Not everyone thinks this, but I know an extreme right-winger who thinks this. He is also a conspiracy theorist who thinks non-white people are out to get white people so, yeah, odd.

Not every immigrant is illegal or bad. I know a girl who didn’t speak English for 3 years when her family legally immigrated, so of course she’s been told this.

  • The Quuuuuill@slrpnk.net
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    5 days ago

    someone called my Ukrainian coworker a wetback.

    i just… want you to think about that and what it says about how dumb bigots are

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      I feel both superior and stupid at the same time in this moment. I don’t know what a “wetback” is. Based on context I’m going to guess it’s some kind of racist remark that doesn’t apply to Ukrainains. But for the life of me, I can’t think of what it would even be saying.

      So I feel stupid for not knowing…but also like I’m probably the better person for NOT knowing.

        • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          A thousand guesses, and I would have eventually landed on it being against Latinos (necause there’s only so many races). But I never would have correctly guessed the Rio Grande part.

          That’s some very very specific racism right there.

          • atro_city@fedia.io
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            5 days ago

            Biologically, there are no multiple human races. There is a single human species. Socially, there are an infinite number of races.

            The concept of race is foundational to racism, the belief that humans can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another.

            wiki

            The use of races to distinguish people socially is playing right into the racists’ playbook by forcing you to play on their turf, where reason is out of the window.

      • TootSweet@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Unfortunately I’m familiar with the term. It refers to Latin people immigrating into the U.S. without documentation by swimming across the Rio Grande river which forms part of the border between the U.S. and Mexico.

    • ABCDE@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      So… looking at the context and the intent, is it pure racism even if they didn’t come up from the south? It’s bigoted, I guess?

    • DigitalNirvana@lemm.ee
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      4 days ago
      1. Not all US cirizens feel this way. Convict47 won by 1.5%, with 19 million less voters Thant the previous time. Voter suppression won this election.
      2. And for the ones that feel this way, you’ve got it absolutely right, plain old ignorant racism.
  • Limonene@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    A lot of people are influenced by alt-right news (Fox News, Newsmax, OAN) who keep repeating the false claim that undocumented immigrants are mostly gangsters and violent criminals. In truth, undocumented immigrants are way less likely to commit a violent crime than an average American citizen.

    Trump said, regarding the first deportation flight:

    Three hundred people sitting on a plane. Every single one of them is either a murderer, a drug lord, a kingpin, the head of the mob, or a gang member

    Yet none of those deportees had any criminal conviction in either country (according to Newsweek, a slightly-right news source).

    • 100@fedia.io
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      5 days ago

      remember: oligarchs are the real criminal enemy, not your fellow 99.9%

  • Dasus@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    “Shouldn’t that logic apply to…”

    One must remember that people aren’t logical. They’re hypocritical and willfully ignorant.

  • thezeesystem@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    5 days ago

    American fascism doesn’t care what’s true or what’s right. It cares only to kill and enslave people who are “undesirable”

  • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Because they’re stupid, bigoted cunts. I IT in construction (somehow still, whew thats another story) and I talk to these troglodytes on a daily basis. The minute one of these homunculus shambles in and has a minute to flap their lip skins racist ass, stupid ass shit flows out. Meanwhile, every gentleman that is of Mexican descent can at least hold their cool, or outright flipoff the trump cutout my boss has up in our office. Not saying they aren’t imperfect humans either, but for some fucken reason white dudes can’t help but drop the mask to other white dudes. All I gotta do is have one Trump trinket near me to work magic on anyone conversing with me. The trick is, a lot of the immigrant dudes didnt start flipping Trump off until he actually began this deportation shit. Even when he was saying he’d do it they were saying he’d fix stuff. Its a people thing man idk. Education in the western hemisphere is just utterly failing most. If you aren’t a knowledge seeker, if you dont have the tools to combat propaganda and falsehoods, and sometimes even if you do, this place will eat you.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Because they’re stupid, bigoted cunts.

      I feel like you could have said just this. Not saying the rest of your post is invalid in anyway. I’m just saying that first sentence sums it up completely.

  • Briaaahn@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    Id say about 90% of folks that push for this dont understand how our immigration/asylum system works other 10% would be hateful racist. In my experience, if you reply with yeah this is a problem we need to change how it works so people arent forced to do illegal things, they will tell they just dont want them here. Its not about coming in illegally its about non white people coming here. We really need reform. Your friend is on very sad and dangerous path.

    • TheTwelveYearOld@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Id say about 90% of folks that push for this dont understand how our immigration/asylum system works other 10% would be hateful racist.

      It feels like the percentages are the other way around.

  • reksas@sopuli.xyz
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    3 days ago

    those people are looking for something to hate. This is also why those kind of people are deadend for humanity. If they get rid of all immigrants they will find some other group to hate and after getting rid of those they will find another again until there are only 2 people that want to kill eachother, if you excuse the hyperbole.

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    4 days ago

    You assume logic is behind their reasoning, that’s where you went wrong

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Oh i have no doubt they tell native Americans to go back where they came from. Especially folks like Tejanos who speak Spanish and used to be Mexican.

  • eronth@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Short answer is “propaganda”. News agencies against immigration will pretty regularly swap between “illegal immigrants”, “immigrants”, and <insert current target race here> as if they’re practically interchangable to build whatever narrative they want, and also to slowly build an association between ‘people of <insert race>’, ‘being a drain on society’, and ‘being here illegally’ to get the average person to side with them.