Skip to comments.A town that blocked child immigrants reflects, with and without regrets
Posted on 07/25/2014 7:34:03 AM PDT by Second Amendment First
LAWRENCEVILLE, Va. Its been five weeks since the meeting. The townspeople dont need you to specify which meeting. There can only be one in which an outsider would be interested. The meeting during which the town of Lawrenceville in the county of Brunswick in the tobacco country of southern Virginia unequivocally rejected temporary housing for 500 Central American children seeking refuge.
In this largely African American community that prides itself on its hospitality, something was revealed that night: a full-throated, bared-teeth rage with which not everyone is comfortable or proud.
It made me think of the Civil Rights Movement and the integration of the schools, says Kent Hopson, a 46-year-old ambulance driver who lives across the road from the college speaking of the images he saw on the news that night. Ive watched documentaries. Ive read books about it. I thought, Oh, man. Ive seen that look.
The circumstances that created that nights fury were, in part, the result of mutual desperation. Federal officials needed some place to house the children and St. Pauls, the towns historically black college no longer accepting students and all-but closed needed money to pay its debts. In the blink of an eye, and unknown to most in town, a deal was struck. The children were to arrive less than a week later.
The description many residents used in their surprise was shoved down our throats. A thousand people, black and white, in a town of 1,400 packed the high school auditorium to make clear their displeasure with the federal government and its presumption.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Totally objective article.
I did like this quote: I feel sorry for them, theyre children and theyre lost, but I dont want them here. We need to take care of our own house before we take care of others.
Sums up my feelings, perfectly.
Gee, Tina. I was wondering why a community wouldn't take in these poor, suffering children. Now I know -- it has to be "rage." And not just rage, but "bared-teeth" rage. Does that mean that the African Americans at the meeting were literally bearing their teeth and frothing at the mouth when discussing whether to take the immigrant children? Is there an epidemic in the community that we don't know about? I hope so, because otherwise someone might accuse you of Racism for characterizing blacks this way.
Tina Griego. I can’t see why there would be any bias. She probably has a problem with Caucasians and the American flag. She’s DREAMing of a totally Hispanic America. All Caucasians will be sent home to Europe. You know, that place where Spain is. Where they speak Spanish.
And this is what's wrong with the government today. 1000 people (in a town of 1400) show up at a meeting with a near-unified "HELL NO!" to something .... and these clowns are still trying to figure out a way to work around them when they're not looking.
And gov't wonders why it's not trusted.
I have to admit, although not good in principle, if I were a college with the space and debt to pay the concept would be sorely tempting.
“child immigrants;” “children seeking refuge,” etc.
More like illegal alien line jumpers who are stealing from American taxpayers, breaking American laws and thumbing their noses at legal immigrants from all over the world still waiting in line.
Don’t let these obfuscating, Newpeaking “journalists” control the language surrounding this issue.
Except the blacks were here legally. They'd been born here. Big difference.
Here’s the one I “loved”: Do you want to be known as child haters?
This is how people become tools of the left. Don’t ever buy into the guilt trip. It’s their trip, not ours!
“In this largely African American community...It made me think of the Civil Rights Movement”
That is an opening for Republicans that they could DRIVE A TANK THROUGH.
...but they won’t.