Immigration game

The other day I saw a story published by The Wall Street Journal – a conservative newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns FOX News – that the Department of Homeland Security is considering a reality TV program that pits desperate immigrants against each other in a competition for U.S. citizenship.

I thought this was pretty much more dystopian Trump administration nonsense until I got to the part where TV producer Rob Worsoff has been pitching a show like this as far back as the Obama era (Worsoff, by the way, helped produce Duck Dynasty).

The story gained further credence for me when it noted that DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said she has been in contact with Worsoff and that the Trump administration is interested in the concept, revealing the idea is "in the very beginning stages of that vetting process."

Holy hell. Is there no end to Trump's indignities? His excessively corrupt administration (see: gold-plated Qatari 747 jet airliner) thrives on the pain and despair of others, and immigrants are an easy and special target for him. Not all immigrants, mind you. South Africans, who are white and speak English, are coming to the United States as asylum seekers and are welcomed by the Trump clown show. But Hispanics, who are usually non-Whites, don't generally speak English and are often being labeled, without due process, as MS-13 gang members, are being deported (probably unconstitutionally) to foreign nations not native to them. Cruel and unusual? Well, yes. That's the point, isn't it?

All this abomination got me to thinking about immigration in this country. It's not a particularly pleasant picture when you get right down to it.

Oh, sure. We've seen the images of poor Europeans coming off ships at Ellis Island under the shadow of the State of Liberty, and it's as feel good an image as there is. It's what America is all about. It's the Statue of LIBERTY, for crying out loud.

Until you consider that Black Africans were brought to these shores in 1619 to serve as slaves – by white Europeans, and primarily, by white Englishmen and who were mostly Protestant Christians.

Which makes the white Englishmen this country's first immigrants, not to mention its first slave holders. And one of the first things the white Englishmen do is steal the land from native Americans, who are not white. Oh, my God! It's an invasion!

It's a slippery slide from there.

As the country grew, so did its biases. As humans, we don't seem to do well with things we don't know about. Like somebody else's culture. Or their religion. So when the great potato famine sparked Irish immigration to the U.S. in the mid-1840s, it also brought with them large numbers of Catholics, and well, you know the rest: Irish need not apply.

Then it was the Germans in 1848, crossing the Atlantic to escape revolution. The resident Englishmen were so confused by this they called the Germans "Dutch" because the German word for German is "Deustch." Makes sense, right? It's a dehumanizing tactic to label an ethnic group something they're not. Well, we know that now. Because we're still seeing it happen.

About the same time that the Germans came over, the Chinese arrived, hoping to take advantage of the gold rush in California. Here's a factoid: the Chinese were primarily used to build the western section of the Transcontinental Railroad. Approximately 12,000 Chinese immigrants helped with the construction of the project from 1865 to 1869, often working under horrendously dangerous conditions. Imagine that. The American railroad system, made in China.

Then came the Italians in the 1880s, trying to escape hardship and political strife. Oh, my God. Mafia. More Catholics. And that Mediterranean dark skin. Watch out.

Meanwhile, Jews are coming to the United States in three significant waves from 1820 to 1924. One of the most shameful moments in American history, to my mind, occurred in 1939 when the German ocean liner MS St. Louis tried to disembark 900 Jewish refugees who were fleeing Nazi persecution in Germany immediately prior to World War II. But the United States, Canada and Cuba refused to admit the asylum seekers. Some returned to Germany, only to perish in the Holocaust.

And, of course, we have the Muslim ban. After all of our past history, it's no surprise, I guess. 

We like to think of ourselves as a nation founded on Christian values, but our past often reveals us for who we really are: humans who struggle with prejudice, fear and ignorance. The hope is that we can learn from our past.

And then the next thing you know, we find ourselves with government sanctioned immigration games on TV. 

Do you feel like we're being set up for something?