“The main reason Mollie Tibbetts’s horrible killing has attracted so much attention is racism.”
That statement is false. Mollie Tibbetts’s horrible killing has attracted much attention because her disappearance and the resulting search garnered great attention.
Perhaps Mr. Leonhardt and The NY Times wish to ascribe that preceding attention to racism (why not, anything with which they disagree that could possibly be ascribed to racism quickly is), but that is bogus too.
30
Officer involved shootings get far more publicity if the officer is white and the target was black. Interracial shootings allow the liberal media to call attention to purportedly racist and violent crimes committed by the police. It is silly to pretend otherwise.
You’ll notice the pattern if you spend any time watching or listening to the media accounts. The pattern becomes especially clear when they descend into falsehoods, as was the case in the Ferguson shooting.
I don’t think it’s possible to have an honest conversation about officer involved shootings without acknowledging the role that race plays. Even in cases where there is a physical attack by the target, an ongoing refusal to comply with police instructions, a history of violence by the target or a history of community service by the cop.
16
The hijacking of Mollie Tibbett's death says more about those who do it than the legal/illegal immigrant community.
It says a lot about people who respond, not with sympathy and respect for Ms. Tibbett's family grieving, but with hatred of the community from which the killer came. The hatred isn't focused on the killer himself, but directed at an abstract monolithic boogieman: dark skinned immigrants, legal or illegal. They are all guilty.
Just days ago David Katz killed two and wounded nine others in Florida. What do we know about Mr. Katz? He grew up in Maryland. His parents were divorced. He had a history of psychological problems. He is white.
Where is America's outrage for white Marylanders with divorced parents? Doesn't Mr. Katz's crime paint all white skinned Marylanders with divorced parents, as despicable, psychologically impaired people who we don't want in America???
The people hijacking Ms. Tibbett's murder pick out specific characteristics of an individual that fit their preconceived notions and extrapolate to rage against an entire group. It's much easier to hate a homogeneous group that you don't actually know than to hate an individual human being. It's also a cheap shot, poorly thought position, antisocial, anti-equality, anti-American.
3
The National Review piece is the real story. Women are raped and killed by men. It happens a lot. And it doesn’t matter to the victim if her attacker is brown, white, or Martian. She’s dead, at the hands of a man.
We aren’t men’s womenfolk. We’re not property — neither to be protected, nor to be used; neither used sexually nor used politically.
10
Cynically, one wonders if the fierce public support of the (illegal?) workers in Brooklyn Iowa by the farm owners reflects that without these foreign laborers, their own children would have to milk cows and shovel manure.
3
actually the opening line should have been "The main reason that Mollie Tibbetts’s horrible killing has received so much attention is immigration" - left leaning papers such as this continue to ignore the problem and look to tar and feather people.
When will you admit the truth that we have problems with our immigration laws and enforcement. We have people like Schumer who have taken every position possible over the years.
Why is it fine and required to enforce the law in the queues at JFK, but not ok to enforce them at the mexican border?
26
The killer is here illegally and that is a fact. Mollie Tibbetts would be alive if her killer was not here. It is a blatant lie for anyone to suggest otherwise. This has nothing to do with racism. Nothing. It’s the uncontrolled borders that enabled the killer to get to do this. That is what is being stressed.
Fact: He is an illegal.
Fact: She is dead.
Fact:He killed her.
Opinion: Racism.
Nonsense? Yes.
36
This is patently disingenuous. As a NYT opinion writer, the author surely knows that in order to make headlines a crime must involve race -- either white on black or black on white.
White on white and black on black crimes seldom even get reported.
9
". Tibbetts’s accused murderer is a Mexican immigrant, and large segments of the conservative media, including talk radio and Fox News, like to call attention to crimes committed by people with dark skin. It’s silly to pretend otherwise. "
Like a skilled defense lawyer, Leonhardt has turned quite the phrase there, at every turn attempting to deflect attention away from the facts and focusing on left wing talking points.
"a Mexican immigrant"
No. An illegal alien, who in this case is from Mexico.
"The main reason that Mollie Tibbetts’s horrible killing has received so much attention is racism."
No. An illegal alien, who in this case is from Mexico.
"...like to call attention to crimes committed by people with dark skin.."
No. An illegal alien, who in this case is from Mexico.
The author should get out more. Like upper Manhattan, where tens of thousands of Hispanics live their lives every day with no evidence that the nation hates them due to their heritage.
Or San Antonio, or Chicago, or Connecticut.
Oh wait, Connecticut - left wing Democrat stronghold - the state that paid airfares so that it could get rid of Puerto Ricans back in the 60's.
This article is just poorly engineered propaganda, seeking to put racism as the motivating factor for all things opposing the leftist agenda.
Happily consumed by the lemmings of the left (not zombies; they are on the right, according to the N Y Times writing staff), but rejected by those who can read and evaluate facts.
30
Mollie Tibbets' confessed killer has the same misogyny of any color of US male citizen stalker &/or killer of women: viewing females as objects to manipulate & dispose of at will!
This young man already fathered a child w/ a US citizen high school classmate of Tibbets, yet still harrassed attractive women online and in-person in their small IA town.
Let us also not objectively forget that his birth culture (the one he left behind as a 17 year old who chose to willfully engage in state ID & ss# fraud, to earn US dollars & enjoy US amenities w/ skills he learned from his own modest Mexican peso-earning dairy farmer dad) is sadly known for the still largely unsolved killings of Juarez women, having human smuggling/sex trafficking cartels, and not exactly explicitly supportive of anti-domestic violence programs & preventive short-term/ long-term birth control for women.
Thus, while I agree that this case is about an individual's destructive misogyny, we also cannot deny that his birth culture's systemic indifference towards females also may have taught him early that men are entitled to treat women and kids as toys & tools.
How many illegal migrant males hide behind their US citizen partners & kids to stay here forever - yet at the same time are unfaithful, negligent, &/or abusive to them?
We do our best to lock up/treat/put into offender registries/execute as needed US citizen misogynist-psychos, while other nations' cultures & laws enable their psychos!
Mandate E-Verify now!
19
Black Americans have well understood this use of crime as a racism reinforcer. If a black man did it, the black race did it.
I was at a restaurant with a relative recently. A black woman was loudly rude to him. I was incensed at her discourtesy as it was unprovoked.
When we left the relative complained, “See? You try to be nice to them, and then this!”
It took me a while to process the fact that he was focusing not on her behavior but her race. He got confirmation of the degradation of people he saw as black.
