In an attempt to placate House Representatives associated with the extremist House Immigration Reform Caucus who are looking for a reason to oppose health care, Congress has put African Americans at risk. It is not the role of Congress to promote anti-immigrant bigotry and further disenfranchise African Americans. It is a false remedy with serious side effects and must be rejected.

Under [H.R. 3200]--America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009- millions of African Americans could potentially be denied Federal payments for affordability credits. H.R. 3200, SEC. 246 (No Federation Payment for Undocumented Aliens) reads:

Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for the affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.

Neither SEC. 246 nor H.R. 3200 responds to the reality that 8.9 percent (or roughly 2 million) of all African Americans in the U.S. do not have a Social Security card, driver's license, passport, birth certificate, or other proof of naturalization, and would thereby be excluded from accessing Federal payments for affordability credits.

A 2006 study by the Brennan Center for Justice found that African-Americans were more than three times as likely as Caucasians to lack a government-issued photo ID, with one in four African Americans possessing no such ID. In 2006 the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities highlighted that 8.9 percent, roughly 2 million African Americans don't have a Social Security card, driver's license, passport, birth certificate, or proof of naturalization.

In 1950, Sam Shapiro, now Emeritus Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, conducted a case study for the journal Population Studies, and found that, due to segregation barring black children from being born in white hospitals, one-fifth of African Americans born from 1939-40 were never issued birth certificates.

It is important to note that the segregation of hospitals did not end until well into the 1960s. Segregation in Greensboro, North Carolina hospitals, for example, did not end until 1963, and as of June 23, 1966, only 20 percent of Mississippi's hospitals had been desegregated. By February 1967 less than half of all Mississippi hospitals had been desegregated, and by October 1969 the number had risen to only 78%.

Laws that have required proof of citizenship have been shown to have a significant negative impact on the African American community. Most recently, Tim Vercellotti, a professor at Rutgers University, found that 5.7% of African Americans are less likely to vote in states that require voter identification.

The phrase "first, do no harm" is often attributed to the Hippocratic Oath that doctors swear to before practicing medicine on patients. As Congress moves forward to address America's failing health care system they would do well to reflect on this saying over the coming weeks.

I first grieved when friends in Poland informed me of the passing of Marek Eldelman on Friday, October 3rd. Marek was one of the last known leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto resistance. From 1939 well into 1943, Marek and others fought against the eventual successful attempt by Nazis to liquidate the Jewish community that resided in Warsaw, including those who had been forcibly relocated.

Struggling as the population of the Warsaw Ghetto was reduced from half a million to less than 60,000, Marek and over two hundred others did what many European nations could not--for three weeks in April 1943; they physically defied the Nazi movement and its goal of genocide against the Jewish population. After surviving the battle, Marek took part in the Warsaw City Uprising. He explained his participation in the armed actions by telling the Associated Press in 2008 that "When you cannot defend freedom through peaceful means, you have to use arms to fight Nazism, dictatorship, chauvinism."

While Marek would have shunned the word "hero," as he felt the term should be reserved exclusively for those who were victims and survivors of the Nazi extermination camps, I can find no other fitting term for a man who continued to place himself in the trenches alongside those who suffered the abuses of anti-Semitism, racism and others forms of injustice. After the war, as a doctor and a member of the Polish democracy movement Solidarity, Marek continued to try to save lives until his last days.

While I grieve today I take immense comfort that Marek Eldelman outlived by several decades both the European Nazi movement that tried to murder him, on the streets of Warsaw, and the Stalinist government that imprisoned him afterward (indeed I celebrate this fact). Throughout his life Marek refused to refer to the battle of the Warsaw Ghetto as an uprising. For him the three week battle against Nazi forces was nothing more than culmination of years of resistance.

While reading newspapers and blogs this weekend, I read journalists referring to the "Warsaw Ghetto Uprising" as "hopeless," "a failed attempt," or a fight that was simply "in vain." These writers miss the point and do an injustice to Marek and the Warsaw Ghetto resistance.

Those in the streets of the ghetto did not resist fascism because they believed they would be victorious. Nor did they fight because they would face ultimate defeat.

The Resistance fought because it was simply the right thing to do. No more, no less. It is this truth that made Marek a real hero. Let us also hope that he was not the last of his kind.

In 1925 the white supremacist organization the Ku Klux Klan held its largest demonstration in the United States. Tens of thousands of Klan members marched down the streets of Washington D.C. The march was a call to war against immigrants, African Americans, and Catholics.

When it comes to white supremacy much has changed in nearly 85 years. After a devastating loss to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s it is no longer accurate to describe the movement as "supremacists" but rather "nationalists", yet some things do remain the same.

In 2009 the white nationalist movement spent September 12th marching on the nation's capitol railing against immigrants, Catholics, and the country's first Black U.S. President. Of course the racist caricature of the President of the United States as a "reverse minstrel" abounded while mainstream media chose to ignore the racist connotations of Obama as nothing more than man in Black Face. The blog Politico reports that pre-printed signs read 'Bury Obamacare with Kennedy' while the New York Times tells readers that despite the claims of being an "anti-tax" march many in the crowds carried anti-immigrant messages.

Now, coming on the heels of the march on Washington D.C., a group with ties to white nationalism, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) will enter the Capitol in an attempt to influence congressional lawmakers. In Special Bulletin: Pulling the Curtain Back on FAIR released in early September the civil rights organization Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reports that "From September 14-16, 2009, FAIR will host its annual 'Hold Their Feet to the Fire' conference, to broadcast its dangerously xenophobic message to Congressional Representatives and the American public."

