More than 30 U.S. states refusing Syrian refugees on ‘shaky legal ground’
In wake of Paris attacks, governors of at least 31 U.S. states announce plans to bar Syrian refugees
By Matt Kwong, CBC News Posted: Nov 18, 2015 3:02 PM ET Last Updated: Nov 18, 2015 7:35 PM E
I am so disgusted by US politics right now that I can’t believe I could be any more embarrassed by Yankeeland than I already am…guess what? Today I am angrier and don’t know where to channel it.
I was born in the USA of two American citizens who were just one generation removed from being both refugees and immigrants…and I’m not alone. I would have to guess that almost all Americans, leaving aside those who are First Nations and those who are black, whose ancestors had no options, have immigrants in their backgrounds. No, I’m wrong, most First Nations and Afro-Americans have immigrant ancestors as well, some unacknowledged, but nonetheless there.. I know they do, we all do.. No one can argue the point. The American experience is rife with cultural ghettos and that is true from coast to coast, and with few exceptions, from Canada to Mexico. You are all children of immigrants, why deny the same status to those who need help now?
Is it fear? Is it the ugly Republican penchant for spreading paranoia and race-baiting hate, religious bigotry or simply that these folks aren’t ‘white?’
My own family were one generation removed from both racial and religious hatred, ..paternally, Irish Catholics, and maternally, Russian /Polish Jews…my ex-husband used to, as a joke, call me off-white (because of the Jewish connection, since his parents were Hungarian Catholics who were, ironically, also refugees to Canada in the ’50’s, and unapologetic anti-Semites, themselves..)
The wheel never stops turning, nor can any sane observer expect it to..but the fact that 30 States are unwilling to accept refugees of any sort is beyond my capacity for toleration..What on Earth has happened to Americans? Is there no social progress. or social justice to be had in that country at all, anymore? Do the few kind voices get outshouted by the brainless howling bigots?
It makes me weep to think that I could have still been stuck there instead of thankfully coming to Canada, not having to be embarrassed about the ugliness, denial and narcissism evident in the country I was born in…and who would have thought, even a few generations ago, that this would come to pass, that the country that grew and prospered with it’s burgeoning immigrant population would forget, so soon, what made it the one time Promised Land for the rest of the world…now?
Pathetic…..
Left Over 