The Tibbetts murder provides the same confirmation for those who look upon certain immigrants as vile. It isn’t really that the murderer “shouldn’t have been here.” In the bigot’s mind, none of them, legal or illegal, should be here.
2
I think we all agree we need some type of responsible immigration reform. But why do Democrats continue to use the term unauthorized immigrants...when the correct term should be illegal immigrant. To make this clear, the right word to use is illegal simply because they are illegally in the USA. Unauthorized is not a clear description of the act which has left those in violation of the law. They committed a crime by entering the country without permission. I know progressives want to stop others from using the term illegal immigrant, often invoking the idea that no human being is illegal, but that's nonsense. Human beings sometimes commit illegal acts. If it wasn't a problem, we wouldn't round people up and deport them.The term is accurate. It's not a semantic discussion. I think, when the left hears illegal, they decided, well, let's just change the word & we'll be done with it. Is there something about illegal immigrant per se that is so dehumanizing that it can't be used in polite discourse for people who are trying to have an honest conversation & aren't trying to spin it?
We should not be afraid to speak about this problem in an unbiased way. We need to speak clearly so we define what is at stake. Unauthorized seems to imply that some people forgot to fill out the correct paper work when crossing the border. It wasn't. They entered the U.S. knowing they were breaking the law. They are here illegally without permission of the the U.S. That's why it's an issue.
20
Very interesting that this column compares the over-reaction to the left’s blaming the weapon, rather than the individual commiting the atrocity. That should be enough silence many racists. The difference, of course, is that rational gun control is not based on dehumanizing prejudice.
The difference, I find, is that gun control advocates are attempting to solve a problem with optimism (a belief that less weapons will reduce violence), while bigots (and gun enthusiasts) have a terrible pessimism about humanity that is self-fulfilling.
1
Too many people don't want the rule of law, they want the rule of their own preconceptions.
5
I agree, the racism here is huge…as is the hypocrisy on all sides of the immigration debate.
Yes, “we live in a society that is supposed to be governed by laws; and when they are not followed or enforced, many people are bothered.”
But “bother” ends with the economically enfranchised. We show little animus – this piecc is a perfect example - towards those American citizens providing jobs and/or safe harbor to illegal immigrants.
You think our illegal immigration problem might change when the owner of the company employing Mollie’s alleged murderer was made an accessory to the crime?
4
I feel compelled to state the obvious, the way to "rewrite ... immigration laws with the goal of reducing illegal immigration" is to let them in legally. There would be no illegals if we give them a green card. The continued progress of mankind requires that we recognize that all human being should be free to live wherever they wish. Migration is the problem of our times, it's time to abolish illegal immigration. We will all benefit with freedom.
1
The Times' unceasing misuse of the term "immigrant" to describe illegal immigrants is shameful. Anyone here who crosses into the country illegally or overstays their visa must be liable to being sent back, whether they're from Mexico or England.
Immigrants and illegal immigrants do commit crimes. If misdemeanor arrests were included, we would see a more accurate picture. Someone driving without a license, without insurance, with a fraudulent ID is not a good candidate for citizenship.
Detainers are necessary because they don't show up for their hearing.
The columnist's idea of rewriting the law is to make what is illegal, legal; like eliminating laws against shoplifting to solve the problem of shoplifting.
25
"The main reason that Mollie Tibbetts’s horrible killing has received so much attention is racism."
Oh really?
Mollie's disappearance is the reason for so much of the attention. Iowans, and so many others, suffered throughout her time of absence. We worried, we speculated, we hoped.
We wanted her to return. We wanted her to continue.
Yet we knew, deep down, that she might never come back to us. We tried to put it out of our minds. We longed for the long odds.
When we learned she would never rejoin us, our pain grew in proportion to the attention our dreadful vigil had generated among us. Our attention had been complete, spoken of daily, the subject of so many wishes. The loss was equally complete, a reminder our world is so random and outcomes impossible to predict. Our attention turned inward, to internal sorrow, to the greater dimension that defines life and lives, our own and others.
The reason for the loss of Mollie are of no concern to we who related to her and hoped for her. Her loss is all that counts. Let others debate the causes of such human misdeeds that led to her loss, for their own purposes, even political reasons. That part is not part of our story of our deepest attention to Lost Mollie.
35
I find it so amazing and disheartening that in a nation of immigrants (anyone commenting here Native American?) there is such animus towards the newly arrived. This isn’t about rationalizations or hand wringing. The point here is that neither this man’s national origin or immigration status played any part in this crime. So focusing on these things - largely for political purposes - raises the question of why people do so. The clear answer is prejudice towards an entire group of people simply based upon where they are from. We as Americans are better than this.
4
@Bobby “we as Americans are better than this”
No, not really. We are like many may other nations where folk from away are considered outcasts, and viewed with suspicion and mistrust.
@Bobby We are a nation of (legal) immigrants. There is no animus in this country towards the newly arrived as long as they come here legally. Using the term newly arrived in the case of the person charged with murdering Molly Tibbetts is disingenuous at best. He was an illegal alien and had no business in this country. Please acknowledge the distinction. This kind of muddying the waters is a reason why Democrats have so much trouble winning elections.
17
@Bobby
“Newly arrived”? Is that what you call foreign nationals who disregard our laws, cross our borders illegally, then permanently drop anchor on American soil, costing our taxpayers tens of millions every year? Amazing...
18
Hoopla? A foreign national illegally crosses our sovereign border, assumes a false identity, steals a social security number, then stalks and heinously murders a young American woman jogging in her own hometown....and you describe the public’s outrage as “hoopla”. Shame on you.
45
@Shenoa, but you obviously miss the point. The author calls attention to the fact those opposed to immigration use this terrible tragedy to stoke fear and hatred of immigrants, especially brown ones. Yes, this young woman’s killer was an undocumented immigrant, but that fact is, by itself, not the determinative fact in this analysis. He is a killer, and he probably would be a killer even if he were a citizen or white. Yet, the focus has been placed on the fact he is from Mexico and illegal. From there, it is easy to extrapolate and then argue that immigrants are responsible for our crimes even though the data fails to support such a claim.
1
@Shenoa But I’ve yet to hear a peep about the ‘white male’ who shot up a video game convention a short time ago. Anybody in the ‘conservative wing’ blame the senseless proliferation of guns? White American male citizens? Oh, I get it, violence is A-OK so long as it’s homegrown. We can just say the perpetrator was an outlier and move on.