Along with attempts to pressure Congressional Representatives, the FAIR event will include a "We the People" Awards and Reception to be held Wednesday, September 15th, 2009 from 7-9 PM at the National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C. The National Postal Museum is part of the Smithsonian Institution which can be reached at 202.633.1000. Allen R. Kane is the Director of the National Postal Museum. The reception will feature Lou Dobbs, a controversial CNN news host who has used white nationalist material in his "news" show and falsely accused immigrants of spreading leprosy in the United States.

While the ADL first expressed its concerns about FAIR in 2000, in 2007 the Southern Poverty Law Center listed FAIR as a hate group. The release of its September 2009 Special Bulletin joins a growing chorus of civil rights institutions who have expressed concerns about FAIR. Concerns include:

• FAIR sponsored advertising campaigns with John Vinson's American Immigration Control Foundation (according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Vinson is an advisor to the white nationalist Council of Conservative Citizens).

• FAIR solicited and received over $1.2 million from the white supremacist Pioneer Fund, a foundation that has a history of promoting the genetic superiority of white, European-Americans. The Pioneer Fund uses its financial largesse to fund groups who promote "race-betterment" - a controversial theory that claims there is a biologically-caused IQ difference between white and non-white people.

• In response to public concern and confusion about FAIR's solicitation of funding from the Pioneer Fund, FAIR president Dan Stein has been quoted as saying, "I don't give a shit what they do with their money, my job is to get every dime of Pioneer's money," according to an article published by The Progressive in 1993.

• Two of FAIR's former staffers have been associated with the Council of Conservative Citizens, the reconstituted, segregationist White Citizens' Councils. FAIR's former western field representative, Rick Oltman, is also listed as a member of the Council of Conservative Citizens.

• In 1997, FAIR (along with other extremist anti-immigrant groups) published an advertisement in the Citizens Informer, the flagship publication of Council of Conservative Citizens, to recruit supporters to attend its events.

• FAIR founder John Tanton works closely with Wayne Lutton to edit his publication, The Social Contract. Lutton is also a Board of Director for the Charles Martel Society, an anti-Semitic organization that publishes the Occidental Quarterly.

As the pivotal player in the John Tanton Network, a web of controversial anti-immigrant organizations orchestrated by John Tanton, FAIR pulls the strings of today's anti-immigrant movement. The civil rights organization, Center for New Community, based in Chicago says in a new release on its website that "the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) - while claiming to represent the 'mainstream' of the American anti-immigrant movement - is a carefully crafted entity whose mission is to achieve the goal of zero immigration to the U.S. by blaming immigrants as the cause of economic, population and environmental problems."

In 1924, as it marched on Washington D.C., the Klan used similar language to accuse Irish immigrants of destroying American culture and the economy. Today white nationalism merely exchanges the word "Irish" for "Latino" and white hoods for business suits.

Infamous Maricopa County Sherriff Joe Arpaio is more like the Southern arch-segregationist Bull Conner than Arizona or Homeland Security's Janet Napolitano wants to admit and it's time for Napolitano to pull the plug on 287g program. It does nothing to reduce crime and is being used as a tool to legitimize racial profiling. 

Many supporters of Arpaio and Janet Napolitano point to the most visual abuses that occurred at the hands of Conner and his lackey's, the turning of fire hoses on young children, to argue that there can be no comparison made between Arapio and Conner. What these supporters choose to ignore are 'Bull' Conner's attempts to silence his opposition. Such as his plan to force the New York Times into silence through legal wranglings, his efforts to intimidate local politicians and, as well documented in Spike Lee's documentary 4 Little Girls, Conner's willingness to turn a blind eye to the police brutality that occurred under his watch.

Eugene 'Bull' Conner, a Public Safety Commissioner and arch-segregationist, terrorized a large portion of Birmingham, Alabama from 1956 until April of 1963. We would all do well to remember that during that period fire hoses were only one weapon in his arsenal against human rights.

Like 'Bull' Conner, Maricopa County Sheriff Arpaio has attempted to silence his media critics. His false arrest of Phoenix New Times executives in October 2007 will eventually cost Maricopa County millions in legal costs. However this did not stop Arpaio's deputies in June of 2008 from attempting to harass a journalist from the very same paper.

Like 'Bull', Arpaio is not above intimidating public officials. In March of 2008, Arpaio went on a "fishing expedition" by filing a Freedom of Information Act request against public officials who dared to speak out against him. Police abuse exists as well, Maricopa County has paid out over $43 million dollars in settlements during Arpaio tenure due to inmate deaths and injuries. And like Conner, Arpaio is terrorizing a portion of the community based on their skin color.

At the end of day, Alabama and Arizona have three things in common: One, the unwillingness of media, business and political leaders to reign in an out-of-control public official. Two, a federal government that is unwilling to intervene to protect the basic rights of individuals residing in that state, and; finally a country that is watching in increased disgust.

One shouldn't wait until the fire hoses appear before we can acknowledge the disturbing similarities between two out of control public officials. What is at stake is not just a mere disagreement over tactics and law but the reputation and morality of the State of Arizona. It's time for Janet Napolitano to do her job and strip Arpaio of federal enforcment powers.

