might, persuasion is power.

As persons, we are persuaded by others of goodwill more readily than by persons of conspicuous moral defect. That’s why politics is so occupied with destructive accusations. That’s why politicians are eager to project positive images of themselves. Nations largely are no different.

Therefore, goodwill is a source of power among nations. It makes no sense to slough off a source of national strength. But bigotry undermines our image as a nation of goodwill.

2. Solutions.

The first step to overcome bigotry is recognize that we have a problem with it. I hope that these essays have contributed to that step.

The second step is wanting to overcome it. That means examining the morality of bigotry and its practical consequences. It means evaluating what it means to love our neighbor. It means cultivating a deep concern for our country in this generation and in future generations – in a word, patriotism.

The third step is holding on to the ground we already have – never yielding to popular pressure on this issue. Some politicians have been conspicuously brave in the face of popular opposition to the proposed mosque near the former World Trade Center Twin Towers, for example. New York mayor Michael Bloomberg comes to mind.

Others have yielded to pressure. But we must have faith that the world will turn, and that the innate sense of fairness and justice that Americans have will reassert itself in time. When that happens, that will be the time to reap the rewards of virtue. But that requires patience and the willingness to undertake political risk in the near term. Politicians might take heart that some members of the public admire political courage above conformity with their own position on any given issue. If done with conviction, rowing against the tide can take you to near-term as well as far-off benefits.

Someone once said that righteousness and success go a long way together; but that eventually they go in different directions. When that happens, we learn about our character.

Someone else said that for most of the time, we can muddle along without making hard choices. But times arise when the grey of the everyday world separates into black and white. In those times, hard choices must be made. This might be such a time.

The fourth step is expanding tolerance. The best way to do this is to set a good example. This requires us to be strong in the conviction that tolerance is a virtue. This strength comes from a variety of sources.

Spiritual depth is one source. Earnest spirituality opposes bigotry. I come from a Christian tradition, so I know books on spiritual growth in that tradition. Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth is a modern classic. Dallas Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives is also recommended. Don Postema’s Space for God : The Study and Practice of Prayer and Spirituality Study Guide (Bible Way) is good for group study. Foster’s book recommends other books.

Education is another source. Education can take the form of studying other cultures, particularly cultures you would not otherwise be open to. Also, ethnic studies can be valuable. Ethnic-studies departments in colleges and universities should be encouraged and supported for our national well-being.

Language study should not be overlooked. I find myself more interested in people when I try to learn their language. That has been true with learning Spanish. The same was true when I lived in China and spent time learning Mandarin.

I started studying Spanish a few years ago, in my late 40s. My efforts have ebbed and flowed. But over the years I have improved to the point that I am no longer helpless when a Spanish speaker calls my office or drops by. By the way, I have no gift for learning languages, but I do it anyway.

Travel can be a form of education. This is particularly true if you can find a way to engage the locals, instead of sitting in a high-priced hotel where the only local you encounter serves your margarita. Not everybody has the gift of travel. But everybody can learn to do it better. I recommend Alain de Botton’s book The Art of Travel.

Great travel books can shake you out of any seven-cities-in-six-days mentality that you might have, though I don’t want to disparage those kinds of vacations. All travel is good. But even if you will never, never imitate Rory Stewart’s walk across Afghanistan, his book The Places In Between might nudge you to more adventuresome travel, if you have any inclination in that direction.

Good novels from foreign or ethnic or religious authors increase knowledge of other cultures, races, or religions. Foreign cultural, historical, or religious books are valuable to read.

Ditto foreign DVDs.

All of this, of course, is just a beginning.

It’s never inappropriate to quote Lincoln. So this from Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address:

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; . . . – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

End note:

Where I mention a book, I provide a link to that book on Amazon.com.  This is only for your convenience.  If you are interested in a book, great, but it truly doesn't matter to me where you get it.

Sources:

U-Tube video of Eric Sevareid’s 1977 farewell broadcast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHGHm8iPeUY

Lynching: http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1979/2/79.02.04.x.html#b

America’s dependence on foreign engineers and scientists: http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/13654/

Eliminating Bigotry for a More Perfect Union, Part 2

(Part 1 below.)