Of course, the perpetrator of Ms. Tibbetts murder also was an outlier. But he was an immigrant, so that taints all immigrants.
Horse pucky.
Nobody denies this was a heinous murder. But Ms. Tibbetts own family - her own father - has spoken out against the use of her killer’s immigration status as some sort of justification for anti-immigrant scapegoating. The nature of the act of murder is the same whether committed by a citizen, a ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’ immigrant, a Muslim or a Christian or a Jew, a person with light or dark skin, or a little green man from Mars.
Citizens commit murder in America at an alarming rate. Immigrants, with or without proper ‘documentation,’ also commit murder, as humans in general unfortunately are wont to do. That’s a horrible thing all around, but it won’t justify xenophobia, racism, or ‘building the wall.’ Chant ‘blood and soil’ all you want. This won’t give you a free pass.
You’ll have to search for another excuse for ignorant, mean-spirited bigotry. This murder isn’t it.
1
Yes, and Jewish immigrants supposedly drank the blood of Christian babies in their pagan rites. When I first heard this nonsense - as a young Jewish kid newly resident in Alabama, whose father had come to America fleeing the Holocaust - it seemed so absurd I thought it was supposed to be some demented sort of joke. It was certainly demented; but it was not intended as a joke. It was deadly serious.
This garbage never, ever ends.
15
The most glaringly obvious way in which race plays a role in this story is that it wouldn't have been a story at all if the victim had been black. Can you imagine this much attention being paid to a black Mollie Tibbetts who was murdered while jogging in Detroit? Crickets. It's silly to pretend otherwise.
That angle would have made a much better, and more relevant, think piece. But to do so, the writer would have to indict the very paper that pays him. And that would take courage.
Mr. Leonhardt, everyone knew who Mollie Tibbetts was before it was ever revealed who the suspect is, so let's start there.
19
Noting that an American was murdered by someone who should not be here is not racist. It's factual.
42
@Chris No, it’s racist. A single incident generating outrage from conservatives because of a person’s race despite the fact that illegal or undocumented immigrants do not commit much crime. That is a real fact.
1
Today's propagandist shows us the sad effects of college teaching white males to hate their gender and race.
Mr. L foments for the murders of innocent white females to be ignored if not actually seen as just retribution for things that happened centuries ago. If you immediately associate him with Nero painting fire victims with pine tar you're not far off.
Yes, DL, we - or at least YOU - ignore the dozens of Chicago residents shot weekly for purely political reasons. We see you studiously ignoring that carnage while it would lead the front page weekly if the gov't leading that city into turmoil wasn't progressively Democrat.
But NO intact human mind will EVER ignore or refuse to mourn the senseless murder of any American, or any human being for that matter.
One result of being all about eliciting emotional responses from readers - the very definition of propaganda - is that true and credible news sources become your enemy; thus, this angry man hates the free media on the 'Net and especially Fox News, the leading cable news operation for a generation.
But I must PRAISE David for mentioning an article that The Atlantic has highlighted as well, David French's articles at National Review (and picked up by The Atlantic as well.)
French's is the kind of independent voice no longer in vogue in the coastal press but which represents true ethics of the sort Abe Rosenthal celebrated so long ago.
10
The article addresses why people are upset that someone who "wasn't supposed to be here" killed this (white) woman. But, as my marks indicate, I dispute the premise that people are not supposed to be where they are. You may object that this perp is not a citizen. But he is a citizen, and of an American ally.
Murder is murder, a horrible crime. No dispute there. But would it have been a better murder if its perp had been where he was "supposed to be", eg. a citizen born here? No. This crime is independent of citizenship. Horrible from an undocumented immigrant or from a Mayflower descendant.
This endless claptrap that crimes are worse if the gangbanger is MS-13 rather than a Shark or Jet or Hell's Angel is at the essence of how toxic nationalism is just a cover for racism. Neo-Nazi bikers from Europe are as much a problem in their countries as here.
Being in the "wrong" country is only a crime because we make it one. It does not hurt people per se. Prosecute people for crimes against people and property, not for crossing invisible lines.
5
@Tom Jeff
Heedless, unwatched illegal immigration devastates American workers' families and is a prime reason for Latinos and black men and women walking away from today's tilted Democratic Party.
The Democrats look at black and Latino families and insist that government money ''bought'' their loyalty long ago. Mature adults never kowtow to such demands.
The Trump voter looks at crimes by illegals and askys, ''WHY was this man here?'' We dare not ever stop people from asking these most basic questions no matter how skewed Leftist politics are.
17
@David Leonhardt
Referring to Qs 8 & 9 from the 2010 Census below, please explain how Mollie Tibbetts killing is racist and a classic example of bigotry UNLESS one is NOT ALLOWED to think for oneself?
https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=2010+census+form&chips=...
4
I agree that being killed by an illegal immigrant is the same as being killed by someone with a violent past arrests who was released from prison. It inflames conservative desire for law and order, to do better in that regard, just as mass shootings inflame liberal desires for gun bans and control. Both sides are right and it makes more sense in dealing with these desires than reiterating that the US has racial issues. Yes it does, but this crime touches on other issues that deserves more attention than race and maybe dealing with them is a way to bypass race and unite and move the nation forward politically.
No one likes crime, and if everyone took one step towards the center and away from their political beliefs, perhaps we could actually do something about it.
7
No, you miss the point, he wasn't an immigrant, he was illegal. Plain and simple, she would be alive but for his actions, its not racism, read the daily crime reports and refute the facts because they fit your narrative. We have be dumbed down by persistent violence that is justified by it be committed by people of color who are somehow oppressed by white people. Stop the rationalizations and write the truth. He was here illegally and a citizen was murdered.
39
The bigotry run amok after Mollie Tippet’s murder reached fever pitch when an illegal immigrant was accused of the young lady’s killing. No, the man shouldn’t have been in the country but supposed he killed another Latino girl or a black girl? Would Republicans and Fox News have been outrage if the life of a brown or black girl had been snuffed out?
It’s been exactly 63 years today since the murder of Emmett Till, yet some people blamed the boy for his killing because he was sassy and uppity, a wise guy from up North who didn’t know his proper place in the South. Also, racists have trotted out stories about the boy’s father, who he never knew, and talked about his rape conviction while serving in the army. Emmett was thus depicted as a bad apple who fell from a bad tree.