If smoking as many cigs as I can is the best way to get over my urge to smoke, than those who are convinced to prove that Obama is a "Muslim in disguised" have done one even better. Their massive email drives have single handily assured that I will never, ever, check my Yahoo email account again. Since the middle of August I have received, at last count, and sixty-eight emails pleading with me to understand that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim and might even be a follower of Islam too!

Granted I'm a survivor of what's left of the public school system in the United States, but I was always taught that being a Muslim means you are alread a follower of Islam. Like a good syndicated episode of the X-Files, my Obama is a Secret Muslim Friends (or OSMF as I like to refer to them) don't let a good conspiracy yarn get in the way of the facts.

From a sampling of these emails you would think that my OSMF had the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution incarcerated in Guantanamo while I was off sampling my 3 PM Gin Martini dry, stirred and three olives, if you're curious. Also, if you're wondering if all these rumors have any grain of truth to them, stay tuned readers, I have the real answer for you at the end of this blog.

While my unchecked Yahoo account continues to fill up with OSMF (I just received another while writing this) I want to suspend thisparticular fantasy and insert my own question. Is it the false belief that Obama is a secret Muslim that will drive support away from this particular administration or rather does the lie that Obama is a secret Muslim simply provide people the excuse they were looking for not to support him and his proposed policies?  Let's test it out.

Let's say that Obama was Muslim. What would be the big deal? We didn't have a problem when Muslims gave us free labor (it is estimated that nearly 13% - 20% of enslaved Africans in the America's were followers of Islam). We don't seem to have a problem with American Revolutionary War Hero Peter Salem being placed on a postage stamp. We didn't cry conspiracy when that Muslim country, called Morocco, stepped forward to be the first country to officially recognize the young fledging United States. Nor did we raise a big stink when Islam helped to influence America's very own, The Blues. I guess it's okay to be a Muslim in America as long as you don't run for President.  Seriously?

So after all of this, it still comes down to that one question I promised to answer: "Is Barack Obama Muslim?"

Does it really matter?

Our litmus test for our President should revolve around knowing if our vote counts, how we're going to put food on the table, how much we're paying for gas at the pump, and keeping our children in schools were the teacher doesn't have to work two jobs to survive. Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, or Baha'i (or no belief at all), we have more in common with each other than my OSMF.

That's because in our America, it's not the religious lines that increasingly concerns us, but the economic one.

On August 28, Cindy Carcamo of the Orange County Register wrote an insightful article called Groups mobilize for the next immigration battle. The article quotes Barbara Coe a member of the white nationalist Council of Conservative Citizens. Coe has referred to Mexicans as "savages" and immigrants as "barbarians."

As I sat down to write, I initially thought that I should use this blog to blast Barbara Coe for her relationship to organized racism. However, while I was pondering what to write I received a phone call from an old high school friend, Pam, who had read the same article.

Pam was spitting mad and wanted to know what she could do. She is a mother of two and works sixty hours a week as a florist. "I don't want these bigots to have the last word," she said to me as I heard her daughter in the background asking if she could have some juice. "I want to take their lemons and turn them into lemonade . . . so tell me what I can do Eric, but remember I don't have a lot of time!"

I agree with Pam. Time is of the essence and we should use it wisely. Instead of writing what I think of anti-immigrant bigotry I've decided to use this week to take action. Below I've outlined an action for each day of the week. You can take a bite out of bigotry in less than five minutes a day! Let's all join together and redeem the soul of America!

Write me and let me know how it went and what you thought. If you come up with your own list be sure to share it here at the Imagine 2050 blog as well. Print this post and pin it up on your wall, desk, or fridge.

MONDAY: Email this blog to six other people who you think might be interested. Write three short sentences telling all of them why you will be participating. Ask them to participate too, and reply to your email letting you know either way.

TUESDAY: Remember all of those times when Fox News host Glenn Beck made bigoted statements about immigrants? Beck may choose to forget but let's shows him we haven't. Beck is responsible for much of the anti-immigrant sentiment that has spread around the country. Over thirty companies agree with us and have stopped running their ads on the Glenn Beck show. Let's help Color of Change get the message out even more. Go to http://www.colorofchange.org/beck/ and add your name!

WEDNESDAY: What can I tell you about Lou Dobbs that doesn't already disgust you? Dobbs has falsely accused immigrants from Latin America of spreading Leprosy in the United States. When he got caught in his lies he simply lied again. CBS's 60 Minutes didn't buy his racist lies and neither do we. Now Media Matters is telling us that Dobbs will be participating in a national event organized by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a known hate group according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. It's time for CNN to take responsibility. You can read the short media release by clicking here. Now, go leave a comment for CNN President Jonathan Klein at http://edition.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form1.html?35. Tell him that you read the letter Media Matters sent to him, and you demand that he respond. Let Klein know that you are disgusted that CNN is willing to use bigotry to generate profits.

THURSDAY: Today we are going to show tangible support for those who have stood up against anti-immigrant bigotry. Twice in its recent history the Sierra Club has had to fight off anti-immigrant attempts to take over its well-respected environmental organization and corrupt its mission. In 1998 and in 2004 the Sierra Club drew a strong moral barrier against anti-immigrant racism. In recent days the Sierra Club has been targeted by anti-immigrant leaders still upset by the trouncing they took. One leader, Brenda Walker, went so far as to write an article on the white nationalist website VDARE attacking the Sierra Club for its commitment to diversity. Let's give a little love to the Sierra Club by taking five minutes to join the organization. Click here to join and let them know why! If you are already a member like me, give a gift membership to a family member or friend.