Bigotry against Muslim Americans is headline news, even if the bigotry is not the headline. In contrast, bigotry against Roma makes little news, but it also is not usually recognized as bigotry.

1. Bigotry and Muslim Americans.

Bigotry against Muslim Americans comes from a mix of political calculation and public ignorance. Politicians and pundits exploit ignorance to incite hatred of Muslims. They do this to gain advantage over their political opponents.

                    a. Politically purposeful bigotry.

Politicians and pundits eagerly condemn the planned Muslim mosque in Manhattan near the site of the former World Trade Center. They  assert hateful accusations against Muslim Americans, gaining political capital while our peaceful Muslim neighbors pay the price. They assert that the promoters of this Manhattan mosque are "insensitive" to the victims of 9/11, even though some 9/11 relatives support the mosque, and even though the mosque is intended in part as an interfaith meeting place. They assert without evidence that the mosque is intended to be a terrorist command center.

These politicians, pundits, and most of the public do not distinguish between the responsible, decent Muslims behind the Manhattan mosque and the deeply-evil mass murderers who piloted planes into buildings nine years ago. I discuss other defamations against Muslim Americans in my September 4, 2010 post, "Not Enemies but Friends", in the section called "Wedge issues".

To these cynical politicians and pundits, the Muslim American victims of their political opportunism are mere collateral damage. They victimize Muslims, but to them this is an un-intended but un-important byproduct of their political exploitation of the pain and anger over the events of September 11, 2001. The purpose behind perpetrating hatred of Muslims is the accumulation of political power.

This lingering pain and anger from September 11, 2010 puts most Americans out of sympathy for the rights and well-being of Muslim Americans.  So demagogues enhance their political standing by telling lies about Muslims that the public is eager to believe. And this public anger means that when demagogues denounce Muslims or their freedom to build places of worship, they inflict harm on any adversary who dares to defend Muslims, tolerance, and religious freedom. Any opposing politician or pundit pays a price for appealing to the better angels of our nature.

The political boon of anti-Muslim bigotry goes even further than that. Some eighteen percent of Americans believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim, up from eleven percent in March, 2009. Politicians and pundits disseminate this disinformation hoping to politically damage the President. This is a new incarnation of an oldest, simplest political argument: "He’s not like us." This is the very base of bigotry.

As Republican former Secretary of State Colin Powell stated on Meet the Press, leaders in his own party encourage people to believe that Obama is a Muslim. As Powell points out, this is wrong-headed on two levels. First, there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim; there is no reason that a Muslim child should not be able to grow up to be president. But the accusers insinuate otherwise. Second, Obama is not a Muslim.

                   b. Ignorance as the agent of bigotry.

Eric Sevareid was a television essayist for CBS News. In his 1977 farewell broadcast, he articulated certain self-imposed "rules". Among them: "Not to underestimate the intelligence of the audience and not to overestimate its information." Politicians and pundits know that rule too, not so much honoring the intelligence that Sevareid spoke of, but manipulating the lack of information. They manipulate broad swaths of the American public who never thought about Muslims until planes flew into buildings in New York and Washington; nor learned more about Muslims thereafter; or, if they did, only fitted the information into a template of anger and hatred formed on that day.

Hatred of Muslims as a group is wrong, but I am not completely out of sympathy with my countrymen-and-women who harbor grudges against Muslims. I express this and the reason for it in my August 28, 2010 post, What the Islamic Community Center Controversy Teaches Me about Loving My Country. I also talk about the need for Christian humility among Christians: Muslims are better than we tend to think, and Christians are worse than we tend to think. I note thriving Muslim democracies, and I list relatively recent atrocities committed by Christian countries. I won’t repeat myself here, but if you want to see those positions argued, you know where to go.

On some level we tend to know that it is wrong to judge a group by its most perverse members; we ourselves could not emerge upright from such judgment. But the present political climate makes us overlook that simple truth. Leaders appeal to our baser judgments, counting on a feeble push-back, if any, from a public largely preoccupied with their own anxieties, affairs, and entertainments.

2. Bigotry against Roma.

Roma is the name for the group formerly known as Gypsies.

I’m not aware of national news concerning Roma, like news about African Americans, Latinos, or Muslims. But I have personal knowledge of bigotry against them.

