Hey, All You P.C. Folk: Merry Christmas!
December 23, 2005
HEY, IT’S COMING UP, DEC. 25TH, RIGHT?: That would be Christmas, and we would call it Christmas because that’s its name.
Not Xmas. Not Happy Holidays. Not Happy Shopping Days.
It’s Christmas. And that’s the fact, even if you’re Muslim, Buddhist, Shinto, Atheist, Jewish, whatever. And it’s still Christmas without you. Even if you don’t believe in it.
No disrespect intended. But really, to tell a Buddhist or Muslim “Merry Christmas” isn’t a prelude to some imperialistic subjugation and transformation to Christianity, especially if it’s said with the right spirit.
“Merry Christmas” is merely a greeting of peace, love and welcome, and to say it doesn’t force anything on anyone. Besides, more than likely the non-Christian people are probably too busy to care because they’re scurrying at a local mall buying gifts.
But this Christmas/Happy Holidays hubbub has become an issue because of people like Bill O’Reilly and Jerry Falwell, Christian folk who should know better.
They feel compelled to protest the excising of Christmas from cards, greetings and public pronouncements because they see it as the height of political correctness run amok.
It’s true that Happy Holidays is a kind of namby-pamby way to say Merry Christmas. Especially if you really mean Merry Christmas.
Ah, do O’Reilly and Falwell really mean it? Or do they protest too much?
I would be more likely to see eye to eye with O’Reilly and Falwell if they were a bit more tolerant and Christ-like all the other days of the year.
But O’Reilly’s the guy who hates San Francisco, and Falwell’s the guy who crusades against gays. So of these two not-so-wise men, we must ask a fundamental question: Where’s your sense of tolerance and respect, and general Christian good will the other 11 months of the year?
Non-existent, I’d say.
So please forgive me when I say, “Merry Christmas,” if you don’t happen to be Christian. I believe it, and I mean it, in the true loving spirit of the word.
I don’t do it just to get a rise out of you for the holidays for publicity purposes like those other guys. And I’m not forcing you to say it back to me. No salesman, missionary or imperial force will call. Just kindly accept my cheer.
AND NOW DOWN TO BUSINESS: If you are of immigrant stock, as the majority of our community is, then you knew you were going to get a lump of coal from Congress this year.
The only question is how big a lump.
It’s substantial, but there’s still one last chance to burn it all up before it becomes a bad law.
Last week, the House voted to move HR 4437 along its merry way.
The immigration enforcement bill has gained notoriety for its plan to build a fence along parts of the California border.
But don’t breathe a sigh of relief because they’re not erecting a fence along the Pacific.
The enforcement bill does one major thing that should concern our community’s undocumented: HR 4437 criminalizes immigration in such a nasty way, that if you think it’s tough now with a terrorism threat, brace yourself for even harsher, less tolerant times ahead.
In the past, garden-variety immigration overstays would be placed in a holding jail and deported. It’s the relatively calm realm of immigration law. The new proposal puts it all under criminal law, and that nice trip back home turns into hard time in the slammer.
Of course, telling the 11 million estimated undocumented from legitimate immigrants can be tricky. The new arbiters of status aren’t trained immigration officers. Now the state and local cops will be charged with busting you wherever, whenever and on the flimsiest bits of evidence. Not carrying your papers? Tough luck.
And the crackdown isn’t just on the undocumented. Are you a relative of an overstay? Then you could be arrested, too, for being an “alien smuggler.”
This nasty bit of legislation could also include a challenge to birth right citizenship in its final form. That means the use of the 14th amendment that gave that right and was brought on by Wong Kim Ark, an S.F.-born Chinese American at the turn of the century, could be overturned.
The thinking is foreign-born undocumented mothers shouldn’t be able to drop a baby citizen in the U.S. every nine months or so, thus, opening up pathways for the naturalization of the entire family.
It’s perfectly legal. But now anti-immigrant foes want to crack down.
The Senate will take up its version of immigration reform come February. Start writing your senators now and let them know that the House measure is overly harsh and punitive, and lacking a process for undocumented visa overstays to legalize their status.
Let your senator know we need a comprehensive and humane package of immigration reforms.
Not the lumps of coal that are in that House bill.
RICHARD PRYOR: One last note on the passing of a hero of mine. I saw Richard Pryor perform many times live in the ‘70s and ‘80s. No one was better at being funny and serious about the pain of life as a racial minority in America. He talked about blacks, but it was all-inclusive if you understood what it means to be a minority.
My favorite line? Pryor talking about doing jail time and justice in America.
“Yeah,” he’d say. “That’s what it is. Just Us.”
Reach Emil at emil@amok.com.
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