FRIDAY: Anti-immigrant Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been terrorizing members of the Latino community and their allies in Arizona under an agreement with Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano. America's Voice points out the Napolitano, appointed by President Obama, could stop the insanity at any time with a single stroke of her pen. People have died under his custody, he has raided the offices of a newspaper that exposed his brutality, and he marched Latinos down the middle of the street in chains. Click here at the website of America's Voice and send a message to Napolitano that "enough is enough!"

SATURDAY: Take five minutes to call a friend or family member. While catching up on the latest, be sure to spend five minutes telling them what you did this week to take a stand against anti-immigrant bigotry.

SUNDAY: Send me an email at imag2050@gmail.com. Let me know what happened and how it went!

I've argued publicly that the issue of immigration would someday reconfigure political movements in the United States. It is already becoming apparent that segments of the political left in cynicism and desperation are stumbling onto the twisted road of white nationalism. What remains to be seen is if they have the political will to find their way home again.

Sadly one of the greatest political newsletters and websites of our time CounterPunch seems to be caught in this web and unwilling to save itself or its reputations. Counterpunch, a bi-weekly newsletter with a web edition, is rightfully part of the historic tradition of muckraking journalism that takes to task both the Republican and Democratic parties.

While I celebrate CounterPunch for uncovering hypocrisy that exist in society and offering solutions that would rather be ignored by mainstream media, it is time for CounterPunch co-editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair to do some self-reflection and ask themselves why they choose to give voice to a supporter of white nationalism.

The Center for New Community is reporting that CounterPunch continues to allow Paul Craig Roberts to write for its newsletter. While Paul Craig Roberts is listed simply as "Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Ronald Reagan administration" his biography is a little more disturbing. What CounterPunch irresponsibly fails to inform its readers of is that Paul Craig Roberts is part of the editorial collective of a website known as VDARE.

VDARE, named for Virginia Dare allegedly the "first white child born in America," publishes the works of numerous white nationalists including Jared Taylor and the late Sam Francis. VDARE also features the anti-Semitic Kevin MacDonald a Long Beach, CA professor who accuses the Jewish community of conspiring to destroy the United States through immigration.

Joining Paul Craig Roberts on the editorial collective is Brenda Walker who wrote in a column on VDARE that Hmongs in America are "drug-addicted polygamists." Another editorial collective member Steve Sailer argued on VDARE following Hurricane Katrina that blacks rioted in New Orleans because of lower IQ scores.

Paul Craig Roberts' bio stretches further into the world of white nationalism. His writings appear in Chronicles: The Magazine of American Culture. The magazine is tied closely to the racist League of the South. Besides articles appearing in the white nationalist magazine Chronicles, Roberts writings appear in the weekly newspaper American Free Press run by Willis Carto. Before the name American Free Press the newspaper was known as Spotlight and was the flagship newspaper of the white supremacist movement until the late 1990s.

Why is Roberts writing for a man who has founded or was active in over a dozen far right organizations and once said "If Satan himself, with all of his super-human genius and diabolical ingenuity at his command, had tried to create a permanent disintegration and force for the destruction of the nations, he could have done no better than to invent the Jews."? More importantly why is CounterPunch allowing Roberts to write for them?

There is a shallow belief in segments of the left that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Sometimes however the enemy of your enemy is nothing more than a bigot. If anti-racism is a principle of the American left then Roberts is not our friend. It's time for Cockburn and St. Clair to dump Roberts from CounterPunch.

Critics should worry even more. In a recently surfaced memo, The Case for Passive Eugenics, Tanton argues for a softer, gentler eugenics movement because simply "Hitler's reign in Nazi Germany did little to advance the discussion of eugenics among sensitive persons." Tanton still serves on the board of his most influential organization - the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

Other items to surface in these newly uncovered Tanton memos include:

"I'm sure it will give you a new understanding of the Jewish outlook on life, which explains a large part of the Jewish opposition to immigration reform." - John Tanton promoting an article written by anti-Semite Kevin McDonald of Occidental Quarterly a vicious anti-Semitic journal [Source: Letter to Mrs. C.S. May, December 10, 1998].

"You are saying a lot of things that need to be said, but I anticipate it will be very tough sledding" - John Tanton writing to Jared Taylor of the white supremacist group Council of Conservative Citizens concerning Taylor's draft newsletter [Source: Letter to Jared Taylor, October 10, 1990].

"I've been a reader of your materials for some time, and hope that we can meet some day. Is there any chance that you could come up and join us?" - John Tanton inviting Wayne Lutton of the white supremacist group Council of Conservative Citizens to a FAIR event [Source: Letter to Wayne Lutton, June 10, 1991].

Over the last decade the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has argued vehemently that the charges of racism leveled against it and its front groups by such respected institutions, ranging from the Southern Poverty Law Center to the Wall Street Journal, were all patently false. In December 2007, when the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) added FAIR to their list of hate groups, the anti-immigrant organization responded with a statement of its own. While choosing not to respond to the charges convincingly laid out by SPLC, they did state - while maintaining a straight face - that "FAIR is highly respected for the very reason that it has always argued that immigration policy should not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion."

