Guanabee Commenters Are Fully Authorized To Do Illegal Things With Their Fingers
8 November 2007, 3:30 PM. By Alex Alvarez
It’s a well-known fact that Guanabee commenters are among the most opinionated, the smartest, the sexiest and the most supple on the internet. Well, except Marco. So we always feign interest in what you, our readers, have to say. The discussion thread on our post about different labels placed on immigrants particularly caught our eye yesterday, and not only because we obsessively refresh our posts to see who comments. While crying and eating peanut butter from the jar.
A free, online legal dictionary (is there any other kind?) defines an “illegal immigrant” as follows:
illegal immigrant n. an alien (non-citizen) who has entered the United States without government permission or stayed beyond the termination date of a visa.
Aliens? Aliens!:
alien 1) n. a person who is not a citizen of the country. 2) in the United States any person born in another country to parents who are not American and who has not become a naturalized citizen. There are resident aliens officially permitted to live in the country and illegal aliens who have sneaked into the country or stayed beyond the time allowed on a visa. 3) v. to convey title to property.
But who thinks of these dry, academic, legal definitions upon hearing or using the words “illegal” or “alien?” That’s not merely a rhetorical question, by the way, but a question on rhetoric. (Oh snap! See what we did there?) This blog offers an analysis of how the language we use colors our thinking… or vice-versa. It also poses the following question:
When you hear someone refer to an undocumented immigrant as an “illegal alien,” do you feel that this phrase in any, shape, or manner dehumanizes the person in question? Moreover, do you feel that the phrase may be intended to dehumanize the immigrant?
We encourage you to think about the language we use in describing others and ourselves, if only because Latino-Hispanic-Brown-Beaners seem to be particularly hard to define and, all at once, easy to label. Or, you know. Don’t think about it. After all. It’s a free country.
On the “Illegal Alien” [Mother Tongue Annoyances]
Earlier: For Illegals, Oklahoma Becomes The “Sooner You Leave, The Better” State
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awww, i feel your love guanabee. i really do!
As a person who has been constantly labeled since birth, I have to say that the issue with the phrase “Illegal Alien” is just a semantic one. In my opinion Illegal Alien is a neutral definition backed by the authorities in the matter (Webster Dictionary et all) It is not meant to dehumanize or humilliate anybody. It is not inflected with emotion or hatred. A person who is convicted of commiting a felony is called a felon. The law doesn’t call them “human beings who made mistakes” for the same reasons the law doesn’t call illegal aliens “unauthorized guests” or legal ones as “VIPs” or “on the guest list”.
Let me point out that while the media does like to bundle the issue of illegals and people of hispanic or latin ethnicity together, this phrase has nothing to do with ethnicity. If an Australian white dude, an Israeli jew or a (I don’t know what to call them) Greek, are here illegally, they are also illegal aliens under the definition of the law.
Miami, LA, and NY may have an illegal alien prob where most of these are hispanic, but the rest of the cities have a big problem with those of African, Middle Eastern, Slavic, even Asian origin. So there.
Yeah, its always a “big problem” when you have access to cheap labor and also a new growing market place to sell your cheap-labor products/services.
Cities with strict anti-immigrant laws in their books are having to quickly recall said laws because they are having negative affects on their local economies.
I’ll provide a link later, i’m off to dinner.
Or maybe Boricua Biatch is referring to all those murderous illegal aliens that are crossing the border to feed on the blood of the white-man.. What minutemen website do you read?
@ Boricua biatch: thank you for nothing. or rather, thanks for non specific generalizations and unenlightening half observations.
“Man does not speak because he thinks; he thinks because he speaks. Or rather, speaking is no different than thinking: to speak is to think.” –Paz
Nabruta:
What the fuck are you talking about? Are we talking about the semantics of a phrase and the wrong perception it only covers a particular ethnic group or about a chip on your shoulder? Maybe your comment which has nothing to do with what I commented is your attempt at keeping this focused on YOU. Yeah you are one of those, you troll sites and weirdly react to other posts just to try to get a pointless discussion going to entertain your lonely life. Well Nafea this is not about you OK? I was commenting on the fact that Illegal Alien is a genuine definition that given it is void of emotion is not denigrating, unlike my nicknames to you which are filled with disdain for someone who obviously doesn’t have a life and who thinks they own a particular thread. About your link, dude, are u kidding me? I think the editors of this blog have posted the story on repeated occassions, you are not the first one to read those articles.
