A month or so ago I had a conversation on immigration with a New York Times reporter. She told me that she had a sincere interest in reporting on immigration issues, but was cautious because it was such a controversial topic. It seemed to me a reasonable thing to expect since she has a patron to please - that is if she wants to keep her job. Unfortunately that type of caution is keeping DREAMers in hiding.
California is a sad place today. Governor Schwarzeneger has decided that the education of DREAMers is too controversial - he vetoed SB1301 - which would have provided California DREAMers financial aide. His statement refers to the state's budget crisis. But anyone who knows about higher education is aware that even in a budget crunch, financial aide to kids who have a high rate of success, such as DREAMers, is a win-win situation - in terms of taxes paid and productivity, the return on this type of investment is much more than what is used to finance their education.
The Terminator Governor is under pressure now - he can't go against public opinion and actually do something for DREAMers. It would make him look bad in these anti-immigrant days. I do not know him, so I can't speak for his character. If he is a good human being, the decision to kill SB1301 has to have felt bad. But he is not strong enough to stand alone in front of the xenophobic masses.
How many people- lawmakers- political leaders really care that DREAMers get an education? How many actually care about the DREAMers' success? There are most likely many people out there who are touched by the plight of the DREAMers. But caring is not enough. DREAMers need action. What is missing are individuals (in a position of power) with the courage to stand up to the anti-immigrant mob mentality. Where are they?
--In 1901 Mark Twain wrote satirical essay on lynching and the American mob mentality. It was not published in his lifetime. In fact, few people know about it.
Below is an excerpt:
--
The United States of Lyncherdom
...It must be that the increase comes of the inborn human instinct to imitate--that and man's commonest weakness, his aversion to being unpleasantly conspicuous, pointed at, shunned, as being on the unpopular side. Its other name is Moral Cowardice, and is the commanding feature of the make-up of 9,999 men in the 10,000. I am not offering this as a discovery; privately the dullest of us knows it to be true. History will not allow us to forget or ignore this supreme trait of our character. It persistently and sardonically reminds us that from the beginning of the world no revolt against a public infamy or oppression has ever been begun but by the one daring man in the 10,000, the rest timidly waiting, and slowly and reluctantly joining, under the influence of that man and his fellows from the other ten thousands. The abolitionists remember. Privately the public feeling was with them early, but each man was afraid to speak out until he got some hint that his neighbor was privately feeling as he privately felt himself. Then the boom followed. It always does. It will occur in New York, some day; and even in Pennsylvania.
When I was a boy I saw a brave gentleman deride and insult a mob and drive it away; and afterward, in Nevada, I saw a noted desperado make two hundred men sit still, with the house burning under them, until he gave them permission to retire. A plucky man can rob a whole passenger train by himself; and the half of a brave man can hold up a stagecoach and strip its occupants.
Then perhaps the remedy for lynchings comes to this: station a brave man in each affected community to encourage, support, and bring to light the deep disapproval of lynching hidden in the secret places of its heart--for it is there, beyond question. Then those communities will find something better to imitate--of course, being human, they must imitate something...
No, upon reflection, the scheme will not work. There are not enough morally brave men in stock. We are out of moral-courage material; we are in a condition of profound poverty. We have those two sheriffs down South who--but never mind, it is not enough to go around; they have to stay and take care of their own communities.
But if we only could have three or four more sheriffs of that great breed! Would it help? I think so. For we are all imitators: other brave sheriffs would follow; to be a dauntless sheriff would come to be recognized as the correct and only the dreaded disapproval would fall to the share of the other kind; courage in this office would become custom, the absence of it a dishonor, just as courage presently replaces the timidlty of the new soldier; then the mobs and the lynchings would disappear...
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