'The Tan Klan' Bandaid Badge

Anti-immigration forces call groups like the National Council of La Raza ‘The Tan Klan’ and the latest insinuation is that judicial nominee Sotomayor is also a part of the Klan.

What is the Tan Klan? The so-called Latino Klan without the hoods and nooses.

Of course, one would never find members of La Raza and ‘the Tan Klan’ lynching and violently attacking persons who are deemed different. The label not only insults and trivializes the horrific history of black Americans who suffered at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan, but also unjustly purports that contemporary brown people somehow have the same power of persecution without consequences.

I decided to make a badge in support of ‘the Tan Klan.’ A friend remarked that it looks quite like a bandaid, and we both agree that Comprehensive Immigration Reform is a bandaid solution. The anti-immigration forces do not have solutions. The solutions offered by the Tan Klan are not long-term.

Real immigration reform involves battling how neo-liberal globalization drives migrants from poorer countries to richer countries, how the state constructs the labels and categories of legal and illegal. No one in the DC establishment is willing to do that.