A Discovery at Entry #200

Our 200th entry. Should we declare a holiday?

Tomorrow marks Christohper Columbus Day, or Italian Heritage Day for some (that's what they call it in San Francisco), or Dia de Cristóbal Colón for the Spanish speaking. Here in the place allegedly discovered by the Italian-sailer-in-the-pay-of-the-Spanish, the day was legally marked earlier in the week with a Monday Holiday, the congressionally-created creature we wrote of several entries back. I have an uncle, Chris (imagine that), who will be 54 tomorrow. I suppose it is a given that the date, October 12th, played a role in his naming. But I wasn't there and those who made that decision, my grandparents, have long since passed on from this world, so such a thought is mere speculation on my part.

As young kids, many of us were taught the rhyming mnemonic In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety Two Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue. The idea was that we needed to know when America was discovered, as if it wasn't here before the sailing Chris crossed over the Big Pond to what he thought was India. But there were people where he landed and he called them Indians, since he didn't really know where he was, and he took some of them back to Spain to be sold as slaves. As it is recorded, he made several trips from Spain to the "West Indies," but on none of those did he ever certifiably make his way to the land now known as the United States of America.

There are tales that someone did make it here about one hundred years later. The Lost Colony at Roanoke Island in what is now Dare County, North Carolina, was an attempt at colonization. But what become of these pioneers who had tred upon the territory of the Croatan family of the Carolinian Algonquins is left to speculation. Again, the explorers founded a new land, but one which was already here and apparently already populated.

So what we celebrate tomorrow, or federally speaking what was celebrated Monday, is really only a pretense. America, the land that became the United States thereof, was already here when discovered and already populated by people who apparently had a darker skin than the Anglos and Europeans who came to take from them their land. And that has been a problem ever since. Skin color. But, I digress, sort of.

The preceding paragraphs are written as background. Someone invades North America. Calls it their own. Discriminates against people they aren't familiar and/or comfortable with. Could be any where, but it is America. Americans are still finding ways to discriminate against folks with whom they aren't familiar or comfortable, or of the same skin color. Usually such speech is about injustices to African-Americans, or anyone here who happens to be some shade of brown, most of whom we whites refer to as Blacks. Today's entry isn't about that, although volumes have been and will be written on that matter.

Today's entry is about hispanics or latinos, brown people who really are brown and not black. Some are descended through the Atlantic Ocean from France, southern Europe, and Africa. Others (presumably) came over the land-channel now occupied by the Bering Sea and Straits, and settled along the western lands, well down into Mexico, Central America, and South America - La Raza or the Azlatans. These are the people we feel we need a wall to keep them in their place.

I've written before about my disdain for the wall which separates parts of the United States from parts of Mexico, thus keeping the brown-skinned over on their side, while no such fence or wall exists along our northern border where most of the folks are white and of Anglo-European descent. There is a prejudice for anyone of color, and that prejudice is becoming more pronounced as more and more brown-folk appear in our midsts.

Adding to this problem is that many of those who come over from "south of the border" do so illegally. I have written in the past on my feelings about opening the borders up, making it easier to become an American, and about supporting the president's plans (to some extent) with regard to solving the immigration problem. It is one of the few areas of his presidency with which I have found some level of credit, although the actions of his presidency in this regard have not matched his rhetoric, but that is another issue and one which I have touched on before.

Again this is all background leading to some comments on today's Courier-Journal story about Councilman Doug Hawkins' plan to deny services to illegals here in Louisville Metro. It seems the Councilman, known for his right-leaning and sometimes libertarian views, thinks our local government is providing too much to those who are among us illegally. He has no proof of this but he is probably correct in his assumption. Chances are real good we are providing some level of services to those who are here illegally. Clearly, if they drive anywhere, say to a roofing job, they are driving upon roads paid for with taxes which have probably not been collected out of their paychecks. If they use a public park and bring along their usually well-extended families, they are using land paid for with taxes which have probably not been collected out of their paychecks. And illegals are provided some services under federal law, laws which a local city councilman and his council have no authority to change. But Hawkins thinks we should be doing things, even small things, at the local level to address what he apparently sees as a huge problem. He says he wouldn't deny basic services such as police or fire protection to anyone. Frankly, I think if some of the people who support Hawkins have clearly identified people as illegal, they would push him to do just that.

There is a prejudice in this country, and it devolves down to the local level, against those who are here illegally, especially if their skin color is a darker hue than the present plurality of Americans. And they would deny these services and they would force conservatives to do the same, if they had the power to do so. These are the people in the vast right-wing media conspiracy who spend their days, nights, and weekends tying up the phone lines and the airwaves of AM talk radio. The councilman readily admits he got the idea off talk radio. What a way to govern. Councilman Hawkins' present resolution is the first step in that process of denying all services, including police, fire, and EMS, to illegals, whether he believes it is or not. And it is something which I oppose.

I printed here in these columns before both Emma Lazarus' poem at the Statue of Liberty and words from the Bible, found in Leviticus. Lazarus' poem makes no distinction between legals and illegals. Leviticus does and it is specific, saying an alien must be treated as a citizen. No mincing of words.

So, as we move on to Columbus Day, a day set aside to mark the invasion of America by folks from a different country and of a different skin color than the natives already present, Councilman Hawkins has a plan to exclude a new set of aliens from the promises and protections whites both sought and found when seeking a New World.

My tenth grade English teacher at Durrett would have called that Irony.

Below are both Lazarus' poem and the verses of Leviticus referred to above.

*****

"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

*****

"When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God."

Leviticus 19:33-34. Ah, the parallels.

*****

Happy Columbus Day (tomorrow). And Happy Birthday tomorrow to my Uncle Chris as well as to my dear friend Morgan Ransdell, whose birthday was yesterday.