Terrorist attack on US soil narrowly averted

Or at least, you'd expect the headlines to say that. In actuality, you can't find this story using Google News at all if you include variations on the word terrorism in your search.

One of the obvious problems with the media reporting on "Islamic terrorism" is that if you define everything bad Muslims do (buying cell phones) and nothing Christians do (murdering civilians with IEDs) as terrorism, it suddenly seems like Islamic terrorism is an awfully big problem.

Amnestwhat?

Kind of a weird Times article. It's all about how Giuliani has turned away from his pro-immigrant views now that he's running for president. That should surprise exactly no one, since, as far as I can tell, playing on fears of Blacks and Arabs is already shaping up to be a centerpiece of his electoral strategy. Why not the Mexicans too, right? On the other hand, when you read what he says by the end of the article, it just doesn't sound that bad.

pg. 1: "And while he once pushed policies like providing schooling for the children of illegal immigrants by saying, “The reality is that they are here, and they’re going to remain here,” now he emphasizes denying amnesty."

pg. 2: "These days, when he says he opposes amnesty, Mr. Giuliani says he does not mean that the millions of people here illegally should be deported, but rather, that they should have to earn their citizenship and that nothing should be accorded automatically."

I'm a big fan of the kind of not-amnesty that involves a path to citizenship without deportation or prosecution.

Oppression in Chinatown!

Matthew Yglesias comments on the phenomenon of Chinese Restaurants charging more on the English menu than the Chinese menu. He thinks its no big deal. But his comment section is practically overflowing with outrage at this racial injustice!

Gatchaman says:
"So nobody here would shit a brick if a white run business was charging non-whites more? Good to know."
and follows it up with:
"Interesting, my sister-in-law, who owns a cafe in a gay neighborhood should charge the gay couples more, because it is safe to assume a gay couple with no children has more disposable income than a heterosexual couple with kids."

Right On actually spells this whole pathetic "but, what if I wasn't privileged!?" game for us:
"Would it be okay if:
(a) the Chinese people were charged more?
(b) there was a third menu, in Spanish, that charged even more than the English one?
(c) you could only order off the Chinese menu if you looked Chinese?"

If white people charged black or Chinese or gay people more at their stores, that would be a privileged majority group institutionalizing their personal prejudice against a minority group. I think we can all agree that that's bad. I don't know if I'm going to "shit a brick" or not, but it is and should be illegal.

If Chinese restaurants charged Spanish speakers more, that would be an attempt by a non-privileged immigrant group to institutionalize discrimination against another non-privileged group. It would have little impact, since unlike stores owned by whites, it is actually easy to avoid stores owned by Chinese people. This would be bad, but it is worth pointing out that, you know, it's not happening.

What matters in this sort of situation is what actually happens, and who benefitis. In this case, the effect is that a meal in Chinatown that completely stuffs my family of four costs $29 instead of the $25 they charge to first or second generation immigrants, as well as anyone who decides to devote two weeks to learning passable menu reading in Chinese. This is, as Matt said, not a big deal.

On the other hand, the result of the reverse scenario would be the creation of a second-class citizenship of Chinese speakers who would either be totally prevented from assimilating by being forced to stay in areas where other Chinese speakers owned stores, or else would find themselves paying a tax directly to everyone else for not speaking English.

One of the most subtle (and common) forms of racism among white Americans is the denial of any difference between us and everyone else. Being part of a privileged majority with higher average income and more education is not the same thing as being part of a minority that faces widespread discrimination which is often subtly (or not so subtly) institutionalized. It might be fun to pretend that those are the same if you're interested in denying your own advantage or want to minimize the hardships of others, but it puts you somewhere in the gray area between pathetic and racist, and that's just not a good place to be.

UPDATE: I realize the title of this post should have been "Forget it Jake. It's Chinatown."