Americans were shocked and horrified by Emmett Till’s lynching and the published photos of him at his Chicago funeral but not particularly bothered the way conservatives were about Mollie’s killing. Americans should be bothered when people are murdered, even Emmett Till, who never deserved what happened to him.
5
Why is it always a matter of all or nothing by both sides of the debate? A nation has a right, even a responsibility to control its borders. Control does not automatically translate into xenophobia. On the other hand, in the modern world there is a need for (and many benefits to) the movement of people across borders for a variety of reasons. That does not equal open borders. The screening we were promised circa 1986 needs to be put in place. Responsible quotas need to be formulated. We cannot absorb all the world’s troubled people’s nor can we create a brain drain on those very same nations. Our economic and political policies need to be created in the knowledge that they often impact much of the rest of the world.
24
A strange (and awful) parallel to the reactions surrounding Mollie Tibbets' tragic death is currently playing out in Chemnitz, Germany, where a man was recently killed by two foreigners -- one from Iraq and the other from Syria, which has unleashed violent neo-Nazi marches on the streets, and given the right-wing AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) Carte Blanche to instigate more anti-immigrant bigotry by cashing in on the fear and frustration found throughout the country.
And just as it is here, the amount of crimes perpetrated by migrants and refugees compared to the native population is very small, but one would never guess that given the disproportionate amount of press these acts tend to receive.
It's terrible to think, and no mean consolation that at least, we are not alone in facing this kind of behaviour.
This kind of bigotry knows no borders.
7
Frankly, I believe that Trump’s focus on the gang-related and otherwise criminal aspects of allowing illegal aliens to penetrate our southern border and live among us is over-the-top. But, then, so is David’s column.
The guy who killed Mollie Tibbetts isn’t an “immigrant”: he’s an illegal alien. You can argue persuasively that immigrants, even illegals, from below our border don’t commit crimes at greater rates as a phylum than Americans, but you can’t argue that if our border were secure as it’s supposed to be, and our laws were effectively enforced, that Mollie Tibbets would still have died at the hands of a whacko. We have enough violent whackos among our citizen-population without needing to import more.
That fact has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. A lawful regime where we control immigrant inflows effectively, and Mollie Tibbetts is alive and still studying in Iowa for a productive and fulfilling life. Dysfunctional, open-borders management of our border and the notion that osmotic movements of people fleeing from failed and failing societies and choosing not to stop in other countries but risking their lives to come here for economic reasons … and we have Mollie Tibbetts dead.
You can make all the arguments you like about our deplorable racism and ethnic prejudice, but it remains a separate issue we must address. You can’t deny that an illegal alien killed Mollie Tibbetts.
38
Not one word about the culpability of the employers who use the illegal aliens as cheap sources of labor that legal white Americans whose ancestors undoubtedly trace back to the Mayflower are unwilling to do.
Arrest the employers. Fine them. Give them jail sentences. Force them to pay decent wages. When the jobs dry up so will almost all of the illegal aliens.
As far as I know, we're the only country with a supposed Western style democracy where this problem festers decade after decade. Follow the money. Hint- it's from the employers who paradoxically are likely to be Trumpistas. Do as I say not as I do hypocrites all.
22
@drdeanster That would go a long way toward resolving this problem —but the corporate class would actually have to pay fair wages and cut into their profits. Mollie Tibbets case underscores this issue perfectly.
4
When it comes to immigration Liberals seem to reject being the party of common sense and facts.
First, we're told immigrants commit less crimes than the native born but oh we can't possibly turn over those few who do to ICE after they've served their sentences. No, we must be sanctuary cities.
Then we're told Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador are overrun with gang violence, sexual violence, and domestic abuse and the majority of the population including elected officials turn a blind eye to these crimes so we must let them all come here as asylum seekers. However apparently all of the criminals stay in these countries and only the good, nice people try to come to America. Apparently they're only "all criminals" when they're in their own country, but as soon as they illegally enter ours they're "victims."
Either the people of Mexico and Central America have a violence and crime problem or they don't. If they don't, then asylum seekers have no humanitarian claim to come here. If they do, then we need to wise up and start scrutinizing the people coming into our country more closely, but we can't have it both ways.
54
@JP Or we can not elect GOP presidents and congressional members who have policies that target these countries and create a pressure cooker that these folks want to leave behind. You’re standing too close to fully see the issues. Educate yourself beyond knowing the names of the countries that these people seek to escape.
4
Every murder, rape, theft and other crime committed by an illegal alien against an American citizen is a crime that would not have happened if the illegal alien had been kept out of our country.
The guilt for these crimes is shared in part by those who advocate for open borders, sanctuary cities and other politically correct policies that place higher value on the lives of criminals than on the lives and well-being of illegal aliens' victims.
42
People like Mr. Leonhardt will never get it. The point isn't that Mollie's killer was Mexican. It is that he was an illegal alien (you refuse to use that term), should not have been here in the first place, and that Ms. Tibbetts would still be alive had he not been here. Remember that this was headline news before anyone knew she was dead or that she had been murdered by an illegal alien. And then Leondardt insults his readers' intelligence by telling them that once the Trump presidency has passed, we should rewrite our immigration laws. Why then? Why not now? Why not three or four decades back, through Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama. In or around 1988, we bent over backwards to make accommodations for the one million illegal aliens then in the country. When Trump came in 28 years later, we had an estimated eleven million illegal aliens in the country. Why is this his fault, especially since he has enraged the Left by even trying to stem the tide? The answer is, of course, that both Democrats and Republicans (but especially, I'm afraid, Democrats) haven't got the intestinal fortitude to do what is necessary to end this problem. How can they have it, when they won't even refer to "illegal aliens" as anything other than "undocumented immigrants."?
41
@Joe Pearce The problem is the GOP owner of that farm that does not vet his employees. (Guess why food is still affordable to most Americans.) I’ll tell ya, it’s little wonder DJT is in the White House. Many of our fellow citizens don’t understand economics but they totally understand tribalism and RACISM.
6
No, the point is he is male. But hey, that happens all the time, men killing women, no biggie, provided the killer is a US citizen, eh?
2
Excuse me, but their HAVE been racially motivated brutal attacks and killings of white farmers in South Africa, and in Zimbabwe. These attacks have been documented. The SA government has announced plans to seize farmers' land, but attacks were occurring even before the government made this announcement. The only reason more attacks are not recorded is because the SA government decided to stop officially recording murder victims' race, for some reason.
