Good Morning.
Last week Laura Ingraham of Fox News declared on national television that it's understandable a lot of people are upset about the changing demographics in the United States...the country they once knew and loved, she called it. She blamed what she obviously considers the unfortunate alteration of of the American complexion on the influx of immigrants, even those who have come here legally, but she clearly meant the immigrants from certain countries and not others. She has forgotten the long and frequently violent history of how the United States was settled by the immigrants she probably would find more to her liking.
Laura dear, the Native Americans are called that for a reason. They're the only Americans who are native to American soil. Everyone else either came here from somewhere else or is descended from someone who came here from somewhere else. Among the immigrants, a term you now disparage, were the passengers on the Mayflower who were being religiously persecuted in Europe. With few exceptions, every denomination of Christianity has beat up on people, not exactly what Jesus had in mind, but what else is new. In any case, after the Mayflower returned to Europe, word got out that there was this nice piece of land across the pond and the ships started bringing people of various ancestries, many of them apparently less desirable than others despite what certain treasured documents say about equality and democracy and all of that loftiness of thought. We have this lovely picture of the pilgrims sitting down with the Indians to enjoy a harvest dinner, but a great deal of the settling of America has been ugly and violent, and the worst of it, of course, was when certain among the fine, upstanding citizens of the new world starting hauling people over from Africa to enslave them, the ones who managed to survive the trip under terrible conditions.
The slaves were eventually freed by Lincoln, but that just meant they couldn't be bought and sold, that families couldn't be torn apart on the auction block. When someone got out of line, despite being technically free, the nastiness continued until Martin Luther King said to knock it off, we've had enough. It's gotten better during my lifetime, but Ms. Ingraham has correctly assessed that some of her followers aren't pleased about it. As for the meal of roasted quail and corn pudding, that turns out to be a brief moment of decency we celebrate every November because the native inhabitants were finally vanquished and relegated to the most desolate parts of the country. Listen up, Laura. A lot of the immigrants you think are okay, including, probably, your own ancestors, did this wretched stuff. They had a vision of a country that is white, straight, and some form of what passes for Christian, and in some circles, it hasn't changed much at all. The problem is that the people who don't fit that description and even some of us who do have a rather different idea. We don't like the cattle sorting and we don't get off on making other human beings feel absolutely lousy.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
Comments