FAIR must have left that respect at the door when it allowed radio talk show host Doug McIntyre without interruption at the Fall 2005 FAIR Director's Meeting to rant the truth behind FAIR's political agenda:

"The brown toxic cloud strangling Los Angeles never lifts and grows thicker with every immigrant added. One can't help appreciate the streets of Paris will soon become the streets of LA. However, Paris' streets erupted while LA's shall sink into a Third World quagmire much like Bombay or Calcutta, India. When you import that much crime, illiteracy, multiple languages and disease-Americans pick up stakes and move away."

Perhaps FAIR forgot to pass the memo on to staff member, Rosanna Pulido, before she decided to tell an audience attending a debate on immigration what she really thought about the American Catholic Church:

"What better way to fill your pews and fill your offering coffers then with inviting in and giving sanctuary to illegal aliens? . . . The Catholic Church is not Catholicism. It has nothing to do with Christianity or the Bible." -Rosanna Pulido, FAIR Staffer, Chicago Public Radio, October 04, 2007)

While FAIR seems clearly offended by SPLC and the Wall Street Journal's criticism, no one at FAIR seems remotely offended by current board member John Tanton's outreach to white nationalists, the racist musings at its Director's Meeting, or the anti-Catholic bashing of it staff. In fact when it comes to cleaning their own house, the Federation for American Immigration Reform seems to be unable, or more frighteningly, unwilling to do the same. However, one thing has now become absolutely clear; While the Federation for American Immigration Reform may be against racism, it clearly doesn't have a problem associating with racists.

Can I ask you a question? Have you ever had one of those "just incredible weekends"? You know what I mean. The kind of weekend that makes you wish you had a three-day weekend. The type that makes you want to retire at forty, the sort of weekend you thank American organized labor for winning on our behalf.

I just had one of those weekends, and I'm still giddy about it so I feel the need to share. (Thanks in advance for being such a good listener, err I mean reader.)

I'm deeply in love and have been for nearly three years. Mia (that's what I call her) likes to travel. And it works well for us because I have to travel extensively for my job.

Last weekend found us in St. Louis, also known as "The Gateway City." St. Louis jazz is internationally famous and everyone knows if you haven't had St. Louis Barbeque, you never had real BBQ. The world famous St. Louis Arch also stands aside the mighty Mississippi river, symbolizing the geographic gateway between the eastern and western halves of the United States.

As Mia and I strolled along the cobbled streets by the waterfront, it occurred to me that St. Louis represents one of the best definitions of American identity. I mean what better examples than the symbolism of jazz and Barbeque to prove the potential power of E Pluribus Unum? And what better icing on the cake of what our country will be than an interracial couple strutting their stuff along the avenue to seal the deal.

It's times like these, when I'm feeling full of life that I like to remember the Americans who paved the way before me. There was such a couple who did that paving a little less than one hundred and fifty years earlier and I couldn't help but notice that, just a few blocks away at the old courthouse, they made their presence known.

Dred and Harriet Scott were Americans who were considered slaves because their ancestors came from Africa. The people who treated them like property made the great mistake of moving Dred and Harriet Scott to Missouri, a state that outlawed slavery. Eventually, the Scotts sued for their freedom. At first they lost, then won, and then lost again.

The case finally reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1857. The Court ruled against the Scott's and issued one of its most embarrassing rulings. The court argued, "that the black man has no rights that are bound to be respected by the white man." Eventually, Dred and Harriet Scott found their freedom, and on this incredible weekend the Scott's trial reminds me of how far we have come and how far we still have to go.

As me, a black man walking down the street deeply in love and hand in hand with my Lebanese and Jewish partner, I knew in my heart that St. Louis should be seen as more than just a geographic gateway. St. Louis should be celebrated as the city that represents the gateway between our American identity of yesterday and of today.

I think that would make Dred and Harriet Scott happy. And after 150 years, I'd like to think they've earned that right. In fact, I think that we all have.

Over the last six years it has become apparent that the anti-immigrant movement's new motto has become "all's fair in the name of bigotry and intolerance!" There is no moral line they're not willing to cross and the results have run the gambit of outright manipulation of data, by organizations like the Center for Immigration Studies, to recent attempts by anti-immigrant leaders to spread xenophobia by playing on public fears of Swine Flu.

An organization calling itself the Council of Seniors sent out a slick solicitation letter attempting to frighten senior citizens into sending $19.00. By simply filling the coffers of the Council of Seniors, elderly on fixed income (social security) can protect themselves from attack by Mexican President Felipe Calderon and his "gangs of Illegal Aliens . . ." says Council executive director, Carl Hagan.

While disgusting, it's not surprising to see anti-immigrant bigots become the snake oil salesmen of the new millennium. In short, selling remedies based on pseudo-scientific facts, hype, and sometimes outright lies. Lately the anti-immigrant movement has made it an art form. In attempting to manipulate our elderly, I thought anti-immigrant leadership had reached new lows. I was wrong.

The Center for New Community reports in the latest issue of FAIR Exposed that Peter Gadiel, president of 9/11 Families for a Secure America, is dabbling in his own version of Holocaust Revisionism. In an essay published April 29, 2009 on the white nationalist website VDare, Gadiel callously argues that the victims and survivors of Hitler's Nazi Germany are responsible for their own deaths. Referring to the millions of victims as "collaborators" Gadiel uses the story of his Jewish aunt to elaborate in his attempt at historical revisionism:

"Aunt Lotte was a collaborator in her own death. Not actively of course, but--like millions of others--her refusal to wake up and resist allowed Hitler to commit the mass murder of which she became a victim."

