The color of Monica Novoa must be stupid, from Color Lines [1]:
The i-word in any form (“illegals”, “illegal alien” and “illegal immigrant”) is packed with ideas about who immigrants are and what their role is in society and in this nation. Whether used by a reader in a newspaper’s comment section, or in the Supreme Court as it was this week in Arizona v. the United States, The i-word is the furthest from neutral language and communicates anti-immigrant animus that has over time become deeply embedded and accepted throughout media and government institutions.
[…]
The case itself, buttressed by a political environment rich with anti-immigrant language and metaphor, is lifting up major hypocrisy and contradictions for all to see. How can the government argue against SB 1070 and mean to protect people from being victimized while upholding other comparable draconian anti-immigrant programs? And how can a human being be heard and legally advocated for when Sotomayor says, “it is an illegal alien”?
We are a nation of immigrants. Without immigrants, there would be no America. I do not oppose immigration. Rather I oppose illegal immigration. Yet if I were to adhere to the fiats of a language Nazi like Novoa, I would be unable to articulate a difference between supporting closed, open or controlled borders, nor would anybody.
I support controlled borders. A nation which can not control her own borders, can not long exist. As for Novoa, I suspect that she is an advocate of open borders. However having self-neutered her language she now utterly unable to describe her desired immigration policy.
I suggest, that if Movoa thinks that the term illegal immigrant is somehow racist, surely she must think that any term which would describe a person as a legal citizen of these United State would also be racist. If Novoa opposes distinguishing between legal and illegal immigrants, she must also oppose distinguishing between legal immigrants and native born citizens.
I wonder if I were to crash Novoa’s dinner party. She does eat? Would Novoa describe me as her uninvited quest, or simply as her quest? Would I be as equally welcomed at her dinner as her invited quests? Novoa would have but two choices. She could feed me, or she could expose herself as hypocrite.
Surely, Novoa would not call the police to arrest me for trespassing. It can be no more immoral to crash through Novoa’s door into her home that to crash our borders into our country If defining and defending our borders is somehow immoral, then surely Novoa locking her front door would also be immoral.
Hat tip: William A. Jacobson, Legal Insurrection [2],