CASTING THE ROLES OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION REFORM IN GEORGIA
Grayson Hurst Daughters | http://spaceygreview.blogspot.com | Bio
In contemporary culture, white folks make terrific fictional villains. The latest Disney Channel teen movie, the wildly popular High School Musical, has the blond posed as the obligatory bad & mean girl, while a Hispanic beauty plays the requisite good & sweet girl role.
In the political thriller, The Constant Gardner, the worst of the bad guys are stressed-out white dudes plotting global dominion over the dark-skinned masses, on a golf course of course.
Here in Georgia, the emerging Mouth of The South on matters of illegal immigration reform, D.A. King, conveniently fills a seemingly necessary, stereotypical position of oppressive white person as racist jerk – in real life, real time.
Granted, D.A. King is not a particularly charming man. He says what he has to say without much grace or wit, sometimes making straight-faced statements such as “Mexican children are taught that because they are indigenous to this continent, they have the right to transverse the continent whenever they want and they don’t need permission from anybody.”
Whether King can affirm what drives thought-leadership in the average Mexican household, he is also bereft of the signature, polished manners of the southern politician. He doesn’t even wait for you to join the table to begin lunch.
This might have something to do with the fact that D.A. King is no southerner. Nor is he a politician. And he could care less what you think of him, or when you eat your own damn lunch.
Like most activists, King isn’t out to join the Junior League; he’s out to support a cause, and, inadvertently perhaps, to shape an individual persona within the mainstream media while doing so.
With Sonny Perdue signing SB 529 into law recently, giving Georgia the toughest illegal immigration reform law in the country, King has a lot to be pumped-up about; he was virtually alone three years ago when he first championed immigration reform. He’s in high cotton now.
Even with reform legislation set for 2007 enactment, you can count on King to be front and center at increasingly frequent State Capitol rallies, often yelling things at immigrants, legal or otherwise, while the more refined Gold Dome politicians, the many who have eagerly embraced his efforts, are conspicuously absent from this participatory style of street-level action.
King seems to understand that he won’t sit right at the Cherokee Town Club, and he doesn’t care. He just wants illegals put in their place, chiefly off to Mexico, and he’s not afraid to say so when the cameras are rolling.
For his provoking efforts, those who do not like King’s ideas nor his confrontational style have tried to brand him in the media as a white supremist with racism on his mind.
King shrugs such insinuation aside when he says, “Most people understand the issues. Most people are against illegal immigration. Most people know they’re not some kind of racist for wanting the law enforced.”
When pressed, King flatly says, “I do what I do because I have educated myself on what the consequences of illegal immigration are to my country. I love my country so I do what I do. No one can stop me by calling me all the names that they call me.”
Only a blow-hard on an opposing side, when recording devices are rolling in particular, would label loud and ugly the irrefutable MO of a genuine white supremacist.
Indeed, King sees extremist behavior coming only from those who oppose illegal immigration reform.
“If someone says, ‘We should secure our border and equally apply the law.’ And someone else says, ‘I’m here illegally. I’m not leaving. You can’t make me and I’m bringing my cousins too, and there’s nothing you can do about it,’ then who is the extremist?”
Loud and unmannered isn’t very pretty; indeed, it’s downright uncomfortable for some high-minded southerners, unless of course you’re a legislator quietly writing-up legislation while the loudmouthed activist-type does the dirty street work.
But since contemporary culture requires it, somebody’s got to play the bad guy role.