More than other groups that are discriminated against, I find that there is no self-consciousness about holding against Roma the fact that they are Roma. For example, when I was a prosecutor in Alhambra, California, there was a sandwich shop run by Roma. Their sandwiches were good, made with fresh-baked bread. I once invited a detective to go there. He immediately said, "But it’s run by Gypsies – they piss in the bread!" Whether he literally believed this or not, his immediate, un-self-conscious response was a racial put-down. Having almost daily contact with this detective for two years, I never heard him speak that way about any other race or group.

On another occasion, I represented a Roma man in Monterey, California. He was accused of theft; having a loaded firearm in his car; and child endangerment. (The child-endangerment charge was because the children were young, and the gun was loaded and under a seat.)

The theft consisted of money taken for repairing a damaged fender. My client’s repair of the fender was, in the vernacular sense, a "rip-off", because he did a poor repair job. A poor repair job is not a crime, however; but it was treated as such. The officer wrote in his investigation report that this was a scam perpetrated by "Gypsies" all over California. To this day, I have no basis to believe that the officer had actual information to back up that statement; none was stated in the investigation report.

But, true or not, that statement was inappropriate and prejudicial. It was like saying that an African American must have intended to sell the drugs he had (a more serious crime than mere possession) because that is what African Americans do.

Character evidence is frowned upon under California law – generally, in a court of law, you can’t hold against somebody his own prior bad acts. But this was worse than character evidence. This was tarring my client not with his own prior bad acts.  It was tarring him with alleged prior bad acts by others over whom he had no control, and for whom he had no responsibility.

Among the prosecutor, the judge, and me, I was the only one who seemed to perceive the inappropriateness of this statement in the officer’s investigation report. Only after hard bargaining and aggressive argument, I got the theft and child-endangerment charges dropped.

Bigotry against Roma is not inconsequential, even though it is not national news. Hitler persecuted Roma, as he did Jews, Slavs, and homosexuals.

3. Conclusion.

In part 1, I examined bigotry against African Americans and Latinos. Here, I examined bigotry against Muslim Americans and Roma. In part 3, I will discuss how bigotry saps America’s strength and afflicts bigotry’s perpetrators, and what we should do about it.

Sources:

9/11 families who support the Manhattan mosque: http://www.peacefultomorrows.org/

The truth about the promoter of the Manhattan mosque: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/nyregion/22imam.html?_r=1

An article about the promoters for the Manhattan mosque, and the plans concerning it: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/bf1110d8-a5b0-11df-a5b7-00144feabdc0.html

18 percent of Americans think Obama is a Muslim: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1701/poll-obama-muslim-christian-church-out-of-politics-political-leaders-religious

The complexity of characterizing the "typical" Muslim: an article about the Sufis: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/opinion/17dalrymple.html

An homage to a great, tolerant Muslim elected leader: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704842604574642353284811682.html?KEYWORDS=wahid

YouTube video of John McCain refuting a supporter who calls Obama an "Arab": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzoyADkoFUk

YouTube video of former Secretary of State Collin Powell on calling Obama a Muslim and patriotism among Muslim Americans: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYELqbZAQ4M&feature=related

YouTube video of Eric Sevareid’s 1977 farewell broadcast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHGHm8iPeUY

Eliminating Bigotry for a More Perfect Union, Part 1

America requires a fearless moral inventory of herself – fearless and cleansing. No person ever uplifted his character by presuming his own perfection. A nation is not different.

As part of that American self-examination of America, I want to examine bigotry. Bigotry is mainstream – not universal, but widespread. I’ll demonstrate that, and I’ll describe how it hurts us, and what we can do about it.

This first part will briefly review recent manifestations of bigotry against African Americans and Latinos. The second part will do the same with Muslims and Roma.

All of this is in the spirit of making America a better, mightier nation. As Abraham Lincoln said, "Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it."

Sources are listed at the end.

1. Bigotry and African Americans.

Bigotry against African Americans is resurgent . In its usual current form, it no longer contends that African Americans are inferior. Bigotry against African Americans has reconstituted itself as a sense of White victimhood.

                    a. Bigotry: the old-fashioned kind.

