Friday, May 11, 2018

Dear General Kelly

Dear General Kelly,

You recently made some - well, I'll say "interesting" since it's more polite than "fucking stupid" - remarks about undocumented immigrants in the United States:
  1. They are "overwhelmingly rural people" who would not "easily assimilate...into our modern society."  (I wonder what American farmers would think about that.  If they were paying attention.)
  2. They come from "fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade educations".  (Which makes them better educated than your boss.)
  3. "They don't speak English; obviously that's a big thing."  (Obviously.)
  4. "They don't integrate well..."  (With people like you calling the shots, I'm wondering why they should want to.)
  5. "...they don't have skills."  (As defined by the urbane, educated, skillful person who spends his days kissing a monkey's butt.)
I'm racking my brain here to think of how the people you are describing differ from my Sicilian immigrant great-grandparents.  And the answer is:  they don't.  But - surprise! - my family managed to (eventually) assimilate quite nicely.  My daughter attends the University of Chicago and my son is at Harvard. 

Some things take a little time.

When you're done congratulating yourself on the accidents of history that bequeathed your Irish immigrant ancestors the ability to speak English, maybe you could work on learning a skill.

Like compassion.

Third-generationally yours,

Underemployed


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