Gadiel then uses this pseudo-analogy to argue that by supporting realistic immigration reform that the Jewish community is no different than those who collaborated with Nazi Germany. Gadiel cynically chooses to ignore that the anti-immigrant National Origins Act of 1924 was passed partly to keep Jews fleeing increased anti-Semitism in Europe from reaching the shores of United States. The Act was finally overturned as part of the 1965 Civil Rights Movement by African Americans.

Gadiel's essay is simply the latest in a series of published attacks on Jewish institutions by anti-immigrant leaders with ties to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Gadiel is a former board member of FAIR and his organization 9/11 Families for a Secure America shares two advisors with FAIR.

Founded in 1979 by John Tanton, FAIR is a controversial organization with ties to political extremist. In 1995, Tanton himself supported Holocaust Denial. While writing about hate crimes Tanton said "These have generally been pushed by Jewish interests who are offended by those who have challenged the received version of the Holocaust."

Three years later Tanton was recommending the writings of another Vdare contributor, Kevin McDonald, writing to a funder that McDonald's writings ". . . will give you a new understanding of the Jewish outlook on life, which explains a large part of the Jewish opposition to immigration reform." McDonald, a professor at Cal-State Long Beach University, is an anti-Semite who, in a popular YouTube video, accuses the Jewish community of destroying America through immigration. MacDonald also writes for the anti-Semitic publication The Occidental Quarterly.

Whether exploiting vulnerable seniors, playing on flu fears or dabbling in anti-Semitism the anti-immigrant movement is signaling that they have no realistic solutions to propose to the complex issue of migration. More disturbing is that it has become clear that the anti-immigrant movement would refuse a realistic solution anyway.

This morning I came across a quote from the Christian Bible that says "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." The environmental movement, if it is to remain politically relevant, would do well to remember this in the coming years. Anti-immigrant bigots are once again targeting the green movement. Environmentalists' responses will impact the movement's relationship to communities of color for decades to come.

The controversial anti-immigrant organization, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), announced yesterday that it will be holding a "debate" called Immigration, Population, and the Environment. The event is to be held at the National Press Club, Tuesday, August 25, at 9:30 a.m. in the Murrow Room, Washington D.C. The Center for Immigration Studies is known for its ties to political extremists including white nationalists.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a national civil rights organization, in 2007 Mark Krikorian, executive director of CIS, spoke at the Michigan State University chapter of Young Americans for Freedom. That chapter has been named as a hate group by SPLC. At the time of Krikorian's speech, the Young American's chapter had been widely covered in the media for staging controversial events -- like "Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day," a "Koran Desecration" competition, and posting "Gays Spread AIDS" fliers on campus.

Krikorian seems not to care that he was part of a speaker's series that included Nick Griffin, a Holocaust denier who heads the British National Party, and white nationalist Jared Taylor of the revamped white citizens' councils of the segregation area. The Center for Immigration Studies also regularly circulates articles to its membership produced by the white nationalist website VDARE. VDARE is named after Virginia Dare, allegedly the first white child born in North America. It is not surprising that none of these relationships concern CIS when one looks at its founder.

The Center for Immigration studies was founded by John Tanton, who also founded the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). CIS is part of the John Tanton Network, a network of anti-immigrant front groups and spin-off organizations designed to give the illusion of being a mass movement. John Tanton's relationship to white nationalism has been covered extensively in the blogosphere.

CIS was created to serve as the pseudo-think tank of the Network. As Tanton said at the time, according to documents obtained by the Center for New Community, "[f]or credibility, it [CIS] will need to be independent of FAIR, though the Center for Immigration Studies, as we're calling it, is starting off as a project of FAIR." Even today, CIS continues to pretend as if it is a neutral beltway think tank instead of a strategic piece of the anti-immigrant network.

Two of the three panelists in the Immigration, Population and the Environment "debate", sponsored by CIS, have deep relationships with the John Tanton Network. Philip Cafora works with CIS and is a co-author of its recent paper entitled "The Environmental Argument for Reducing Immigration to the United States." According to Mickey Fitzpatrick, M.A., who teaches and studies as a doctoral student at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, "Dr. Cafora posits in his writings a controversial belief that immigration and immigrant rights impinges on his (and others) freedom to lead his understanding of a good and virtuous life." It also appears that underlying Cafora's philosophy is a belief that there is a "moral obligation to protect such a way of life by arguing that a reduction in immigration not only protects the environment and its resources (which he believes are burdened by immigrants), it also fosters the "good life" as he and others know it," Fitzpatrick notes. The gist - bashing immigrants is the way to maintain the "good life."

Also participating in the three person panel is Don Weeden, the executive director of The Weeden Foundation. The media release by the CIS fails to mention that Weeden's foundation has funded CIS since at least 2002 and that the foundation's president sits on the board of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) from which CIS was created. In addition, the Weeden Foundation consistently funds Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS). CAPS staffer Rick Oltman was a former regional director for FAIR and was also named as a member of the white nationalist Council of Conservative Citizens.

To give the panel a veneer of respectability CIS has invited respected environmentalist Andrew Light to participate at the event. Light is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Director of the Center for Global Ethics at George Mason University. Let's hope that Light knows better than to share a platform with groups and individuals associated with white nationalists.

