Answers to: Get in Line

I'm going to try and make a regular thing of putting together short posts rebutting common right-wing arguments. Suggestions for arguments to answer are welcome. 

A common bit of rhetoric one hears from opponents of immigration reform goes like this:

“Why should those who came here illegally be allowed to remain in the United States when there are so many who are following the rules and waiting to come here legally? Why do the illegal immigrants get to skip the line?”

While politicians oppose immigration reform for a wonderful variety of foolish and ignorant reasons, this argument deserves particular ridicule. It makes an enormous and, as it turns out, incorrect assumption. It presupposes that, if only the largely low-skill, poorly educated individuals who have come to this country illegally had instead done us the common courtesy of waiting in line, they could have avoided this unpleasantness altogether.

However, even a cursory reading of American immigration policy shows the error in this assumption. In fact, the United States has no immigration category for individuals without special skills and education who have no family living in the United States and who have “insufficient reason” to fear for their lives at home. While it is possible for a very small number of skilled workers without advanced education to immigrate under the EB-3 category, the great majority of people who have come to America illegally could have done so no other way.

Regardless of whether or not we ought to allow low-skill immigrants from Latin America and elsewhere, the fact is that, for the moment, we don't. To argue that those immigrants ought to "get in line" is to argue in bad faith.

Bigots Don't Get the Joke

I spend an inordinate amount of time on reddit, and during my time there I've noticed that a significant portion of the posts in r/funny derive their “humor” from the exploitation of racial and gender stereotypes. This post is a revised version of a response I posted to one such joke that several people told me to make into a blog.

People who post (or say) such things fail to understand that their racist and sexist jokes aren't funny. Posting them isn't an act of noble defiance against tyrants who would end free speech. Such jokes are invariably tired tropes, entertaining not in their cleverness but in their still-potent power to hurt. And those who take offense at them generally argue for mental filters not legal restrictions.

The first page of a Google Scholar search for "Sexist Joke"

However, hurt feelings generally aren't enough to convince jerks to change their ways, so it's time we delve into science. Study after study has shown that discriminatory jokes—in the case of most studies, sexist ones, but the same principles apply to humor of the racist variety—hurt their targets and help perpetuate prejudice. They create an atmosphere of acceptance of discriminatory behavior, and help make bigots feel welcome. Those studies, and many, many others, show conclusively (inasmuch as one can be conclusive in the social sciences) that discriminatory jokes make people more likely to discriminate in a number of different ways. The science is pretty well in on this issue, as the first page of a Google Scholar search shows.

Frequently, defenders of bigoted humor argue that they're being ironic, and that "like, man, we have to make fun of this stuff or it will never go away." However, they never seem to present evidence to back the idea that saying such things ironically is any better. Absent such evidence, it seems unlikely that the manner in which the speaker/writer intends their discriminatory jokes matters much—after all, it seems very unlikely that the social scientists who conducted the studies linked above really meant the sexist jokes they told in the course of the experiment. Moreover, it's very easy to miss that a joke is meant ironically unless one knows the teller quite well, which means that even if the defenders are correct, they're correct only with relation to tight-knit groups. On the internet, especially, an "ironic" joke and a joke intended to hurt a less privileged group look exactly the same. It's clear, then, that "ironic" discriminatory humor, by and large, doesn't help break down discrimination. Rather it provides a back door, a culturally acceptable route, through which to express and reinforce bigotry.

Another defense commonly offered for prejudicial humor sounds something like "my black friend doesn't mind it." Those who offer this defense have clearly never thought about the issue very deeply. Those of you who, like me, have the luxury of not worrying overmuch about discrimination should take a minute to imagine being a woman or a person of color in a world where the great majority of those in power are neither. Imagine wanting to join the popular bunch at school, a group dominated by white males. Hell, imagine just wanting acceptance from your peers, the great majority of whom are probably white. Wouldn't you let bigoted jokes slide past for the sake of not drawing attention to your differences? Might you not even pretend to enjoy such jokes as a way of fitting in? Eventually, you might even convince yourself that you're one of the good girls/people of color, more like your white, male friends than the people mocked by the jokes you now tell too. Whether this sort of alienation is rare or common, and I would argue that it is quite common, how can one honestly claim that the humor value of tired old prejudicial tropes outweighs the psychological damage they can cause?