22
The story of Mollie Tibbetts death is horrifying. It is unfair to ascribe racism to those upset by her death, even if some of those promulgating the story have cynical motives for doing so.
However, it is possible the policies of the Trump administration will actually increase crimes of this type. The administration is combining draconian measures against illegal immigrant families and lower quotas for legal immigration, while avoiding regulation of employers. Unless there is a hidden supply of American workers waiting to take the agricultural jobs now performed mostly by undocumented workers, this combination is likely to result in even more of these jobs being filled by young men without families willing to take risks and flout the law to capitalize on a strong economy. ICE sweeps inside the country will help ensure that these people stay in the shadows and do not integrate into mainstream society. We may end up with more of the types of crimes seen in Europe following the large increase in immigration of young males.
3
Focusing on the legal status of immigrants who commit crimes serves to demonize all immigrants -- those here legally, those here illegally, those who were born here but maybe only in the last generation or two. There's no similar wholesale demonization of all who sell guns when one is sold illegally or all who perform background checks when one misses something. And there's no widespread condemnation of all parole systems when one person is released in error. Why? Because the nativists in this country CHOOSE to demonize and vilify those who are "other", whether because of the color of their skin or their religions or their immigration status or just their status as immigrants. That's why they're enraged by crimes committed by immigrants, but spend no time wringing their hands when a native born person kills for "pro-life" causes, even though abortion is the law of the land, and they're calling for the imprisonment and harm of those who exercise their legal rights, whether performing abortions or availing themselves of these services. There's no concern about the "law" when ignoring a particular law suits their cause. And our dear leader couldn't care less about Manafort's tax evasion or campaign violations or violations of laws in pursuit of profit. Selective outrage over the failure to enforce laws and selective demand of which laws should be enforced reveals that the violation of law has nothing to do with the outrage, and everything to do with racism.
13
I agree that it's racist that attractive, young white women and girls get so much media attention when they go missing, while their counterparts of color get much less. But the premise of this article is off base because Mollie's case got loads of attention before her body was found, before authorities had any inkling who was responsible. The attention had to do with her adorableness, not the fact that her killer may be in the country illegally.
35
@Ivy i agree. Does anyone care when unattractive girls or older women go missing? Maybe we should ask that question more often.
10
Republicans and conservatives don’t want to fix immigration, they prefer the status quo.
As long as illegal immigrants are working they have no rights, no minimum wage.
You fix immigration these illegals would have rights. Conservatives and Republicans don’t want that
11
How about, a mass murderer was able to purchase a very dangerous weapon because the NRA is effectively in charge of our gun laws?
I rather doubt Mr. French is concerned about that. Are you?
7
In the distorted mirror of racism, crimes committed by white people are crimes committed by individuals who, in any event, are innocent until proven otherwise. Crimes committed by non-whites, on the other hand, are committed collectively by a race, an ethnic group, a nation. Unfailingly, they are guilty.
12
@Edward Baker What utter nonsense. How many people were defending Casey Anthony, Scott Peterson, Nicolas Cruz, or Timothy McVeigh?
And what about OJ Simpson, R Kelly, Michael Jackson, Kobe Bryant and Jameis Winston? All men who never had to deal with anything more than a little PR fallout for their crimes...
20
Nothing in this horrendous murder justifies child hostage taking on the border. As to what might have prevented it, well, there was a conservative Republican candidate and activist who was more interested in cheap labor (and let's fact it, who else wants to milk cows when it's 20 below) than in doing a thorough job of verifying immigration status. You can't be too careful these days. A native born white "Christian" who was carrying on an affair was recently charged with murdering his wife and two little daughters. Here's a modes proposal: preventive detention for all adulterous men, starting with the one in the White House.
8
The real reason there was so much media coverage of Mollie Tibbetts' disappearance and death is because she was young, pretty, and white. If any one of those factors had been missing, nobody would have cared.
14
@Kay White Her family cared.
12
I followed the link and read Marcotte's article in Salon, even though I knew pretty much what it would say.
My question is: why did Leonhardt put this very relevant point in as an afterthought? Why is Trump's referring to a black woman as a "dog" considered racist, when, as far as I can discern, the only people he has called "dogs" are women (and not just women of color)?
Considering the gender aspects of violence and violent speech seems to be too much (or too normal?) for most people, including the writers at the NYT.
5
The reason most immigrants come to this country is to work. We don't need a wall, we just need to enforce the laws that already exist.
If the company that hired the illegal immigrant knew that he was illegal (they clearly did), they should be prosecuted. The meat packing plants that have an entirely illegal work force should have their leaders sent to prison.
Lets get all US citizens employed at decent wages before we let companies hire illegal workers at without legal jeopardy .
55
@Michael H.
"The reason most immigrants come to this country is to work."
__
TRUE; MOST immigrants. It's the other very small %age committing crimes that besmirch an entire community.
For a long time after WWII, the Japanese were the subject of scorn and ridicule.
+++
The workforce participation rate v the unemployment rate, the country is at near full-employment.
EARNING decent wages is a two-way street. One has an obligation to an employer they have the skillset and can know how to utilize it effectively, with or without a reasonable accommodation if there is a disability, in order to perform the essential functions of the position description they were hired.
A Master's in Chemical Engineering isn't going to pay any more than someone with a GED working on an assembly line at the Widget Factory.
1
Lately, people have been discussing the real reason for our broken immigration system: capitalism.
We actually want low-paid workers to keep profits up, but we want to keep them quiet with an official policy of oppression.
Same for union-busting. We don't want labor to have rights.
As always, the problem is money in politics. Fix that and we're good.
64
You are so right. You could stop illegal immigration in a day by going after the employers who are the primary reason people from poorer countries come here, not the hard working immigrants who are often cheated and abused by these employers.
Or better yet create a real immigration system that allows for guest workers, with proper taxes paid by the workers AND the employers. But this will never happen so long as republicans control the government. They only care about the value of immigration as a political issue and the ability of employers to exploit these workers.
2
This young woman is dead. She was killed by someone who was here illegally. There is nothing racist about wanting our laws to be enforced. No amount of hand wringing rationalism will bring her back.
56
I am an immigrant but I am getting tired of the simplistic reduction of all anti-immigrant sentiments to racism. Is opposition to taking in radical Muslims racism? Islam is not a race. How about probing the connection between culture and crime? Racism too? If everything is racism, nothing is. Mollie Tibbets’ horrible murder is a powerful story and it’s impact won’t be dispelled by quoting misleading statistics that are not broken down by country of origin, education level and religion. I know that immigrants commit fewer crimes than native born but is it true about all immigrants, from all countries? Europe’s attitude to immigration has been shifted from welcome to rejection by a number of highly publicized murders and rapes committed by asylum seekers. So asking whether even one crime committed by an illegal immigrant is one too many is a legitimate question. Whatever your answer is, trying to silence the discussion by shouting “racism” is not going to work.