Talking about the cheap labor you so celebrate, and this has nothing to do with the issue discussed originally, I don’t think that people getting paid slave wages and being abused because of their status is something to party about. I’ve seen ALLl of my ILLEGAL friends get hired because of their cheaper employment market price, work for three weeks only to be told on payday that their “papers” didn’t go through and they wont get paid PLUS if they report this employer (in my friends cases as hostesses for quite expensive restaurants) they’ll be reported. Hooray for cheap labor!!!
And a final thing Nanaca, not all illegall aliens cross the border, most of them arrive by plane legally with tourist visas and let them expire, becoming then illegal (911 anyone?) and some who are not technically illegal just find work, which they are not authorized to do by law in the first place, under the table (were they are also abused and underpaid, if paid at all) and just go back home every three months and come back a week later ala Pau Pau.
@ Boricua biatch: can you say “projecting”?
Nabruta:
What the fuck are you talking about? Are we talking about the semantics of a phrase and the wrong perception that it only covers a particular ethnic group, or about a chip on your shoulder? Maybe your comment, which has nothing to do with what I originally commented, is your attempt at keeping this focused on YOU.
Yeah you are one of those. You troll sites and weirdly react to other posts just to try to get a pointless discussion going in order to entertain your lonely life. Well Nafea this is not about you OK? I was commenting on the fact that Illegal Alien is a genuine definition that by being void of emotion is not denigrating, unlike my nicknames to you which are filled with disdain for someone who obviously doesn’t have a life and who thinks they own a particular thread.
About your link… dude, are u kidding me? I think the editors of this blog plus countless others have posted the story on repeated occassions, you are not the first one to read those articles, its old news.
Talking about the cheap labor you so celebrate, and this has nothing to do with the issue discussed originally, I don’t think that people getting paid slave wages and being abused because of their status is something to party about. I’ve seen ALL of my ILLEGAL friends get hired because of their cheaper employment market price, work for three weeks only to be told on payday that their “papers” didn’t go through and they wont get paid PLUS if they report this employer (in my friends cases as hostesses/waitresses for quite expensive restaurants) they’ll be reported. Hooray for cheap labor!!!
Lets not talk about the groovy circle of finding yourself in a foreign land with a dead end, less-than-minimum-wage paying job and no prospects for the future where you have to save and scrimp every dime and when you finally have enough cash saved being found out by la migra and sent back home with nothing but your shame. Hey you are right, that is not a big problem, that is a crisis.
And a final thing Nanaca, not all illegall aliens cross the border. Most of them arrive by plane legally (Heck! some even from non latin nations!!!,) with tourist visas and let them expire, becoming then illegal (911 anyone?)
And then some who are not technically illegal just find work, which they are not authorized to do by law in the first place, under the table (were they are also abused and underpaid, if paid at all) and just go back home every three months and come back a week later ala Pau Pau only difference is that she did have, until two weeks ago, a valid visa to work in this country (or did she?)
Back to you Nacaca: I guess you love illegals not because of sympathy for their plight but because they provide you with cheap labor. I bet you are also one of those who love the blanket term “latino” and don’t like “latinas” who don’t know their place in society and “act white” Like “who does that pinche guera think she eis?, she eint white” Right? Well repeat after me bitch, NOT ALL ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE LATIN OR HISPANIC OR BROWN AND NOT ALL BROWN LATIN HISPANICS ARE ILLEGAL.
To all the rest reading this long and winding post my apologies if I bored you.
BTW I have a slight suspicion that dancecontestwinner and Nanuta are the same person given the same pattern of idiocy and weirdly righteous argumentation that took place with other posters in the Guanabee post that begot this one. But of course only the editors of this site would know as IP addresses of commenters are instantly traceable.
@BB: Man! Since you have your trusty Websters handy, now look up ad hominem. Probs not in Webster, though.
wow. is the word “cuckoo” in the dictionary?
bat. shit. insane.
I don’t think we should lable immigrant’s particulars at all. Just let ‘em hang. If they’re female…well I don’t know.