Republican Racism Review: Immigration and a Black Thing

Real button handed out at the 2008
Texas Republican State Convention

If you start keeping your eyes open for them, there are a terrifying number of news stories about Republicans being racist:

• Ed Kilgore over at The New Republic makes an excellent point, the Republican primary isn't about the economy, it's about immigration.  Step out of line on that issue and the base will destroy any candidate.  And in today's Republican Party you know what "immigration" is a code for.

• Michele Bachmann is proposing that we simply deport everyone, which even if feasible would hit the US economy to the tune of $2.6 trillion dollars over the next 10 years.

• Newt Gingrich is getting heat for admitting during the last debate that illegal immigrants are still human beings and should be treated as such.  And keep in mind he's getting heat when his version of "treating them as human beings" is establishing volunteer 'citizen panels' that will decide whether they're important enough to the community to stay.  How could that possibly go wrong?

• And just in case you were thinking that Republicans obsession with immigration isn't about racism and xenophobia, the Alabama immigration law I've been harping on for the last month?  The one that would deny undocumented people water and unconstitutionally kick their children out of school?  Alabama Republicans are talking about repealing it now that a white immigrant accidentally got arrested under it.

• While I'm not sure I can help you if you still don't get it, a Texas teenager killed himself because he was worried his immigration status would prevent him from going to college and having a future.

• Meanwhile Republicans in North Carolina are attempting to repeal the state's historic death penalty law, which allows death row inmates to appealing their sentencing if they can prove that it was racially motivated.  And Herman Cain explains that racial profiling isn't like "driving while black" when the TSA does it, because we know what the terrorists look like.

• And with Thanksgiving quickly fading behind us, lets take a moment to consider Pat Robertson, who wondered on air "What is this Mac and Cheese is that a black thing?"  For the record Mr. Robertson, no it's not a black thing, and my grandma's is delicious.