Tears of Shame … Again

Posted on by under Global Issues, History, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Yesterday marked the 137th anniversary of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States.  In 1903, a bronze plaque mounted inside the pedestal’s lower level was inscribed with “The New Colossus,” a sonnet by American poet Emma Lazarus that welcomed immigrants to the United States with the declaration …

“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-tost to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

A lot has changed since 1903, hasn’t it?  We no longer welcome the ‘tired, poor huddled masses’ but shun them, take their children from them, imprison them, and try to kill them.  Why?  The excuses they use are not reasons, but just excuses.  Bigotry is the biggest reason:  people like to hate on those who are not quite like them.  It seems that a growing portion of the people in this country need someone to hate.  They need someone to blame for their dissatisfaction with their own lives.  Of course, they’ve had help in choosing who to hate … help from vociferous politicians and media commentators such as Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, not to mention a platform on social media.

The media and politicians tell us lies.  They tell us these are criminals bringing drugs, when the truth is that most are simply families trying to get to safety and a better life, and most illegal drugs brought into this country from south of the border are brought in by U.S. citizens.  But people hear what they want to hear and they will choose to believe that all their problems are a result of immigrants rather than bother looking inward to see how they may be the cause of their own problems.

Seems to me this country has an awful lot of problems these days, and very few of them are a result of immigrants, but rather most are self-inflicted.  I think perhaps we should return the gift of the Statue of Liberty to the people of France, for in my view we no longer deserve it.

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43 thoughts on “Tears of Shame … Again”

  1. I believe the entire project was meant from conception to concrete to be aspirational. None of my conservative friends have bleaker expectations for the future than the liberal ones. Why would someone come to live here? Our own children hear of nothing but trial and tribulations from the “adults”. America, you can have it in any color you want, as long as it’s black.
    If you dwell in the dark for too long you WILL go blind.

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  3. Jill, it is hypocritical for a country built on immigration to play hardball with immigrants. Right now, various industries are having labor shortages since the job applicants have waned. Many Restaurants are closed one or two days a week and produce selection is down in grocery stores. Keith

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    • Yes, isn’t it ironic that citizens of this country often feel certain jobs are beneath them, immigrants are more than happy to take those jobs, but now we want to keep the immigrants out. So … who, then, will pick the fruit off the trees and other jobs that ‘Americans’ refuse to do?

      Liked by 2 people

    • Well, many of those places need to pay their people a living wage for their work, whether they’re immigrants or not. Labor shortages aren’t only due to immigration policies. I just had to toss that in-it’s important to remember. I understand your point, too.

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      • I fully agree, Ali! Corporations rake in the profits, and starve the very people who are doing the work that gives them those profits! You are so right … whether immigrants, citizens, or aliens from outer space, if they’re doing the heavy lifting, they should be getting paid accordingly!

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        • I don’t understand why, if work needs to be done, the people doing it shouldn’t make a living doing it, and then when they’re old (65-ish) and no longer can or should, why they shouldn’t have enough to live on coming to them until they die. It’s not an unreasonable stand.

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          • I was thinking earlier … okay, so maybe at 65 or 67 or even 72, we are still capable of doing a job for pay … but why should we? Why should we work our fingers to the bone until the day we die? Shouldn’t we be able to have a few years to just kick back and enjoy life, enjoy the fruits of our decades of labour? Spend time with our grandkids, fishing, hiking, reading or watching movies? Is our only purpose here on earth to work hard in order to provide a life of luxury for the 1% at the top? If so, then something is f*cked up!

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            • Exactly. It was the point FDR was making long ago.
              Republicans keep behaving as if SS and Medicare are their money, and not ours. We pay specifically for those services. If they are going to eradicate the programs, they need to pay us all back the money. They can’t just have it. I love saying that to them, too, because their heads figuratively explode.

              Of course, that holds true for goods and services our tax dollars go for, as well. They can’t just have those, and give them to cronies to profit-we the people need to be paid for them. Their plans can’t work. No matter how many times they tell us that prioritizing people over the Military Industrial Complex, et al., won’t work. Our plans do work; there is history.
              Wow. Now I’m on a rant. Oops.

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              • Exactly, my friend! I started paying nearly 60 years ago when I was 13 and had my first full-time job, and I do not see my monthly SS check as a handout, but rather as money I invested throughout my lifetime. No, it does NOT belong to the gov’t!

                Ha ha … it’s easy to slip into a rant these days, my friend. I do it all the time … just don’t let it eat you from within.

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    • Well, many of those places need to pay their people a living wage for their work, whether they’re immigrants or not. Labor shortages aren’t only due to immigration policies. I just had to toss that in-it’s important to remember. I understand your point, too.

