From April 27, 2008
A Chicago Tribune news story talks about how interest among the various immigrant communities for marches for reasonable immigration reform has waned.
The huge marches of recent years were a short term success but a long term failure. They were a success in that they put a lot of bodies on the streets. They were poorly planned and conceived. Why? White America did not like seeing people carrying flags of other countries. Many who are not white but native born Americans felt the same way. America is about the melting pot. It’s not about coming to the USA and staking out your own little satellite country.
An instructive protest that effected real change was the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Injustices are the things that should be protested. A boycott is an effective way to answer an injustice. There are other answers to injustice that are effective. The November 1 moment of silence in answer to House Bill 1804 going into effect answered that unjust law with silent protest. Only after that moment did ordinary people come out of hiding to voice opposition to House Bill 1804. A few days later the silent majority of Oklahoma voters almost unanimously supported presidential candidates offering reasonable solutions to immigration rather than those who clamored anti-immigrant and often racist rhetoric.
I am waiting for the moment when someone in Oklahoma or somewhere else in the USA finds that injustice that so clearly defines the low point our country in how we treat immigrants. I am waiting for that response that so perfectly addresses the injustice the same way the Montgomery Bus Boycott did in 1955 and 1956.