The American Dream
So we passed the tax-cut bill and forwarded all of those deficit-causing tax breaks for the very wealthy and followed that with the failure of the Dream Act in the Senate. What are we thinking? Do we really want all of these immigrants to go home? Do we really think they will? Do we really want a whole segment of the population to remain ignorant? Why would we ever discourage children from furthering their educations? If it is about money, then why are we allowing the very rich to go on getting richer?
To fail the Dream Act is to say that we no longer have an American Dream. Pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps and getting ahead by sheer effort … isn’t that who we are supposed to be?
I am thrilled about “don’t ask, don’t tell” being repealed, and relieved about START passing, but they pale in comparison with the failure of the Dream Act.
The only conclusion I can draw is that we want immigrants to remain here in a slave state, ready to do our bidding for paltry wages but never welcome at the table of opportunity.
The Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP, said in his annual “No Room at the Inn” speech on Christmas Eve, “Let it not be said we made the same sinful mistake that the government of Herod made when he brutalized, separated, scapegoated and banned ‘those people’ — people who looked different than he.”
MARY M. DICKINSON
Winston-Salem
http://www2.journalnow.com/news/opinion/2011/jan/01/readers-forum-0101-ar-656094/
Published in the Winston-Salem Journal, 1/1/2011
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