57
Mor - only when we're equally outraged about every similar crime committed by a white man will the outrage over the immigration status of the perpetrator be about the crime and not about the race of the perpetrator. My guess is that there are criminals of every race, creed, color, gender, etc. And if there were differences among undocumented workers/residents based on ethnicity (and especially differences among Latino immigrants) I'm certain our GOP "friends" would be shouting them from the rooftops. But the fact is, there are bad apples of every race and ethnicity, and trying to paint the entire community with a broad brush will backfire. It already has. These rural and agricultural communities rely on undocumented workers to do the work our native born citizens either choose not to do or are incapable of doing. Many of those who reside in these places, like the Tibbetts, welcome the help they so desperately need in their communities. And they welcome the regeneration of their communities that results from them being populated once again. So why don't we stop demonizing those who come here illegally, who are hired by our businesses, and who are needed by those businesses and their communities, and why don't we fix our broken system, by welcoming these workers here as part of a legal path to citizenship. If Don the Con can hire foreign workers legally to work for peanuts at Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster, why shouldn't the meat packing plant have the same option?
4
@Oscar this is just a collection of partisan cliches, not a meaningful response. What does outrage have to do with immigration policies? OK, I’m outraged by every crime that has ever been committed by anybody in the world. Now what? A nation-state has the duty and obligation to protect its citizens and to guard its borders. The US is a country built on immigration but as a sovereign nation, it can pass laws defining who can, and cannot, come here legally. Many countries have a guest worker program that enables people to come and do seasonal labor without becoming citizens. Why can’t the US? Why should anybody who crosses the border illegally be given preference over people who do it the right way? Why should having a child be a better reason for acquiring citizenship than having a PhD? And actually yes, there are differences in crime rates among various minority groups: Asians have the lowest. So why shouldn’t we encourage more Chinese immigrants?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States
4
Mr. Leonhardt doesn't mention another factor in the "hoopla", which is the mainstream press' almost universal treatment of illegal border-crossers as being innocent victims blown here by the fates, not even responsible to their own children for the risk they incurred upon them. The counter-reaction to this fantasy is inevitable. Maybe if all the press were a little more clear-eyed about the problems with undocumented immigration. some wouldn't jump so much at the opportunity to highlight the negative side of the equation.
38
This was a big deal long before the killer was known to be someone other than white.
70
@Mark The major national news story? Yeah right.
@Mark Yes it was. But what you maybe missed is that the coverage on FOX and others metastasized with the addition of "illegal."
2
David,
Your blind bias often makes people want to scream with frustration from non-leftist ideologues. We get it, you hate trump and the NYT hates Trump. Frankly, its boring.
Tibbets murder is NOT about racism. You would understand this if you spoke to ANYONE who is not firmly in ensconced in the open border, eliminate ICE camp.
It has received attention because it is another example of the failure to enforce our borders resulting in a dead American citizen. It is amazing how the so called party of women rights clams up when it collides with the ideology of open borders. Think about how much coverage form the liberal media Tibbets murder would be getting if the assailant were a neo-nazi, or homophobic.
Secondly, South Africa "made up story". So your claim is that South Africa DIDN'T enact a land reform measure this spring to expropriate land without compensation and "return it to communities"? Really, that is made up?
If you were arguing that the POTUS should not comment on the internal politics of another country, fine. But to perpetuate the lie, that Trump "made this up" is just as bad as his tweets.
I draw your attention to published new reports:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-44278164
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-45026931
He didn't make anything up.
36
Trumps’s tweet said that large numbers of white farmers were being killed. That was the part that was incorrect. Land appropriation has been an issue for years.
4
@will he ever learn
First of all - this liberal democrat does not support open borders and elimination of ICE and many others of the same political persuasion that i know don't either. So don't lump us all together.
Second point - you need to get the correct information on the South Africa story - the proposed legislation mostly focuses on underutilized and unoccupied/derelict properties, we call these brownfields in the US. And lastly, where is your outrage about the endless daily slaughter of Americans by... other Americans ?
4
@will he ever learn
Thank you for taking the time to rebut Leonhardt's/NYT's position.
NYT's record on race - beginning with the endless abuse of the phrase "people of color" (which 99% of the time means African American) - is striking.
As someone who lives amongst people from around the globe (I tutor refugees) I have found no strong anti-white/Republican sentiments therein. The particular problems they encounter in our city and city schools are cultural/behavioral.
On a related note readers might compare NYT's Ferguson coverage to a report from a loyal Democrat who lived there. See the NYT "Jolted by Deaths, Obama Found His Voice on Race" 1/17/18. Note the Readers' Picks comment by shstl.
The challenge on issues like race is to try to simply be honest, not further your particular feel-good position.
5
Apparently Mr. Leonhart was not following the story prior to the arrest of the undocumented Mexican migrant accused of killing Mollie Tibbets.
For several weeks, news outlets were filled with stories regarding the poor, WHITE, Iowa hog farmer, Wayne Cheyney, who was a leading suspect in the murder of Mollie Tibbets and, it was widely rumored, had fed her corpse to his hogs. Indeed, his refusal to speak with police and to take a polygraph, was even reported in NYC. https://nypost.com/2018/08/06/pig-farmer-questioned-over-missing-student...
Why did Mr. Leonhardt not dedicate a story to the plight of Mr, Cheyney and the lynch mob mentality that had spread throughout the USA to pin the murder of Mollie Tibbets on the White hog farmer, simply because he invoked his Constitutional right to remain silent?
Mr. Leonhardt's column is part of a long disturbing pattern in the NYT of seeing everything through the prism of race, and viewing all whites to be as privileged as the Sulzberger and Ochs' families. Mr. Leonhardt, its time to come down from your ivory tower.
52
@Phil Downey
The suspect arrest is a poor WHITE-Hispanic agricultural worker who CONFESSED.
Hispanic is NOT a Race BUT a National Origin; see my comment below.
8/28/18, 10:29A CDT
2
What does him being a Mexican immigrant have to do with the conversation? I’ve only heard people criticizing him being an illegal immigrant. If he were an American but was out on parole, when by all accounts should not have been, we would be criticizing the parole system... and rightly so. It is a valid point that he was an illegal immigrant.