Environmental organizations cannot afford to remain silent in the face of anti-immigrant activists who are attempting to speak on its behalf. Local and national environmental leadership should see these resurgent attacks as an opportunity to speak out aggressively against organized bigotry.

Thirty years ago moderates within the Republican Party remained on the sidelines as radicals drove a so-called Southern Strategy steeped in anti-black racism. Today, the Republican's shrinking membership is quickly sending the GOP into political irrelevancy. Now rejected by most people of color because of their relationship to bigotry, Republicans have a shrinking base from which to grow. If the environmental movement continues to allow the John Tanton Network "to walketh about within its midst", its fate will surely be the same.

On a Monday morning one of my school mates whispered that the previous weekend neo-Nazis protested against Jews and blacks in one of the parks that we passed along our way to school and that it had been in the paper. No one really talked about it much, and I'm sure that the conversation quickly turned to our favorite television shows, but from that day forward this park took on a sinister form in my mind.

While the conversation ended, I never forgot it. I also never ventured into that park even though I lived in Long Beach another eleven years. Who would have ever thought that a small group of neo-Nazis would succeed in limiting my America? At age eleven I was already being taught who was an American and what America should look like- in short - a lesson in belonging.

I've always been hesitant about sharing this story beyond a few of my closest friends. Mainly, I've always thought that people would respond to my story with "it was just a few malcontents," and "there was no need to take them seriously." I think that the recent media coverage to the assassination plot against presidential candidate Barack Obama proves me right. The problem wasn't the neo-Nazis in the park; the problem is the unwillingness of America to take them seriously.

According to the Jackson-Sun, "Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman planned to go state to state to kill 88 people and behead 14 black people, according to federal authorities". To neo-Nazis, 14 means the number of words in a defining statement about protecting the white race and preserving its future. Eighty-eight means the letter H twice - as in "Heil Hitler." Afterwards, according to the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms), Cowart and Schlesselman planned on targeting presidential candidate Barack Obama.

While the public, political pundits, and even some law enforcement officials have been quick to downplay the actions of Cowart and Schlesselman using words such as "unlikely," "unsophisticated," and "bizarre", these individuals are making a case for who they believe is an American. I can't help but think back to 2006 when seven men who thought they were working with al-Qaida (but in actuality an FBI informant) were arrested in a plot against Chicago's Sears Tower.

I can't help but to ask if Coward and Schlesselman had been self-proclaimed Muslims would these same political pundits and law enforcement officials find themselves so blasé? Would the public write it off as "stupid kids who weren't serious?"

Doubtful.

This double standard says much about identity in America and who has the right to belong. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, hate crimes targeting those perceived to be Muslim or Arab soured in the United States. Taxi drivers were assaulted, children were harassed and Muslim religious sites in the U.S. were vandalized.

Six years earlier on April 19, 1995 a young man by the name of Timothy McVeigh, who self-identified as a "white Christian", drove a truck bomb into a federal building killing 168 people and injuring over eight hundred. I often ask my friends who identify as "white," or "Christian" if they felt unsafe sending their children to school, or nervous about going to work, or attending church because they thought they might be targeted by those upset at Timothy McVeigh. All agreed that they never even considered themselves in danger for being associated with Timothy McVeigh.

At the end of McVeigh's trial, one of the jurors expressed this sense of belonging by saying that she "had the hardest time convicting McVeigh, he seemed like he could be my next door neighbor or someone I would let date my daughter." In the recent assassination plot against Barack Obama and the targeting of over 100 African Americans these same sentiments were expressed when Lacy Doss, a former classmate of Cowart's said, "He was a nice person, to me anyway."

Deep down the majority of the American public is willing to make allowances for those they believe belong. As a young black child on his way to school, I always wished that this same American public would let me belong by taking these threats seriously, too.

When I was born my parents were solidly working class, but by the time I was seven I was living in a working poor household that struggled to survive from paycheck to paycheck. This was the plight of our surrounding neighbors as well, and while there is absolutely nothing romantic about poverty, it does create its own community. People must depend on one another and they must build community to survive. Growing up in Long Beach, poverty placed me in a situation where I lived amongst and interacted with multiracial America first hand. My friends were black, white, Latino/a, Cambodian and Samoan.

Typically there are two types of discussions about American identity that take place in mainstream society. On one side you have the argument that there is nothing redeemable about the United States or the concept of America. This argument is typically filled with despair, condemnation, and cynicism. On the other side you get a plastic patriotism that chooses to ignore current reality and history. Neither speaks to the complexity and depth of American identity-an identity that continues to be strengthened not only on a political level but on the streets of America as well.

A new lit review has hit our streets and it brings the often ignored voices of America right back into the dialogue. Criminal Class Review has just released its third volume showcasing voices that are often ignored and marginalized. The voices are welcoming, biting, crazy and sane. They are like old familiar friends reminding me of the rich layers of my life. It would be to simple to call Criminal Class Review contributors writers, rather they are American folk artists reminding us that most people are simply trying to live their lives and raise their families. From Poetry Sucks by Saint Johnnie Walker to For the Love Needles by Bucky Sinister, issue one of Criminal Class Review reminds us of families and communities that are formed and tested on the streets of America. Often these are stronger than the institutions that surround them.