But old-fashioned bigotry still rises from the grime, of course, sometimes among prominent public figures. New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino emailed associates a video clip of an African indigene dancing exuberantly; he said that the dancing indigine was an "Obama Inauguration Rehearsal".

This was bigoted on two levels. First, it equated the new (African American) leader of the free world with an African indigine. Second, it assumed that an African indigene moving exuberantly is innately comical, in ways that a White American doing the same thing is not. To Paladino, it matters, apparently, whether the exuberance is filmed by an anthropologist or by Dancing With the Stars.

Paladino also forwarded an altered photograph depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as a pimp and a prostitute, an invidious stereotype of African Americans.

                    b. Shirly Sherrod and White victimhood.

But bigotry against African Americans has evolved. It now paints Whites as victims. A conspicuous example is the hue and cry about an out-of-context video clip of a minor Agriculture Department functionary, Shirley Sherrod, an African American. This clip was posted by a conservative blogger. The out-of-context portions posted created the impression that Sherrod was a racist. In fact, the speech was an homage to overcoming racism and reaching across racial divisions.

The publicity that this story received was grossly disproportionate to the relatively modest government position that Mrs. Sherrod occupied. But the story had wide appeal, because it nourished White America’s sense of victimhood.

                   c. Glenn Beck and our perfidious president.

Media star Glenn Beck also appealed to White America’s sense of victimhood. He claimed that Obama has a "deep-seated hatred of White people." He said this without apparent proof. Obama’s loving mother was White, and his adoring American grandparents were White. But that did not stop Beck.

And Beck proclaimed that Obama’s policies are driven by "Obama’s thinking on . . . reparations" and a desire to "settle old racial scores". In other words, "Be afraid, White America, be very afraid."

                    d. Dr. Laura and marrying out of one’s race.

Syndicated radio celebrity Dr. Laura Schlessinger stoked the sense of White victimhood. An African-American radio caller expressed her dismay to Dr. Slessinger about her husband’s White friends. Apparently, they make remarks demeaning to African Americans. Dr. Slessinger responded with offensive, racially-charged language. At one point, she chided her pained listener not to go "all NAACP" (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People – a renowned, venerable civil-rights organization). Schlessinger hung up on the caller and commented that people lacking a sense of humor should not "marry out of their race." Dr. Schlessinger remarked that African Americans use their "power" not for good, but to demonize Whites.

                    e. Newt Gingrich and the ghost of Obama’s father.

Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, proclaimed that to best understand Barack Obama, you have to consider Obama’s dead father. Obama knew his father slightly, his father having abandoned Obama and Obama’s mother before Obama could remember. Despite the virtually non-existent relationship between Obama Sr. and Obama Jr. – they met twice after the abandonment – Gingrich proclaimed that Obama had absorbed his father’s "Kenyan, anti-colonial [i.e. anti-White] world view". White victimhood is once again proclaimed over a mainstream megaphone.
                  
                    f. Congressman Ford and fear of miscegenation.

African American Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. of Tennessee encountered White victimhood in his race for the United States Senate. He had attended a party at the Playboy mansion. His Senate-race adversary ran a television political commercial that featured a young White woman, dressed and behaving to insinuate loose morals, importuning the Congressman: "Harold, call me." This was a course appeal to White dread of African American sexuality, preying on fears of miscegenation.

2. Bigotry and Latinos.

Bigotry against Latinos usually multiplies in a fact-free petri dish.

                    a. Latinos, jobs, and crime.

 Immigrants – legal and illegal – create as many jobs as they occupy, maybe more. But this doesn’t stop the snarling about illegal immigrants "stealing our jobs".

And remember Jan Brewer, candidate for Governor in Arizona, claiming that illegal immigrants are drug mules, and that they leave decapitated corpses in the Arizona desert? And John McCain claiming that Phoenix is the number-two kidnaping capitol of the world, behind Mexico City? Wrong, wrong, and wrong. Brewer, McCain, and other Arizona politicians are alarmist and wrong about immigrant crime.

They resemble popular Los Angeles radio-show hosts John Korbylt and Ken Chaimpou, who waive a bloody shirt when an illegal immigrant commits a heinous crime, as if that behavior were typical of illegal immigrants. This incites hatred.