65
Actually, claiming that the ‘hoopla’ over the fact that the killer of Mollie Tibbetts was in the county illegally is about bigotry or racism is a classic example of liberals wanting to change the subject. When they know they will lose the argument they try to paint their opponents as ‘racists’ or ‘homophobes’ or ‘facists’ Or whatever. Anything to avoid discussing the issue at hand.
In this case, pointing out the fact that Mollie Tibbetts would be alive today had her killer not be able to enter and stay in the country despite not going through the appropriate legal process (aka illegal immigrant), is not racist, it is a fact. And for all the claims that illegal immigrants commit criminal acts at a rate lower than citizens (excluding illegal immigration, of course), it is a fact that every crime committed by illegal immigrants represents an avoidable crime, were we serious about protecting our borders and enforcing immigration laws.
43
The question of whether he was in the country illegally is not relevant to the crime of murder. The murder is no better or worse based on the immigration status of the accused. People are murdered in this country regularly, the reason conservative media has pounced on this particular one is the racism of there viewers and listeners. They expect this news, so it is fed to them. The much more common types of murder, citizen on citizen in the same racial and economic class is less exciting to there viewership. The reason for that is clear.
6
Trump presidency is only ‘disastrous’ if you’re a liberal Democrat.
Please make correction.
18
@Tuco
I have many Republican friends who have come around to the fact that the Trump presidency is a disaster and regret voting for him. At least some of you have realised this fact.
7
@Sue
89% favorability among Republicans is an incredible stat.
3
[David A.] French starts the piece by acknowledging the role of racism. That’s not his focus, though. His goal, instead, is to persuade readers that race is not the sole reason that the Tibbetts case resonates with so many people.
___
Though a gun wasn't used in this crime, in the debate of border security and illegal immigration it is a front burner topic.
Yes. There is a problem with too many guns in circulation, the ease of obtaining firearms through gun show loop holes, differing state laws, etc. But, just like Prohibition, repealing the 2nd Amendment would only make things worse.
The alleged killer is White-Hispanic. Hispanic is a National Origin and can be of ANY race; predominantly White or Black depending on location.
Black Hispanics account for 2.5% of the entire U.S. Hispanic population.[1] Most Black Hispanics in the United States come from within the Dominican and Puerto Rican populations.[6][7][8] Aside from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, large numbers of Black Hispanics can also be found in populations originating from Cuba, northern South America, and the Caribbean coast of Central America as well, including the Cuban, Panamanian, and Colombian communities, among others. (wiki)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hispanic_and_Latino_Americans
Crime is a given; IT is illegal whether committed by someone born in the WH or an individual who crossed the border without a passport or work/student visa.
4
The immigration issue has become the racist two-step that allows expressions of bigotry under cover of nationalism and anti-crime rhetoric. Trump and the "populists" are nothing more than the bigots hiding their daggers in the flag. America, in Trump's mind, has lost its destiny as the White Man's nation and has become a mongrel country where ANYBODY can call themselves an American or a member of the American Dream.
I used to joke that living in California would shield me from the worst of Trump and his nationalist, racist, supporters. I don't joke anymore, and I now wonder if secession may actually be a viable answer to what is going on in the country. Oddly, our border with Mexico allows a source of hardworking, driven women and men to assist in growing our state economy.
But the crime-by-illegal-immigrants aspect of racist speech is the one-sure route to protected racist speech. It has worked in this country for two centuries against Native Americans, the Irish, Catholics, Jews, Asians, Hispanics, and African Americans. I is tried and true, and not subject to disappearing any time soon.
Shame on us.
11
The comparison between immigration laws and background checks is disingenuous. The purpose of background checks is precisely to prevent that people get shot by lunatics who should be given access to guns, so when someone gets shot because of a background check failure, anger is understandable. But immigration laws do not have the purpose of preventing crime (actually because criminality is lower among immigrants, crime prevention would call for more relaxed immigration laws). Using crime to call for stricter enforcement of the immigration laws is thus just an excuse to indulge in immigration prejudice, and not so much about respect for the rule of law.
5
Well, good luck to immigrate somewhere legally being a convicted criminal/having troubled past! As far as i know, the US migration laws are not a free pass to anyone who shows up at the border. May be that’s why so many illegals here? Are you sure that this guy would had been permitted to enter legally?
4
I can’t imagine what Mollie Tibbetts parents are going through. How tragic to lose a child and in such a horrible way. My heart breaks for Mollie’s family and friends.
To take the time to declare that they are “taking Mollie back” and to say that “The Hispanic community are Iowans. They have the same values as Iowans,” Mr Tibbetts said, according to the Des Moines Register.
He said that during the nearly six weeks he spent in Iowa while authorities searched for his daughter, he ate at a number of Mexican restaurants. “As far as I’m concerned, they’re Iowans with better food.”
Mr Tibbetts remarks show what decent, honorable people do, even in the midst of such a terrible tragedy and heartbreak.
108
@KLKemp You're absolutely right. They choose love, not hate.
1
The issue that does not get as much discussion is why we do not make it more difficult for companies to hire folks who are coming willing to work for peanuts. Shame these farmers, restaurants, construction companies etc... who break the law, charge them a significant amount of money and only then will we be able to set up a fair worker exchange program. This horrible tragedy has so many factors that people can latch on to and make it political. For once let's leave a family to grieve in manner that is theirs and theirs alone.
51
Kudus to Leonhardt for another great article.
French ends his piece with "Why was he here?" referring to Tibbetts' alleged killer. Not sure in what sense French asks that question; Why did this person decide to come to America?, or, How did the "system" fail and let a murder in?
If it is the former the answer is obvious; for a better life. No matter how we each got here, we are all seeking a better life and doing the best we can; it's the human condition. We should remember that when/if the alleged murderer becomes the convicted murderer. Compassion is the difference between execution and life imprisonment.
If it is the latter; reports are that his employer did not use E-verify to check his citizenship status. Why?
3
@rls
Iowa does NOT have the DP. IF execution were an option, if convicted. as a foreign national there would be much outrage when the date of execution was set.
Since 1976, there have been 29 such executions and 140 remain on Death Row in the U.S.
https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-01-23/these-are-29-foreign-nationals-ex...