Often I find that people are surprised about my background and childhood, assuming that I grew up middle class. Perhaps it is because, like Obama, I am bi-lingual in that I speak two languages--the English of white America and the English of black America. Perhaps it is because my musical inclinations run the gamut from jazz to punk to reggae to country to hip hop. Or perhaps people like to see me in a way that makes them more comfortable, a reverse stereotype that refuses to accept that the poorest, the untouchables, the ignored and the criminals have nothing of any real worth to add to the grand experiment that is America.

Not many of my childhood friends made it out of Long Beach. Some succumbed to suicide, drug overdoses, and prison. Most are now fading memories of yesterdays. However, it is amongst those memories that I came to understand my Americaness. How much stronger a nation we might be if those voices could be heard by everyone.

I'm African-American and my family moved to California almost a hundred years ago after a lynching took place outside their hometown in Kentucky.

I'm also undocumented, or in the current anti-immigrant vernacular, "illegal."  I don't have the necessary documents to prove my identity.  Therefore, within four years, I won't be able to vote, have access to social services, or receive state identification to travel.

Let's start from the beginning:

In May 2006, I lost my passport and Social Security card at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (I don't have a driver's license because of a visual disability).  When I went home to Chicago, I learned that in order to receive a state identification card, I needed to obtain a certified copy of my birth certificate, which allows me to apply for a Social Security Card to replace my passport.

Later in the week I contacted the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder and was told that in order to receive my birth certificate, I needed to present a copy of my passport, or driver's license, to verify I was, in actuality, Eric K. Ward.

Since it was obvious, after twenty minutes of discussion, that I didn't own a driver's license, a passport, or a social security card, they told me to fill out the proper forms in front of a notary public in Chicago.  I quickly opened the phone book and had a co-worker drive me to a notary public. But when I got there, the notary public said I needed a passport, social security card, or driver's license to receive an official notary seal.

Lucky for me (when I'm in a pinch) I can become very persuasive. And since I had a number of newspaper articles with photos documenting my identity, the notary public accepted my articles with somewhat dubious satisfaction. Next, before anyone could change their minds, I walked next door to the Post Office and happily mailed my documents to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder and went on with my life.

Four weeks later my birth certificate arrived!

But when I arrived at the Post Office to pick it up, the attendant asked me to produce a passport, driver's license and, most ironically, a copy of my birth certificate to obtain my birth certificate.  After waiting an hour and pleading with two supervisors, I'm proud to say that I now possess a certified birth certificate!

I wish I could say everything went smoothly from this point on, but the adventure only began and came to a screeching halt within a week.

A few days later I headed to the Social Security Administration to obtain a replacement social security card.  But when I got there, the Social Security Administration said I needed more than just a copy of my birth certificate. They said I also needed a passport, driver's license, or state identification card to prove my identity.

But since I went to the Social Security Administration to obtain a new copy of my social security card so I could get a new passport, the Social Security Administration didn't know what to do with me. So, they told me to head across town to the Illinois Secretary of State's office to get my social security card. But when I arrived, the Illinois Secretary of State's office said I needed my social security card to obtain any official document to prove my identity.

For nearly two years I was stuck in a Catch-22 and I'm not alone in this predicament.  Almost nine percent of African Americans (18 or older) are unable to document their citizenship. * Roughly 2 million African Americans, eleven million native born citizens, and nearly twice as many low income Americans than citizens with higher incomes don't have a social security card, driver's licenses, passport, birth certificate or proof of naturalization. *

In 1950, Sam Shapiro, now Emeritus Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, conducted a case study for the journal Population Studies, and also found that, due to segregation barring black children from being born in white hospitals, one-fifth of African Americans born between 1939-40 were never issued birth certificates.

When you correlate Shapiro's figures to the 2000 US Census Data on African American Population by Age, Shapiro's figures show that by 2010, nearly half-a-million elderly African Americans born before 1941 may loose their right to vote and access to federal services.  Remember, this is only for African Americans born before 1941!

Most recently, Tim Vercelloti, a professor at Rutgers University, found that 5.7% of African Americans are less likely to vote in states that require voter identification.  And let's not forget, voting is a right African Americans struggled to secure for all American citizens.

If U. S citizens don't have the "required" documents to prove their identity, an increasingly large portion of U.S. citizens will be denied access to social services and the right to vote at the federal, state, and local level.

For example, in 2006, officials in Maricopa County, Arizona denied almost 5,000 US citizens the right to vote because they didn't have the "required" documents.  In 2005, The Draft Reduction Act denied anyone re-applying for Medicaid who didn't posses the same "required" documents.  And by 2010, the Federal Election Integrity Act (passed in 2006) will deny all American citizens the right to vote if they're can't produce the "required" documents.

What are the "required" documents?  You guessed it: a passport, birth certificate or proof of naturalization.

Why is this happening?

Strict ID requirements that target immigrant and refugee communities also target African Americans, poor, and elderly communities. Federal, state, and local laws that attack undocumented immigrants and refugees threaten Americans' voting rights, the right to travel without fear of imprisonment, and access to social services.

Anti-immigrant activists say strict ID requirements are a necessary burden that folks should be happy to shoulder in the fight against "illegal" immigration. But that's pretty easy to say when you're not African American, poor, or a member of the elderly community.

As African Americans we should be deeply concerned about the ongoing attack on immigrants and refugees. Why?

We know what it's like to be second-class citizens--and it's about to happen again.