Yet these falsehoods masquerading as fact are the foundation of Arizona’s enacted law SB1070. SB1070 compels police to inquire about a person’s immigration status if the officer "reasonably" suspects that they are in the country illegally. And to seize him if he cannot prove that he is legally in the country.

To be clear, Arizona police officers were given the right to roust illegal-immigranty-looking persons (Latinos) based on unsubstantiated assumptions about immigrants and crime – maybe jobs, too. In this rush to persecute Latinos, the Arizona Legislature and its governor did not pause to determine the truth. The truth was not the point. Bigoted beliefs about Latinos were the point.

Would the Arizona politicians do a thoroughgoing and painstaking investigation of their presumptions about crime and immigrants before opening their mouths about it? And certainly before empowering police officers to demand papers from a person apparently guilty of strolling-while-Latino? Apparently not.

The lazy legislative investigation that failed to deflate disinformation about immigrants, crime, and jobs is disturbing. Equally disturbing is the political appeal of this disinformation. This disinformation crossed the finish line ahead of the facts, because condemnation of Latinos has a cultural head start.

That’s the point. AB1070, and proposed legislation like it in other states, is a manifestation of hostility toward Latinos. In a word, bigotry.

I speak of hostility toward illegal immigrants and hostility toward Latinos as the same phenomenon.  This is because the hostility toward illegal immigrants is so un-tethered to fact that I perceive beneath it a racial hostility.

                    b. Puzzling contradiction.

Opposition to illegal immigrants is based on inherently opposite reasons.  The anti-illegal-immigrant agitators claim that two negative characteristics typify illegal immigrants: they steal our jobs, and they commit atrocious crimes. But people who work hard typically don't commit crimes. And hardened criminals – the kind who carry drugs into the country and leave decapitated corpses in the desert – typically don’t hold jobs. The anti-immigrant agitators should make up their minds.

                    c. "Anchor babies".

 "Anchor babies" is an urban legend that illegal immigrants give birth in America to manipulate immigration rules, clearing an easy avenue for the parent to remain here. The manufactured horror of this invented ploy has led to talk among leading politicians (Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham look up) about amending the Constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship.

But the path to citizenship cleared by an American-born child is lengthy and uncertain, so it undermines belief in this supposed anchor-baby scheme. No child may sponsor his or her parents until he or she is 21. And then the parents must return to their native country for 10 years before realizing any immigration benefit. Those who claim that this far-fetched scheme is widespread provide no proof.

                   d. Bigotry and the mask of policy.

These myths, about crime, jobs, and anchor babies, demonstrate antagonism toward Latinos. The transformation of this misinformed antagonism into policy-talk demonstrates the ability of bigotry to disguise itself as serious policy.


Sources

Carl Paladino’s racist emails: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/Carl-Paladino-Distances-Himself-from-Racist-Sexist-Email-Forwards-90684749.html

Recap of the accusations against, and vindication of, Shirley Sherrod: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-07-21-usda-racism-resignation_N.htm

Glenn Beck on Obama and reparations, settling racial scores, and "deep-seated hatred of White people". http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/magazine/03beck-t.html?_r=1&hp
　
Laura Schlessinger, bigotry, and African Americans supposedly demonizing Whites (transcript and recording): http://mediamatters.org/blog/201008120045

Gingrich and Obama’s "Kenyan, anti-colonial world view" http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/246302/gingrich-obama-s-kenyan-anti-colonial-worldview-robert-costa

Harold Ford, Jr. and the "Harold, call me" political advertisement. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/26/us/26adbox.html

Immigrants create as many jobs as they occupy, maybe more: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5312900
http://www.ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=737
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/05/14/why-americans-think-wrongly-that-illegal-immigrants-hurt-the-economy.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/09/column_the_payoff_from_immigra.html
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2010/09_immigration_greenstone_looney/09_immigration.pdf

Jan Brewer and other Arizona politicians are alarmist and wrong about immigrant crime in Arizona. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/09/AR2010070902342.html

Reason behind Arizona’s SB1979 anti-immigrant law: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1984432,00.html

Analysis of the anchor-baby controversy: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/aug/06/lindsey-graham/illegal-immigrants-anchor-babies-birthright/