“Allyship” and “advocacy” have become huge buzzwords in 2019 among white Democrats, especially with the growing crisis at the US-Mexico border.
However I am becoming increasingly concerned with the abuse of privilege and platforms I am seeing among white Democrats in their interactions with immigrant groups.
Recently, a new candidate for Congressional District 4 announced her campaign at a rally intended to be about the crisis undocumented immigrants are facing at our border. I was incredibly taken aback and confused as to why this candidate thought this was a good idea.
This action goes hand-in-hand with the ill-perceived “we are all immigrants” rhetoric, which dismisses the plight immigrants face — that natural born citizens will never experience.
Frankly, it looked to me like the only reason she attended the rally was to further her own political career — and thus her motives were completely unethical.
Heading into 2020, we need to be hyper-critical of the motives white Democrats have in their interactions with immigrant groups in order to make sure these “progressives” aren’t tokenizing and using marginalized groups for their own gain.
Anca Matica
Eugene
A Note From the Publisher
Dear Readers,
The last two years have been some of the hardest in Eugene Weekly’s 43 years. There were moments when keeping the paper alive felt uncertain. And yet, here we are — still publishing, still investigating, still showing up every week.
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Listening to readers has always been at the heart of Eugene Weekly. This year, that meant launching our popular weekly Activist Alert column, after many of you told us there was no single, reliable place to find information about rallies, meetings and ways to get involved. You asked. We responded.
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Thank you for standing with us!
Publisher
Eugene Weekly
P.S. If you’d like to talk about supporting EW, I’d love to hear from you!
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