8/28/18, 10:20A CDT
3
“Tibbetts’s accused murderer is a Mexican immigrant, and large segments of the conservative media, including talk radio and Fox News, like to call attention to crimes committed by people with dark skin. It’s silly to pretend otherwise.”
This point has a presumption of validity. And I agree that it is not just racism that fuels the outrage in this crime, that the fact that the accused is purported to be here illegally adds to the sense of outrage because a law is not in place, or not being followed.
But another angle that is not necessarily racist, per se, but maybe more insidious, is that the media’s goal could be to stoke the emotion flames of discontented whites to rally up a voting bloc for the mid term elections.
This would be akin to Richard Nixon’s “law and order” and “silent majority” campaign that would position the republicans in a good light to those voters who, once they found out that the tax cuts were for the rich, may have thought of leaving.
9
It's silly, as you say, to pretend that racism is not a factor. But it seems to me that the primary motive of Fox and Republican media is not racial animus per se, but political manipulation. Obviously they're willing to exploit and encourage racism in the process. But I know too many people who are taken in by the right's framing of the immigration issue who aren't remotely racist; I can't believe it's the central issue. But neither do I buy David French's reduction of the issue to legal vs. illegal, which is basically an explanation of why the right wing narrative works so well as manipulation. Fox and the right wing media are extremely choosy about which illegalities upset them; corporate and financial crimes, prosecutor abuses, even the employers of ''illegals'' are likely to get a pass, because they offer no politically useful story. The immigration "debate," such as it is, helps Republicans by deflecting their voters anger away from the issues of economic & labor policy that victimize them, and, incidentally, by provoking the charges of ''racism" that they have learned to automatically condemn as political correctness.
14
Agreed. Each week or so I read stories of heinous murders and rapes by white males that receive nothing like the attention here. Add in “race”, or “ illegal immigrant“ and it’s like gasoline to a fire. The racism of our president and his followers is beyond question.
62
Yes. It is one thing to acknowledge that this particular criminal should not have been here and to feel extra outrage over that fact. It is something entirely different to generalize that fact to tar and feather all undocumented folks or to suggest (falsely) that they are more criminal than the US population. We do not, as has been noted, engage in such generalizing bias with crimes committed by white men who are citizens or by Christians. We do not look at the man who killed his pregnant wife and two daughters recently and say that all white men (or husbands or fathers) are evil or criminal. The problem lies not in acknowledging the facts of a particular case, but in the use of those facts to broader political or policy purposes.
30
As a Historian who has written on a myriad of Colonial America issues with Deer Island you leave out the 250 yrs of raids and wars between the two sides. Not to mention the international scope with the French, Dutch, and Spanish partnering with various North American Peoples. None of those were peoples are native nor were they peaceful among themselves. Their violence and empire building was only limited by their technology. They were human and demostrated the worst and best like every other people. The New World diffusion created everything we love, value, and care about today including so many priceless cultures built in the forge of history. Death, conquest, disease, and destruction had as much a hand in creating and shaping every human that has ever lived as has love, life, and happiness.
9
@Billy
Billy,
My purpose was not to weigh who was right and who was wrong. Again, I said nothing to recommend Native Peoples. Nor am I endorsing or descrying what “the New World diffusion” has wrought. Although I worry that your passionate allegiance to the NWD weakens your objectivity. Yes, indeed it has created much of what we love and value, but the record shows that so also it has created, refined, or aided and abetted much of what we despise and dread: racism, genocide, massive and possibly irreversible environmental destruction.
I’m concerned with something much more granular: morality. I believe that no matter how much accomplishment and hope the American experiment has brought us, it’s pursuit has never been, and never will be, adequate justification for the willful or careless murder, rape, impoverishment, or disenfranchisement of a single innocent person. Where do you stand on that?
2
The advice to read French’s National Review piece on the Molly Tibbets debate is excellent. French’s observations and conclusions ring true. But we need to broaden the scope of focus. French talks about a “palpable” feeling of pain because we recognize that the murderer “wasn’t supposed to be on the streets.”
Two steps. First, we can remember that we of the prevailing American culture, are not “supposed to be here” either. Our forebearers landed in ships uninvited and gradually seized a huge swath of the continent. We did this almost entirely through warfare, deceit and brutality, that ranged from the starvation of Native people on Deer Island in Boston to the cruel charade of the Mexican-American war. Such seizure is clearly not how ethical people are supposed to act. The second step is to ruminate on “supposed.” James Herndon wrote wonderful book about urban public education in the 1960s: The Way It’s Spozed to Be. One of the book’s main messages is that the human endeavor, civilization, is complicated. A particularly complicated and worthwhile task is to really figure out how a wide range of issues, not just the current hot-buttons, are “spozed to be.” That means yes, grappling with our palpable feelings, but then also patiently thinking beyond them. I’d like to read French’s ideas about what's “supposed to be” regarding a group who move into a continent, seize enormous wealth, and then believe they should slam the door on the next comers.
21
A development 500 yrs in the making that could have gone either way for several hundred years is hardly worth a comparison. You leave out the hundreds of nuances, differences, and changes that resulted in said outcome. You still hold that racist belief of the Noble Savage and the garden of eden state of being developed by romance writers. Colombus conquered some no backwater islands maintaining little control for years. Cortes fought a brutual Aztec absolutw monarchy thay enslaved and sacrificed their own conqueree rivals. Disease and not racism (No concept at the time) proved to be the most important factor. Drop your intersectionality and identity politics as it poisons your mind. Most importantly you forget the nation state and modernity with that silly thing called the rule of law. Murders and violence happens here in the US but if immigration laws were followed and respected, Molly would be alive. We have to deal with certain unsavory characters, but thanks to the law Illegal immigrants are not supposed to be among those problems.
18
@Billy
Billy, with no basis you’re falsely ascribing opinions to me, and, to boot, you completely miss my points. (1) You ignore that I have endorsed French’s arguments, which means I’m not forgetting about nation state, modernity, and rule of law. (2) Nowhere do I endorse or even mention the actions of Native peoples or reflect upon their relative evilness or nobility. (3) Nowhere do I mention race. I don’t, period. I’ll explain my points again. French observes our strong feeling about the missed opportunity to save Tibbets. What he calls a palpable feeling (I read “gut reaction”) reveals our national selectivity (even bias) about what is “supposed” to be. Further, in any context identifying and pursuing what is supposed to be is complicated. I believe our nation would be well served if we were more patient and contemplate the bigger picture of may supposed-to-be’s. I’ll address your other related comment as a direct reply to that.
1