Bil, I think your reply is perfect. It's a shame you had to write it.

What an offensive email. I had to insist that one of my adoptive siblings take me off of her group email list because she regularly send out stuff that bothers me on religious and political issues.

Some people are just damn stupid.

Seriously, I thought I was going to click after the jump and see a swastika. I totally thought that was the punchline.

And yet....

You know Bill I received this same email from one of my less enlightened correspondents and I took it as an opportunity to remind the sender (and all she had sent it to as well *bonus*) that the next pandemic disease does not care who is stateside legally or not. The A hole wearing the shirt just could have sent out the means of killing his own children and grandchildren.

I have to respond to this.

I lived in Mexico for a year and a half with a trans friend and her family. Where we lived was not at the touristy spots like Puerta Vallarta or Cancun. It was in an impoverished area that gave me a new perspective of being poor.

Transpersons in particular have to leave Mexico just to survive. While there I learned of an attack on a transwoman where the perpetrator amputated both her legs and left her for dead. The police are no help. In fact a policewoman attacked my friend.

Trans persons almost have to come to the USA just to be able to live. And yet they have little opportunity to work and have to turn to sex work. It was this work that led to the murder of my young friend in August 2004.

And, yes. I believe no one is illegal. Undocumented perhaps, but not illegal.

That friend of Bil’s embodied the authentic voice of racism and union busting. "Illegal", as used to describe imported and immigrant workers, has evolved into a racist term used to race bait imported and immigrant workers. Racists and national chauvinists have used language like that from colonial times for economic reason: to steal land from native Nations, promote slavery and super exploit successive waves of immigrants from Ireland, Italy and Europe west of the Oder.

Just for perspective, Euroamericans are in the Americas illegally. That's the point of view of native Nations who, in a fit of misplaced humanitarian sentimentality taught European illegals how to survive and the importance of basic hygiene like bathing more than annually. What a screw up that turned out to be.

Now imported and immigrant workers from Latin America are doubly exploited by business owners, paid low wages and denied the benefits other working people take for granted. At least we took them for granted until Clinton, Bush and Obama began busting unions and cutting social programs and welfare in earnest.

For unions the effort to gain basic rights for immigrant and imported workers is a question of basic solidarity.

As a naturalized U.S. citizen and a Latino transman who grew up first overseas and then later in the South beginning in the early '60s as racism and ethnic or status profiling was HOT and segregation still ruled the schools and the nation, I sure do understand every single comment in this thread.

Bil, your passion is right and the language you used wasn't your point. I adore you, my brother. As for the semantics correctors, I see your point, too, but I hope you'll set down your red pen and hear the roots of the passion and sentiment, not the words used. Bil raising being gay was saying, "I understand; I empathize." He wasn't saying that immigration status is race. Get beyond the words and then education and understanding can be enriched.

Also, there is a key point yet to be made, which is the key reason I'm posting this. People clearing out a room when someone displays a fake badge doesn't mean that they are not here legally. It means that there is a risk of a pending confrontation or problem, and we who are not -- WHATEVER -- rarely win outright when there is a confrontation. So, we usually take the option for less drama. Wearing fatigues and a fake badge (shame on that felonious person who did that) as described might be interpreted to mean "I don't have to know ANY OF YOU PEOPLE to dislike ALL OF YOU PEOPLE."

In New England and in U.S. history, we are familiar with the phrase "Don't tread on me." This is a little like that. For we who bear enough struggle just getting through our days, we tend not to want to invite unneeded struggle unless there is a point to it, a principle (Hello, Rosa Parks and Bayard Rustin). ERs often have too few providers and they are focused on triage. They're saving lives at medical risk. They can't watch out for people who hate or threaten folks in a waiting room. It'd be too much to ask.

In the South, we used to call the ER scenario described as 'borrowing trouble,' and we have more than a bodyful of lessons from our elders warning us NOT to do it -- "Don't borrow trouble."

So, just because people left the room didn't mean that they were not here legally. It meant that they knew well enough not to borrow trouble because really, they were just seeking care not trying to make a statement on principle. That's just my humble lens.

Keep the passion and principle high, but please know that many of us of color or who are possibly visibly different or unexpected (gender identity and expression included) do not borrow trouble unless we're willing to die for it - and perhaps some of the people who walked out of that ER actually did, unfortunately.