choosing our words wisely

The term "illegal immigrant" is really grating on me. Srsly. Liberal leftly people will still unthinking use the term because (like so much of politics in this country) the conservatives control the terms of the debate. I'm just saying that we can all be more cognizant of the language we use.

Why hate the term "illegal immigrant?"

1) It makes me cringe.
2) It makes me sick.
3) I feel it's power to reify and construct inside of me an US and a THEM, a national border of supreme legitimacy, a dehumanized mass of people that deserves a second-class status.

W.T.F?

This really involves a larger project of redefining our collective consciousness of the world in which we live. That border was taken and constructed in a war of racist imperial aggression NOT THAT LONG AGO. The fact that the millions of people in question are "legally" different than those of us born on this side of the border is based on pure, uncritical approval of manifest destiny and wars of aggression in determining the legitimacy of nation-states, citizenship, and who deserves basic human rights. The fact that the millions of people in question are "legally" different than those of us born on this side of the border is based on a set of completely constructed assumptions in which human bodies have come to be seen as physically illegal while multinational corporations are given license to exploit and violate, no matter on which side of the border they were "born."

First things first, we can use the term "undocumented immigrants" or "undocumented workers" to describe the 12+ million people who live in this country but who have not gone through the "proper" (*cough* impossible) bureaucratic channels to obtain the correct pieces of paper that signify, within our legal system, that they are human beings entitled to rights. Or how 'bout the term, "people who were unable to obtain documents"?

The Feminist Texan blog and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists explains all about how the media, and it's audience, should use this terminology about immigration status.

The points remains: Actions can be illegal (whether they are just or unjust, that is a different issue.) People, on the other hand, can never BE illegal.

To use this language is to endorse a white supremacist project. No ifs, ands, or buts. For example, watch this Rachel Maddow segment to learn about the direct white supremacist origins of Arizona's new immigration law SB1070. Maybe, just maybe, I would take seriously the argument that immigration is actually an "economic issue" about the availability of jobs and resources, as many claim, if I saw any evidence of those same people believing at all in alleviating systemic poverty and the U.S.'s incarceration of millions of it's own citizens. (Or as David Sirota tweeted, "Tea Partiers say they are 1) against Big Govt and 2) Not racist. So where are Tea Party protests against AZ's Big Govt racial profiling bill?) But of course this simple fact exposes the truth that anti-immigrant state repression has nothing to do with even citizen solidarity and everything to do with racism, classism, and fear--it's just transnational this time!

Where is the love y'all?!

(photo credit to hektor on flickr)