So, what do we do about these jokes? Their defenders think "the liberals" or "the feminists" want to ban them, and so they portray themselves as heroic crusaders against censorship. They entirely miss the point. No one says they can't tell bigoted jokes to their hearts' content. They just shouldn't. There's no need for "PC Policing", all we need is individuals telling other individuals not to behave like asshats. We all have filters that keep us from saying outright offensive things whenever they happen to pop into our heads, society just needs to stop accepting jokes as an exception to the rules of what's okay to say.

So next time you hear a sexist/racist joke, even if the teller prefaced it with "I'm not racist but..", even if you know the teller probably doesn't mean it, take a few seconds to say "not cool, yo".

In Defense of American Exceptionalism

"He is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins."*

- Frederick Douglass

People on the left side of the political spectrum tend to have a slightly different definition of patriotism than our counterparts on the right. We tend to agree with Mr. Douglass that patriotism means a willingness to criticize our nation and a fervent desire to improve it. On the right, conversely, patriotism tends to mean a nearly unconditional love of country, and a belief that the United States, as a result of its unique history and achievements, stands head and shoulders above every other nation.

Many liberals have little good to say about the concept of American exceptionalism. Personally, however, I do believe America is exceptional. We may not always live up to our ideals. Hell, we rarely do. But, more than any other nation on Earth, reverence for liberty and equality are part of the fabric of American culture. America is exceptional not because of its military or economic power, but because of the ideals upon which it is founded and which nearly every American holds dear. Ideals that act as powerful tools in the struggle against oppression.

Other nations, particularly in Western Europe, have long since overtaken the United States in their ability to deliver upon the American Dream of upward mobility. And they frequently have better records on rights and liberties than does the U.S.. But no other nation worships freedom and equality the way that the United States does. Our national myth, grown out of our founding documents and the other words of our greatest thinkers, will never allow us to stand still or stop reaching for a more perfect union. Exhortations like "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal," and "Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free," serve as relentless scourges to drive America along the path of progress. To the voices of those who call for about greater equality of opportunity and greater freedom of choice, the immortal words of America's national heroes add an unanswerable moral strength.

Ask very nearly any American if a young person from another country, who's willing to work like mad and play by the rules, ought to have the chance to come to America and find success. You'll be hard pressed to find one who says no. On the subject of whether or not every child born here in America ought to have a chance at the American Dream, you'll find no argument. Nearly half of the population may have the wrong idea on how to pursue those ideals, misled by politicians and pundits with vested interests fighting the tide of history, but you won't find much disagreement on those ideals. And by appealing to those universal American beliefs, more than two centuries worth of champions have rallied their fellow citizens, time and time again, to better the lots of all.

Moreover, it is those ideals, along with the loves of freedom of expression and freedom of conscience, that make us Americans. In contrast to nearly every other nation on Earth, our national demonym isn't also the name for an ethnic group. Rather, American means, in our national myth, anyone who lives in our borders and holds true to the notions that made this country, regardless of the color of their skin, or where they pray, or, increasingly, who they love.

America is exceptional, then, because we are a nation that, almost by definition, consists of believers in a set of ideals that allow no other path than forward. And I love my country because I believe that, so long as we hold dear the notions of freedom and opportunity that have so long defined the American myth, we shall always find ourselves traveling, whether at a crawl or a run, along the path to a brighter future.

*Frederick Douglass spoke with astounding eloquence and moral clarity, and as a result he's one of my heroes.  He was, however, a product of his time. Please forgive the gendered language.