Scott Douglas on Colbert: "HB 56 Is A Threat To Me And All Americans"
Scott Douglas, Executive Director of Greater Birmingham Ministries, nailed it on the Colbert Report, Monday night not only in diction but also in tone, as he made his case against HB 56. Sometimes people try to go on Colbert and be funny, but it's hard to outfunny Colbert. It's better to just play it serious and let Colbert be the comedian, and Scott Douglas did that ">just as he said he would. More important, were his profound words which were almost always applauded by Colbert's audience.
Here are Colbert's questions and Douglas's responses which elicited applause from the audience:
STEPHEN COLBERT: We don't want the feds marching into Alabama. They did that 150 years ago. It didn't work out too well.
SCOTT DOUGLAS: The point is that Alabama should not be joining one of those states that has its own state immigrant law. We don't need 50 immigrant laws across the United States of America. We need one comprehensive law that's just and fair for everyone. (APPLAUSE)
[...]
COLBERT: But why as an African-American would you be fighting for the Latinos? Because they didn't fight for you guys.
DOUGLAS: This is Martin Luther King's birthday celebration and he famously says, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." And HB 56 is a threat to me and all Americans. (APPLAUSE)
[...]
COLBERT: Are things so good for black people in Alabama that you can turn your focus to Latinos?
DOUGLAS: African-Americans can never forget how hard we toiled to gain the rights we now have, and how far we've got to toil to gain even more. We know the path we had to trod and we're trying to be in solidarity with these people as they face this stage of this abuse. (APPLAUSE)
The Colbert Report (16 January 2012)
That last question was especially difficult to answer, much less in such a succinct fashion, and I hope folks in the pro-migrant movement will join me in thanking Douglas for his courage and eloquence. Douglas' interview builds nicely on my comments, on MLK day. As an African-American and the leader of a historic civil rights organization, in an area with a lot of civil rights history, he's one of the few that can make the connection between MLK and the civil rights movement and the pro-migrant movement. I would also recommend reading Alfredo Gutierrez, former state senator in Arizona, who eloquently describes the differences between civil disobedience during the civil rights era, and the current pro-migrant iterations of civil disobedience.
The only very small qualm I had with both Scott Douglas and Stephen Colbert is that they suggested that unauthorized migration is a crime, when the vast majority of unauthorized migration is prosecuted by the federal government as a civil violation. This is an important distinction to make because there are nativists who want to make unauthorized migration a crime, which would be a disaster for public safety. Furthermore calling unauthorized immigration a "crime" and unauthorized migrants "illegal immigrants" effectively denies unauthorized migrants commit crimes at lesser rates than the native population.
I pray my herman@s in Alabama keep up the good work and are ultimately successful in repealing HB 56. If you haven't signed the Presente.org petition against HB 56 please do so.
Kyle de Beausset is a pro-migrant blogger at Citizen Orange.
Colbert's always @ his best when he lampoons how right-wing blowhards and their doublespeak talking points actually shatter like glass when hit up against the concrete of the Real World. He's only saying what every thinking person, liberal, centrist, and conservatives with conscience, have been saying since this country's inception. How in God's name anyone who isn't a pure-blooded Native American in descent can claim to be the 'true' or 'real' Americans is just nonsense when none of us are in fact 'native' to the U.S. at some point in our lineage.
Its why we're the most racially and ethnically diverse nation in history and will only continue to further assimilate and prosper this way by default; Immigration is of course, not just American history, its WORLD history, period. Wish people would get with the 21st century and leave the nativism and Social Darwinian world views to the lions & tigers & bears....
President Obama is like the AHCA his administration miraculously passed: marginally helpful, efficient enough to be built upon, and will only become a uniform disaster if Republicans win 2012 & repeal it (with all the other good he did)!
..comprehensive law that's just and fair for everyone". well said Scott Douglas. Gets us right back to the old 'States Rights' argument that is always a good dog whistle in the southern states.
The Constitution grants sole authority to the federal government on matters of immigration—except where the federal government explicitly devolves them. In the words of U.S. Attorney William Orrick, “It is important that the country speak with one voice on immigration.”
OK, and now it’s getting stranger yet with Colbert.
For some reason (lol) a new PPP poll has included a hypothetical run by Stephen Colbert for President, AS AN INDEPENDANT! ..
Against Obama and Romney, Colbert polled at 13%. Some of it could have been a deliberate skew from the right to try and encourage a 3rd party run. But the Independents gave him his best numbers, and the demographic tabs sorting out the responses in this poll are not exactly the results I expected.
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/P...
Now I do love the Colbert Report, but this is getting seriously confusing.
I have watched him morph from Private Person -> Corporal Punishment -> Sergeant AtArms -> Lieutenant Governor -> Captain America -> Major Mistake -> Colonel Kurtz to what now seems to be General Mayhem.
You KNOW his character will take these poll numbers and massage the hell out of his ego (w/ happy ending) tonight or tomorrow night. So where the hell is this going?
I foresee a mockumentary of Colbert’s qualifications, funded by his super Pac. It will be WAY over the top, and pre-mock the inevitable docu-drama-mentary campaign ads that are going to be released in the fall by each candidates PACs.
Wall Street is just a parasite on the actual labor and investments of average Americans.
Banks play with futures, debt paper, complex financial instruments, and other peoples incomes.
Sell 'em short & help 'em crash - Tear 'em apart & sell the pieces
Yes.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
That's what caught my eye/ear too. I'm tempted to mention the injustice of the NDAA here, but I'll refrain.
far left loon >.<
As Martin said, the root of all our ethnic and societal problems is economic injustice. That is what Blacks in America have in common with Latinos. The same shadowy forces of economic aristocracy are pitted against both, and against all 99 percent of the world's population.
The ruling minority's greatest enemy is our ability to see beyond the false prides of race, religion, nationality and culture. The common denominator of all these things is compassion. The world has enough for everybody, if we decide to share.
Too many people have died for the sake of false pride, or for a taste of what others would not share. Before you take it from the other side, just remember why so many died, and if your mind can see the reason, ask a stranger what's fair.
This interview is a far cry from the "I got mine, feck everybody else" crowd, that is today's conservative.
Colbert did an excellent job making this point.
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
...like baptizing babies?
Ed-words
First - Colbert is the best and keeps getting better by the day. They left out discussion on the real economic disaster that laws like HB 56 cause to the economy, but there's only so much you can fit in a few minute interview....
but let's get to the issue I have with this crap post by Kyledeb....
illegal versus 'unauthorized'? is something that's a 'civil violation' not illegal?
Definitions of the word "illegal" -
Last time I checked there are laws against overstaying visas or entering a country without 'authorization'... meaning it is illegal... meaning it is "illegal" immigration.
You can make up new words, but its still against the law (maybe not a felony, but its still breaking the law.... speeding and jay walking are also forbidden by law, they are illegal....)
If the author of this post wants to live in a fantasy land and pretend that immigrating (or migrating for that matter) to a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country is not illegal, then we really shouldn't take much of anything he or she says with any weight.
Which leads me to my final appeal to the people who run this website:
**Please stop letting this clown post on this website!**
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