October 01, 2003

Freedom Ride - Or Freedom Denied?

[VDARE.COM note: Tonight, October 1, the [Illegal] Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride has arrived in Washington D.C.  Tomorrow it will lobby Congress. (For the rest of its schedule, click here. To communicate with its organizers, click here.) We don’t know yet if any Congressman will dare demand why these illegals are not arrested, as Tom Tancredo did after a similar media manipulation in Colorado. But a lot of patriotic Americans have emailed us about the irony. Tonight, we publish two.]

Marching Through Georgia

By  D.A. King

[See also: Bleeding Kansas City, by Joyce Mucci]

Since writing in VDARE.COM about my experience in trying to report illegals to the Atlanta ICE office, I sent several e-mails to the ICE office asking about its plans to enforce our immigration laws at the nauseatingly-named “Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride”  that was scheduled to make a stop in Doraville—a close-in suburb, now mostly Mexican—on Monday, September 29.

It should be noted that Georgia has the fastest growing Hispanic population in the country. My metro Atlanta home county, Cobb, has had an increase of 1554% in Hispanic population since 1980. Here, as in the rest of the U.S., most Hispanics come from Mexico. Estimates are that nearly 70% of Mexicans in this country are illegal. I leave it to the reader to do the math—and to form a mental image of the Atlanta area.

ICE did not respond to my emails. But I was one of 15 counterprotesters at the “Freedom Ride” rally and accompanying “March for Dignity” in Doraville. In a town with a population of 7000, the local police estimated the mostly-Hispanic demonstrators to 1,500-2000.

I got the sense that I had left the country of my birth and been transported to some Mexican village, completely taken over by an angry, barely restrained mob. I was relieved to see the twenty-five or so Doraville police and Georgia State Patrol officers present.

As an American citizen, I could only stand, sign in hand, (“BEING ILLEGAL IS NOT A CIVIL RIGHT!”—greeted with cries of “RACIST!”) and marvel at the enormity of what I was seeing.

My inexperience as a writer prevents me from conveying the profound feeling of dread, rage, and sadness for my country’s future that I experienced while Mexican citizens, here illegally, demanded “Civil Rights” and driver’s licenses, and screamed obviously-rehearsed slogans at our small group—Americans asking only that our government enforce our laws.

(Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines “Civil Rights” as “the non-political rights of a citizen: the rights of personal liberty guaranteed U.S. citizens by the 13^th and 14^th amendments to the Constitution and by acts of Congress” – my emphasis).

My first act on a safe return home was to take a shower.

The demonstrators carried signs including “The Red Brigade of the Communist Party,” complete with hammer and sickle, and the large, banner of the local U.A.W. union, whose hall was the final destination of the eight-block march. There the U.A.W. hosted a chicken dinner for all, followed by more speeches before the departure of the “Freedom Ride” busses several hours later.

Ever present and visible was the flag of Mexico.

The mostly jean and sneaker-clad marchers were led by more well-attired bullhorn-carrying Hispanic “platoon leaders,” who were in turn led and instructed by non-Hispanic looking U.A.W. members with larger bullhorns, complete with logoed caps and polo shirts. Less than three years ago, the AFL-CIO abandoned its opposition to illegal immigration, for lowering the wage scale and taking American jobs. Big Labor has apparently made the treasonous calculation that illegal membership is better than declining membership.

There were no arrests in Doraville—despite the three-month lead-time from the event’s announcement to its actual occurrence.

I saw no ICE agents, no wire-meshed windowed buses emblazoned with “Immigration Enforcement” across the side.

However, the local police chief, John .F. King, made it clear to our band of American counterprotesters—six of whom were women, one in a wheelchair—that any attempt to “antagonize” the mob of defiant illegals and their enablers would be met with our arrest. [VDARE.COM note: Doraville Police Chief John F. King has signed a Drivers Licenses for Illegals petition and was also lead investigator in the murder of Doraville police officer Hugo Arango, a Mexican-American police officer killed by a Mexican immigrant, with the Mexican Consul and Government trying to protect the killer. Demographic change indeed.]

The local TV news painted a picture of the “immigrants” as victims of intolerance and racism.

There was no mention of the federal law being trampled.

Professional victim and civil rights veteran of the 1960’s, Joseph Lowery saw, and took, a well-televised chance to speak in support of the illegals saying that “….we may have come over on different ships, but we’re all in the same boat now…..” [VDARE.COM note: For a dissenting black view on immigration—from Professor Carol M. Swain, author of The New White Nationalism In America, click here.]

One headline on the front page of the next days Atlanta Journal-Constitution, our immigration-boosting local newspaper: “FCC vows to start enforcing registry”—referring to the very public signing of the do-not-call law that day by President Bush.

Imagine the howl if that law is ignored.

D.A. King [email him] is an active member of Georgians For Immigration Reduction.

Reference the above piece using this permanent URL:
http://www.vdare.com/misc/king_ga_march.htm#king

Bleeding Kansas City

By Joyce Mucci

Sunday’s visit to the tax-supported Primitivo Garcia School in Kansas City, Missouri by the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride bus was a welcomed and celebrated event for all in attendance.

With one exception: Me

At 11:00 a.m. two Freedom buses pulled in front of the school, with the words “Free the Brownsville 90” and “Equal Justice” emblazoned across the windows. Awaiting the weary riders was a welcoming committee of sweet little girls dressed in bright yellow dresses, members of community organizations and union members. 

It was all very warm and fuzzy.

After the riders filed into the school building, I decided to follow them in so I could hear the scheduled speeches.

To my dismay, an individual who – I assume – was a representative of one of the sponsoring organizations, prohibited me from entering the school. (Two of the sponsoring organization’s - El Centro, Inc. and The Coalition of Hispanic Organizations (COHO) - are on the receiving end of federal and state funds.)

My transgression? I was told that I was "anti-immigration" and my presence would be "disruptive."

Just the for record, at five feet tall and barely 105 lbs., I could not disrupt my way out of a paper bag. 

You see, two days prior, I was a guest on the local NPR station KCUR’s “Under the Clock” program hosted by former Kansas City mayor, Emmanuel Cleaver. Cleaver’s program is broadcast before a live audience at Union Station. The program topic for the day was the Freedom Riders.

I was representing the 70% of Americans who are uncomfortable with our porous borders and the presence of illegal aliens in the U.S. Local organizers of the Freedom Ride sent Father Murphy from the Kansas City, Kansas Archdiocese as their in-studio representative, two riders on the bus via cell phone and a spokesperson from The National Council of La Raza in Washington, D.C.

Despite the four to one ratio and the number of Rider supporters in the audience, the show was civil and respectful. I politely held my own. [Listen here in Windows Media Player.]

The producer described my performance as "terrific."

But what I found out on Sunday morning is that my right to free speech on a federally-funded radio station excluded me from entering a state-funded public school to listen to the so-called freedom riders express their right to free speech.

I hoped that among the dozen or so Freedom Ride supporters and union members watching, one would speak up and say, "Hey, I thought this was about freedom!"

No such luck.

The organizers should have checked with their commissars to see if my exclusion was in their best interest. If they really wanted to keep out "anti-immigration" riffraff like myself, they should have had the event at one of the local union halls. The national subsidizers were ill-advised to post locations, local contact information and a general “y’all are welcome” sign on their website.

Tonight (October 1), the caravan of Freedom buses rolls into Washington, D.C. The riders can sleep well knowing that no American citizen will restrict their assembly at the Capitol tomorrow, or their speech there.

That's the beauty of citizenship - knowing the Bill of Rights and living it.

Do the Freedom Riders get that?

Joyce Mucci [email her] is a writer in Missouri.