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  4. I have been saying for over 25-years that we/USA should dismantle, remove completely Lady Liberty for the exact same reasons you share here Jill. Because today she is an unequivocal symbol of American hypocrisy! Period.

    And if I’m more honest, there’s several portions of our Charters of Freedom we should remove as well because not only do we NOT live them as a whole, as true Americans, but we also do not protect them or enforce them. Period. Tears of shame indeed Jill. 😔

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  5. The US seems to conveniently forget that all of its troubles lie rooted in the actions of immigrants. The vast majority of its citizens are descendants of immigrants. It would do well to remember that.

    Liked by 5 people

  6. It is the USA’s turn to go industrial on this, for ’twas ever thus’. Most immigrant groups on arrival have been through the hostility and discrimination stage, and attacks by the embedded locals.

    It was one reason why Teddy Roosevelt spoke out against as he called them hyphenated-Americans. His entire speech might raise a few eyebrows in these days as it does suggest subsuming your heritage in preference to ‘The American Way’; however this bit is worth a quote:
    “Americanism is not a matter of creed, birthplace or national descent, but of the soul and of the spirit. If the American has the right stuff in him, I care not a snap of my fingers whether he is Jew or Gentile, Catholic or Protestant. I care not a snap of my fingers whether his ancestors came over in the Mayflower, or whether he was born, or his parents were born, in Germany, Ireland, France, England, Scandinavia, Russia or Italy or any other country.”

    Full content:
    https://reimaginingmigration.org/assimilation-integration-and-hyphenated-americans/

    Anyway, this is a sad state of affairs. Although the numerous ethnic minorities in the USA might turn one jaundiced eye to the White population and say ‘Oh you’ve noticed then?’ . The worse thing is that this is back on the rise throughout the world. People who campaigned against Apartheid in South Africa probably are very disillusioned these days by the treatment by native black Africans of immigrants from Nigeria and other nations. In the UK (sorry sardonic warning…..’Joy of Joys’ you can be aa antisemitic as you like as long are seen to publicly express concern over Palestine).

    That said this does not excuse any of the racist groups and populist politicians, who for one short period during the 60s – 80s were subsumed. But then the evil always finds ways of seeping back in.

    Sorry USA, the experiment seems not have hit the Usual Problems.

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    • As you said in your first sentence, “Twas ever thus”. Sigh. But WHY??? That’s what I do not and never will understand … WHY do some people feel superior because of where they were born, the colour of their skin, their religious beliefs, gender, etc??? It makes less than no sense! And yes, you are right that is isn’t only happening more and more here in the U.S., but ’round the world. I know some of it stems from the increase in immigration a decade or so ago due to the Arab Spring movement, but there has to be more. True democracy … you’ll find it in a wolf pack! 🐺

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      • What if your greatest fear was not losing the privileges of superiority but that the unwashed masses will discover that you are not superior? Also, you have to guess what the future will be and the only markers are to be found in the past. Any cursory study of aboriginal populations and subsequent colonial waves can only conclude it is the following wave that poses the greatest danger.

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        • But … I already KNOW that I am not superior … never thought I was. Luck of the draw is why I have enough food to eat and a warm home to live in, as well as a loving family, but it certainly wasn’t because of anything I did to deserve it any more than anyone else. As re the future … I’m afraid you’ve lost me there. The future IS, in fact, the unknown, although we can pretty much predict the next 100 years for the species if we don’t make some radical changes in our lives. But see … while I care because I care about life, both human and other, I don’t have a personal stake, for I won’t be around to see what happens in 10 years, let alone 100.

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  7. Pingback: Tears of Shame … Again | Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News

  8. After what Lady Liberty has seen, I doubt the French want her back. She didn’t do m7ch good for the USA in the long run. I think the problem is Europe and England ran out of “huddled masses” to send, and those are the only ones Republicans want. If the huddled masses aren’t white they don’t want them…

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    • No, they probably wouldn’t want her back. You’re right … European immigrants seem to be welcomed by all, but not those from south of the border or the Middle East. What a bigoted nation this has become … or perhaps always was.

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      • In colonial days, most people in the Middle East had no huge reason to emigrate. They had little idea of what was available elsewhere. I remember in the 90s, I somehow was in contact with a woman from Saudi Arabia — one who had to use the internet for arranging travel for a bigwig husband. But she discovered better uses, for her. I had posted something on a website about the freedoms women had in North America, thougn I didn’t call them freedoms, just life decisions. She saw them as freedoms, and wanted to know more. Suddenly one day she just disappeared. I feared her “bigwig” husband discovered her extracurricular activities. The world she described living in in the 90s could have existed in the Middle Ages. They just dudn’t know…

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        • I often wonder why anyone in their right mind would want to migrate to the U.S. But then I think about the repressive regimes and poor countries they are leaving and am reminded that despite our many problems here, we still have it pretty good. For now, anyway.

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