take it elsewhere

I was listening to Kojo Nnamdi show again today. His second hour on Thursday is open for callers to set the agenda. As with every Thursday there is a rash of moronic callers with some bone to pick. As you’d expect from my leanings, most of these chuckletons are white conservatives living in the greater D.C. area. (P.S. Kojo is on 12 -2 pm Eastern time daily on WAMU. You can listen on-line at www.wamu.org.) The massive issue here Northern Virginia are day workers. A day worker center was opened a few months ago in Herndon that provided a shelter and basic traffic flow security for laborers. What we hear every week on the show are people who are mentally unable to separate day laborers from illegal aliens. Are there illegal aliens working as day laborers? Certainly. Are there legal workers at the day laborer centers? Yes. In fact, Kojo brought up that the fact his sons worked as day laborers one summer to earn money; and, shock and surprise, they are U.S. citizens. What about those Americans that work as contractors and sub-contractors that deal in cash so they don’t have to pay taxes? That’s illegal, right? Shall we crack down on that activity? I guess we could if we could find the non-white purveyors of these illegal doings. The entire debate is based on two facts: first, there are illegal immigrants in America and second, they are Hispanic/Latino. That’s the endpoint for every conservative debate and the algebra means that we should deport, discriminate, and punish every Hispanic in America – problem fixed. We can debate who is responsible for immigration reform (the Federal Government) but we cannot continue to use the “all those day laborers look illegal to me” - that phrase gets trotted out every week on the show. If anyone believes that the playing field in America is even – and that everyone can simply fill out an application and get a job and get paid – is in denial. It all makes me fume.